marketing

QVZ

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I suspect some of you are like me.  

And I bet like me, you would hate it if you started seeing highway signs with just three letters – “QVZ”.

Let me explain.  

On Sunday, my wife and I decided (along with the two 13 year olds in the back seat who somehow pried the Ipods and Iphones from their cold cramped hands), to play that classic Alphabet game you play while driving.  Don’t think too deep; it’s a long ride.   But the game is Old School.  Good Times. 

20 minutes into the game, one of the recently minted teenagers, (perhaps cranky not used to keeping his head held level for any extended length of time) exclaimed “I wish there was a sign with all the hard letters!”  

Really?

What fun would that be?  Where’s the challenge in the alphabet game if the three toughest letters to find (Q, V & Z) are just given to you? What mini thrill, what little adrenaline rush would that be?  None is the answer.  And what good is that?

People like us enjoy the “thrill” of getting through that alphabet before we get to our destination or we …..LOSE.  We like to look hard, fast, wide and crazy** trying to find what we are looking for.  

People like us set little challenges, little goals, little obstacles in front of us just to see if we can get it done and….WIN. 

People like us do this at work too.   We challenge ourselves to make 30 calls before 11:30, to not leave work until those three competitor sites are reviewed, to spend 3 hours on the floor coaching cuz’ that is what we woke up with as goal for today and today only.

People like us add an initiative to our list that must be done in a week not because it’s been asked of us, but because we want to challenge ourselves in a good way. 

It’s a bit of game for us; these mini challenges.   And when we succeed it’s a rush – perhaps even addictive.   If it’s not something you’ve tried before, I encourage you to give it a whirl. 

And I promise there’ll be no highway signs with the answers to ruin it for you.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

** Last year, with the same two kids in the car (pre- teens then at 12) we played that alphabet game.  We played to win.   We got to “Q” and found nothing (alas, no QVZ highway signs) and with just 6 miles left before home we, ( as you would expect), pulled into a handy cemetery to find our “Q”.   

 

News Flash:  – Meeting House Hill Cemetery in Dunstable, MA has apparently no Quinns, McQuaids, Quimbys or any other such souls with a darn Q in their name.  Not one.  We rolled and wound our way peering and craning to look at hundreds if not thousands of headstones and yet no Q was found. 

 

Darkness loomed, we left depressed and slowly headed towards home with irises wide straining to see anything that might have a Q.   200 yards beyond the entrance to the cemetery on the left stood an old house with a little lit sign that read “Antiques Sold Here”.  Hurrah!  We got our Q and the remaining 9 letters (V and Z were shockingly easy finds license plates that night).   Victory!  

[100 Words or Less] Persuasion

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You’ve got a way of persuading.  What is it?

Persuasion is crucial to your success.  Can you articulate and write down that process?  Is your way the same for customers as it is with colleagues?  Is your way the same for your boss or with your family?

What pray tell, is your way? 

If you don’t know, you can’t fix it when it’s broken or when the world changes around you.  If you don’t know it, you can’t influence, lead, close or help in any consistent way.   Persuasion for the best, isn’t by feel, luck or hope.

It’s known.   

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Mondays are busy enough.  Any Monday post is 100 words or less. 

Help for Loooonnngg Sales Cycles

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Too much information running through my brain
Too much information driving me insane
Too much information running through my brain
Too much information driving me insane

 

            – The Police “Too Much Information” (Ghosts in the Machine 1981)

The Police (Sting’s old group for you youngin’s-) had it right way back in the 80’s with this song.   Too much information is indeed a problem.

But 30 years later, insane would be better result than some of the other stuff that happens today because of information overload. 

For us business folks, the sales cycles are getting longer.  It feels like it is taking longer than ever for prospects to close or move to the next step or to just say “no” and allow us to move on.  That hurts.  That also makes us crazy. (Fortunately crazy is a tamer version of insane).

One of the biggest reason sales cycles are getting so long is that there is just so much information out there.

Today a prospect has a quadrillion options on line to learn about your industry, your company, your product or even you.  And what’s worse is that this prospect given the tough economy and the corporate trust issues, feels obligated to do that research.  He or she feels that due righteous diligence means a lot of research and study that years ago just wasn’t available. 

