Linkedin for Sales and Business Development

1.    LI requires a certain mindset in order to be successful on it.  Just as there are some who go to business networking events who come back thinking it was a waste of time, there are others who come back with leads or relationships that when cultivated will lead to business.  As one of those who I interviewed for the book suggested, “LinkedIn is only valuable if you decide to be an active member.”

2.    Still don’t think your business needs to be on LinkedIn?  Many companies are missing out on potential business by paying too much attention to other social media platforms and not taking advantage of the tools that LinkedIn allows companies, and professionals, to utilize to promote themselves and their businesses.  If you’re a B2B company, make no doubt about the fact that most decision makers you want to target are already on LinkedIn, and they can potentially be far more approachable than on a personal networking platform such as Facebook.  Even B2C companies, like the Irish Dog Bloody Mary Mix case study in the book, show that B2C companies have B2B relationships (distributors, marketing partners, et. al.) that can be cultivated on LinkedIn to develop new business.  In the case of the bloody mary mix company, they are now generating 25% of their business from LinkedIn!

3.    Just as you need a website to promote your company on the Internet, your employees need an optimized LI profile to best represent their company and products and services.  LinkedIn is a database of professionals that is often used to find other professionals and businesses. If Facebook were the White Pages, LinkedIn is the Yellow Pages. Because of this, professionals and companies need to be found just like they need to be sure they are classified correctly and displayed prominently in the phone book.  Creating a sales-oriented profile starts by understanding where your customer is and what they might be looking for and adjusting your profile appropriately.  In other words, your profile is not about you – it is a sales tool to help your potential customers find you.

4.    Because it’s 2011 and LinkedIn has grown by 60% in the last year alone, it’s time to re-establish your online network.  Every connection added gives you that much additional reach to find and be found.  It’s also time to rethink your connections policy and begin to strategically target new connections who might be able to help you and your sales and marketing objectives.

5.    Every business needs to understand the importance of establishing and optimizing their presence on LinkedIn Companies.  Having a presence on Companies is not just about putting your company in the LI database just as professionals do with their profiles.  It is about recognizing that recommendations from your products and services within your Companies page can play a vital role in generating business similar to how personal recommendations give instant credibility to professional profiles.

6.    Why do so many companies have Facebook Pages but never think about creating their own LinkedIn Group?  Not only do Groups have far more moderating features than Facebook Pages have, but they allow you to create a community of potential customers or present users in the most lucrative demographic of any social media website.

7.    Many professionals create their profiles and then wait for something to happen.  Similar to the business networking event analogy, just showing up will get you nowhere.  It’s about engaging on LinkedIn, and there are many public forums and applications which, with a little out-of-the-box thinking, give you the opportunity to engage with other professionals in a business atmosphere for business objectives.

8.    With new applications such as LinkedIn Signal and LinkedIn Today, the professional networking website is quickly becoming a source of business intelligence for the sales and marketing professional.  Since social media monitoring tools do not cover LI yet, you will have to manually look through various public forums and applications for information, but there is a great deal of intelligence to be gleaned that can lead to new business for the effort.

9.    Social media optimization is about using social media activity to bring more visitors to your website.  For many websites like TechCrunch or even this Windmill Networking site, LinkedIn provides the 2nd largest source of website traffic from social media websites.  From my experience, traffic from LI also provides the lowest bounce rate as well as highest number of page views per visit.  There are many ways to use LI to drive traffic back to your website, but if you’re not getting enough traffic from LinkedIn to your website, you’re missing out on potentially high quality and lucrative visitors.

10.  Which is the only social advertising platform which lets you target by company and title?  LinkedIn Ads aren’t cheap, but LI is a quality over quantity platform that is appropriate for targeting decision makers for your B2B or expensive B2C product.

Sushant Contract Training Series: Contract Negotiation

What is Contract Negotiation :A contract negotiation is any discussion, either in person or through electronic means, that has as its primary goal to come to a written agreement concerning a business matter. Such a contract can be for nearly anything, Often, the contract negotiation handles issues such as cost, time frame, and whether there are any special considerations to take into account.