You do it too.  Used to be you threw the Sony Walkman on the beanbag, slipped on the Members Only jacket, jumped in the Taurus and trundled to the local department store to get a new fridge cuz’ the Kenmore up and died. 

Now you analyze product reviews, consumer reports, price shopper sites, debate whether to buy online or offline, wait for Twitter and Facebook replies from friends before you trundle anywhere and have a look.    Businesses do the same.  Your competitors are all over the world and they all have a website.  There’s a never ending supply of helpful online groups and associations to solicit feedback from.   Testimonials aren’t requested any more, they are already there and must be read through.

So much to look at.  So many options to study.

That takes time.  And that lengthens Sales Cycles.  That’s some of the pain of too much information. 

So what do you do?  Here are two strategies to help.  

Set A Table of Urgency: 

Some of the ownership of “over analysis” by clients lies with us sales and marketing folks.  Our meetings or our phone calls or our emails don’t always set the best expectations (often none at all) around time.  If they did, they might speed up the information review.

  • Set Up “Tentative” Meetings:  Trying to set up a meeting for real can be difficult when the prospect has all this information they want to review.  Set it up at least tentatively as you end the call or leave the meeting.  Use the word “tentatively” (it keeps that buyer tension low) and get it on an Outlook Calendar.   A recent study I saw said prospects are 70% more likely to keep a tentative meeting on a calendar than just an open ended invitation.

 

  • Build Checkpoints up front into the sales process. (Always position as a benefit to the prospect of course).  “At the end of this meeting you should be in a position to say you want to review more materials or not. Your time is not something I want to waste.”  Or “If you are interested in going to the next step after this meeting, the next 3 days are fully staffed for us to run numbers with your data groups”. 

 

Prescribe The Research:

 

Part of the problem with too much information is the prospect wondering where to begin to look- further stalling the sales cycle.

  • Share What To Do.   Give your prospect the competitor names, the associations to solicit feedback from and the sites where they can see objective product or company reviews.  Send them the links to the videos or the white papers and encourage them to dig in.    You’ll be surprised how this cuts the time and builds your credibility simultaneously.

 

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

[100 Words Or Less] – Mayhem Who?

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When I post on a Monday, I’m pledging to keeping it to 100 words or less.

It’s busy enough on Monday no?

I like those Mayhem commercials with Dean Winters. They’re funny. Here’s one.  Problem is everyone I ask can’t remember which insurance company he is shilling for.  Doesn’t happen with Flo or the Gecko or even that floating “T” Umbrella.

Funny, smart commercials only work when people associate them with your company. That goes for you Mr. or Ms. Salesperson.  Make sure your smart commercials ( voicemails, emails, contacts) aren’t just memorable about you but something bigger too.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

6 Rules Of Marketing & Sales

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I admit that I like rules.

Without some rules you see, it’s really just chaos out there.   

1) If the content of your campaign or sales presentation is poo, it does not matter how many ways you distribute it or how many impressions of your poo you give; it is still poo.

2) It’s more important to first understand and act aggressively upon what your customer thinks about you than what you think about your customer.

3) All the new ways to communicate with customers and prospects are by definition now, marketing and sales tools.  Everyone in each group should learn to use them well.

4) Sales is an extension of Marketing.  Sales is an extension of Marketing.  Sales is an extension of Marketing.  And Sales is an extension of Marketing.

5) Knowledge and Service is more of what many of us are selling and marketing today.  They both therefore are as much a product as any traditional tangible product and need all the planning, support and care any widget ever did.

6) The only reason Marketing and Sales exist is because your customers are not jazzed enough about your products that they’ll go out and sell them for you.  Aim for that.  When that happens, Nirvana is achieved and no rules need apply.  

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

SMILE Goals

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I think I’m done with S.M.A.R.T. Goals. 

It’s the time of year now when so many of us are in a frenzy over setting and writing annual goals for ourselves or our staffs.

You remember those SMART goals don’t you?  Goals that you set, according to the formula,  should be;

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Attainable
  • Realistic
  • Timely

 

Yeah OK; got it.