Negotiation Impact on Deals

DEAL YA NO-DEAL

1. Failure to resolve issues
2. Negotiated terms render deal as no good
3. Varying negotiating powers of the parties.
4. Other offers

WIN-WIN SITUATIONS

1. Resolving open issues
2. Open discussions
3. Arriving at consensus
4. Long term benefits from the contract

Effective Negotiation

Do’s

1. Direct communication
2. Professional and assertive approach
3. Identify key issues to be discussed and sort them first
4. Controlled discussions
5. Strategize broad outline of negotiations
6. Conclude issues before moving on thus minimizing open issues
7. Structured approach towards negotiations

Avoid

1. Aggressive approach, being pushy
2. Ad hoc discussions
3. Exposing key decision making party at early stage of negotiations
4. Dodging issues, deadlock
5. Making offers without consulting decision makers
6. Leaving too many issues open for drafting

Drafting of Contract: Effective Techniques

Drafting of Contract: Effective Techniques

1. Give words their plain and ordinary meaning
2. Interpret each part of the contract to carry out the purpose of the agreement
3. Avoid obvious mistakes in grammar and punctuation
4. Express terms should control over trade use and course of dealing
5. General terms are restricted by more specific terms
6. Construing ambiguities against the drafter
7. Construe contract as whole giving effect to each part if reasonably possible Construe contract in a manner that makes them valid rather than void
8. No presumption that parties agreed to perform impossible acts
9. Use of in-house forms for specific agreements

USE

• Short sentences;
• Bullet lists
• Clear, concise sections and paragraphs
• Descriptive headings and subheadings
• Definite, concrete ,everyday language
• Active voice;
• Present complex information in tables whenever possible.
• DON’T
• Use legal jargon;
• Avoid complex information taken directly from legal documents;
• 
  
• Use highly technical business terms;
• Use multiple negatives;
• Capitalize common terms;
• Use boilerplate explanations;
• Print sentences or words in all capitals (makes text difficult to read).

Sushant Contract Series Part 5th:Abstraction and Summarisation

Abstraction and Summarisation is one of the most important processes involved in Contract Management. It involves a high level of legal skill and acumen, attention to detail and Command over language. It requires a higher perception as to what the client wants and how best it can be delivered without losing the essence of Contract.And as with everything else it only becomes better with practice.

Here are few tips which I can recollect as of now especially for people working in Contract Abstraction and Summarisation under Contract Management.

1. Ask for template or Create one: Ask and it will be given to you, you need to ask the Client what he really wants and more often than not he will have a specific list of clauses he wants you to abstract and if you are lucky he may even provide a template for it , if he doesn't , create one. The benefit of asking is your work becomes lighter, you deliver what is required and believe it or not client would like if you get him involved but you wont get unless you ask for it.

2. Hire Well: Abstraction and Summarisation is not about shortening of clauses in contract it requires a great deal of understanding and I would rate it as skilled a task as drafting, therefore a person with good legal knowledge and exposure to contracts will go a long way in delivering the best product.

3. Avoid Legalese and Legal Jargon:Remember your aim is to save the time of the clients and make their work easier so write short and crisp and in a simple language which a layman will understand.

4. Uniformity: Uniformity in clause language, font, spacing etc..needless to say is very important.Use F7(Spell Check), Also remember to use U.K. English and U.S. English where appropriate. You can easily set up the settings in your word to U.S. or U.K. English as preferred choice when working for U.S. or U.K. contracts respectively.

5. Cross Linkages: Even though you are abstracting and Summarizing only few of the clauses don't forget to go thought the entire contract ( including annexures and exhibits) because you might to cross link a clause with your template clause to make its meaning clearer.

6. Capture the Essence: Last but not the least capture the essence of Contract and it requires practice and clear understanding of client requirements.

Well there are much more tips coming forth so keep watching this space....

Importance of Clear Contract

One of the essential criteria for a binding contract is agreement, or in legalspeak, "a mutual manifestation of assent to the same terms." (Barron's Law dictionary 2nd ed.) Yet I come across so many contracts in my work, where I can barely figure out the terms each party agreed to. Does it matter? Isn't it all just lawyer talk anyway?