It’s not that there is something terribly wrong with SMART goals; the tenets are solid.   It’s more that I’m not sure SMART goals go far enough in reflecting what drives real people and real business anymore.  It’s more that SMART goals may not be so..um…smart anymore.

For 30 years (yep, in 1981 this formula first appeared) SMART Goals have served us well.  But it’s time for a needed upgrade.  The world is in a different place.  And people are in a different place.  

So before you put those final touches on the SMART goal setting sheets you have proliferating your desks and email boxes, have a look at what I think is a better way.  

S.M.I.L.E Goals  

Strength Focused:  No one person will ever be perfect.  And no one person typically has as many weaknesses as strengths, yet much of our goal setting is often focused on goals  that “fix” a problem or weak area.   But what if all of your annual goals were focused on taking your greatest strengths and either applying them more or making them stronger? Where would we be?  Let’s say you are great at networking.  Set a SMILE goal to build a seminar on that topic where you are required to teach others. What if you are great at floor coaching?  Set a Smart goal that has you delegate many of your other tasks to staff or colleagues so you can do significantly more floor coaching.    Strength Focused goals get you to do more of what you do well.  That’s smart.

Modifiable:  This tenet is the acknowledgement of the age old “elephant in the room” in that many goals written at the beginning of the year are often by the end of the year, ridiculously irrelevant.  Every December from my staff, I usually get two lists; one list that is all the evidence and data to support the SMART goals we set on paper a year before and the other list is called “Accomplishments”.  Rarely do the two match.  Sad.  You could say that that reflects on poor goal setting on my part but often you would be very wrong.  Stuff happens.  Stuff changes.  Business happens.   Business changes.  In the space of a week or a month, your initiatives and priorities could be yesterday’s news.   Often your SMART goals set in February are meaningless by June because you are working on things completely different, more needed or more important.   Modifiable allows you to edit, amplify or delete.  That’s smart.

Inspectable: There’s a difference between measurable and inspect-able.   Measurable is measurable.  Inspect-able is measurable but transparent.  You have stakeholders be they your customers, your boss, your team or your shareholders and inspect-able brings a higher level of trust when it comes to measuring.  Trust I contend, is far more important today in business, than it was in 1981.  Post your goal metrics on the shop wall, in your cubicle or at your desk.  SMILE goals should be ones that don’t require 4 hours of data collection each quarter and a 1 our meeting with your boss to see how you are progressing “so far”.  Inspectable makes it easy to see how you are doing.  Inspectable goals show you have nothing to hide.  That’s smart.

Learning Focused:  If you are not learning you are dying.  Goals to achieve are fine. Goals to achieve that don’t reflect learning or growth are not.  You can do both.  You must do both.  More than ever, landscapes in business change at speeds that make even the hardest working the brightest folks cringe.  It’s hard to keep up, but we must.  In fact, keeping up is just table stakes now and keeping ahead is what is truly needed.  Achieve those numbers yes, but SMILE goals must have an aspect that force you to continuously and consciously learn from that achievement and position you for more success in an ever more complex business world.  Learning focused gives goal setting a leading edge.   That’s smart.

Enduring:  If I had a dollar for every time I forgot what my SMART goals were for the year I’d be rich.  If I had a dollar for every time I and my staff forgot what their individual SMART goals were I’d be filthy rich.   You know it’s true.  Goals are often either “the same every year” (hit forecasted quota plan of….), or “breathtakingly boring” (manage expenses within a budget of….).  Take the expected stuff out of the goal setting and do it the SMILE way.  Create goals that endure, that people remember and that will stick:  “Land face to face meetings with 2 fortune 500 companies by the end of Q2…”, “Create a video campaign that generates viral buzz with 5 digit visits and link backs from 2 of these 15 influential bloggers..” or “Make the pain of the customers from brand ABC as they transition to brand XYZ go away by the end of Q1…”.  You get the idea.  Enduring makes it easier to remember, easier to focus and easier to succeed.  That’s smart.

S.M.I.L.E goals reflect a truer reality of the human and business condition; i.e. what drives people and what really happens (and is needed) in the business world.   SMART goals aren’t something I’d necessarily throw away.   They are a decent formula but my advice is you should use them only if you start with a SMILE.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

What Gets Your Attention?