Well if you are serious about running a successful business, of course it matters. As the saying goes, "good fences make good neighbors," and to coin a phrase, clear contracts make happy business partners.

A contract doesn't have to be, and shouldn't be, indecipherable. If you don't understand the terms of the contract you are about to sign, don't sign it until you do understand. You may be binding yourself to do something you didn't agree to, or forgo certain rights that you hadn't intended to give up.

There are a lot of reasons why contracts can be so difficult to read and understand. Sometimes, it is just that the nature of the transaction is extremely complicated and therefore the contract is complex. But for more standard business contracts, such as a work-for-hire agreement, where the subject matter is not overly complicated, your contracts should spell out each parties' rights and responsibilities in plain language.

Some contract drafters are just better writers than others, but some drafters purposely hide behind needlessly "lawyerly" terms because they aren't exactly sure what they are trying to say. That kind of vagueness can lead to disputes and even litigation that the parties might have avoided had they put a little more effort into clarifying the terms before signing.

If your contracts are clear and straightforward already, great. If not, ask questions until you are satisfied that you understand what you are signing, and make sure the contract reflects that understanding. A good lawyer will not necessarily have the answers to every conceivable legal situation you might find yourself in, and she can't tell you exactly what the outcome of any dispute will be, but she should be able to give you an honest assessment of your chances based on your situation and the terms of your agreement.

Your chances for success can be improved by eliminating vague, ambiguous and confusing language from your contracts.

In my next few blogs I will be dealing on how to draft clear contracts.....

Sushant Contract Training Series : Part 3

Letter of Intent (LOI)

An agreement to enter into an agreement

Parties may not be bound by any terms of the LoI in the event of

failure of negotiation and no definitive agreement is reached.

An agreement with open terms

Parties will be bound by an implied contract based on the basic

terms stated in the LoI even if they fail to reach a definitive

agreement.

LoI may be a binding contract depending on the terms and clauses used in

the LoI.

Functions of LoI

Expresses a convergence of will between the parties, indicatingS

an intended common line of action.

Clarify key points of a complex transaction for the convenience

of the parties

Declare that parties have entered into negotiation

Provide exit mechanism in the event of failure of negotiation

Provide safeguards in the event of failure of negotiation

Provides for exclusivity (during process of negotiations)....to be contd

Sushant Contract Series Part 2nd

Essential Elements of Contract

Intention to create a legal relationship

Proper offer and its acceptance

Lawful object

Agreement not expressly declared void

Free Consent: Consensus ad idem

Capacity of parties to contract

Possibility of performance

Lawful consideration

Pre-contractual Agreements

Pre- Contract stage

Term Sheet/ Letter of Intent (LOI)

Non-Disclosure/ Confidentiality Agreements

Some forms of Letter of Intent (LoI):

Term Sheet

Discussion Sheet

Commitment Letter

Agreement in Principle

Memorandum of Understanding

Memorandum of Terms

Heads of terms/Heads of agreement....to be contd...

Contract Drafting Series :Part 1

Hi Guys starting today I am launching Contract Drafting Series to help and learn with you to learn and share this marvelous field of Contract Drafting:

First Part : Negotiating of Contract

“Negotiation, we may say, ought strictly to be viewed simply as means to an end; it is the road the parties must travel to arrive at their goal of mutually satisfactory settlement. But like other

means, negotiation is easily converted into an end in itself; it readily becomes a game played for its own sake and a game played with so little reserve by those taken up with it that they

will sacrifice their own ultimate interests in order to win it.”

Lon L. Fuller, Anatomy of the Law

Negotiation of Commercial Contracts

Negotiation involves a two-step plan:

Preparations for the negotiations

Thorough Preparation

Understanding and focusing on the needs of the other party

Objective Outlook – Separation from the desired outcome

Fashioning “Win/Win” Opportunities

Negotiation of key terms, execution of confidentiality agreement:

Prior to engaging in negotiation, execute confidentiality or non-disclosure

agreement

Key clauses to be agreed to (Performance clauses, Covenants and

obligations, consideration, collaborations agreed to, non-compete/nonsolicit

issues, governing law, dispute resolution, costs, etc.)

Enter in to a term sheet or letter of intent....to be continued