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Everyone’s a little smarter now about sales I suspect.

In the old days it used to be all about pounding out phone calls, or having a killer discount or overcoming tough objections.  But we know especially now, what the real challenge is;

It’s about getting attention.  It’s about standing out a wee bit against a worldwide online bevy of competition.  It’s about getting that customer to even notice you’ve changed or have something that might help them.  It’s about grabbing “eye time” with an email or a first page Google ranking or getting one real minute (or maybe two if you are lucky), of a prospect’s face time or phone time. 

That’s the real challenge.   It’s not the “selling” that’s tough once you get attention necessarily; it’s getting the attention (however brief) that you need to even start the sales process.  

So how do you do it?  How do you grab attention?

You don’t have to go far or deep to figure that out.   Look around; your attention is piqued all day.

  • You looked at that hot pastrami sandwich and fries for lunch because yes, you saw the line of people and everyone else was getting it.
  • You noticed the safety poster outside the restroom because it had changed.
  • You made a mental note to dig up that old sales training because you saw someone just like you, using it successfully.
  • You listened and moved closer to that group talking because they were laughing and having a good time.
  • You scribbled a note about getting that book on personal finance cuz heck, the guest on the radio was an expert.

So attention getting isn’t so much about features and benefits and special offers.  It’s talking about, structuring and extending your sales and marketing approaches around simple things that get your attention every day.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

4 New Words for 2011

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I heard yesterday that the word “App” was voted as the “Word of the Year” in 2010.  Makes sense.  It’s a nice word.  Not a new word (it’s short for “application”), but it gets the job done. 

Ho Hum.

If you’re going to have a Word of the Year you’d think it should be at least new.  What’s going to win next year, “ping?” or “tablet?” Please.  And I’m thinking we could really use some new words round here.  New words are important when the world just keeps on changing. 

Here are 4.  We need these.  They are in alphabetical order (for my friends at the Oxford English Dictionary), have phonetic spellings (for my linguistic phonology friends) and have a bit about what they mean for the rest of us. 

Authorical ( aw-thor-i-cal):  This is what you want to be.  Way better for sales people and marketers than just being an expert or an “authority” yet has the cool factor of being “historical” too.  When you are so credible for so long as a person (or a business) that people lean forward pen in hand, ready to write down your every wisdom or advice; you are Authorical.   Given the wild untrusting marketplace today that’s a great way to be.

Cryoritize (cry-or-ri-tize):  “Prioritize” the word, has become weak.  Today “Prioritize” unfortunately has come to mean more about “What you should do first” rather than what you should do instead of something else.  Lists get reshuffled but rarely get shorter.  What we need is to cryoritize.   It takes courage to cryoritize; people can get upset and people might even cry as their project, their idea, or their need gets cut.  But business is tough.  And it’s tougher when you only prioritize.

ICrutch: (eye-cruch) It is a terrible affliction.  It’s when one uses the Smartphone, the blackberry or the IPad to keep those eyes low and thus avoid talking to someone and stay tuned out.   It’s when one posts a blog instead of having a needed meeting. It’s weak and it’s selfish.  It’s when someone Texts when they should have picked up the phone or looked you in the eye.  Sufferers of ICrutch here see technology as a way to collapse their scary world instead of confidently expanding it.  

Intervaluepropositionalistically ( in-ter-val-you-propp-pohs-zish-shon-nal-liss-tick-al-lee )  Ah yes, finally a word that reflects when you are speaking about a product or service’s complete set of value propositions!  You can use the word in just about any ol’ meeting using phrases like “Intervaluepropositionalistically speaking, I’d say we have a real advantage here!” or “What a game changer, intervaluepropositionalistically speaking that is!”  AND the best part is, it gives the current longest word in common use (i.e. non-medical) “interdenominationalistically” (meaning across all faiths) a beat down as our new word is 32 letters long versus a measly 28! 

Here’s to hoping these words help you in a changing world and here’s to rooting for one of these guys to win Word of the Year in 2011.  Love it when a Rookie wins.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

3 To Listen For In 2011

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Yep.  Listen closely Sellers.  They’re gonna happen. 

Best be ready.

1) Clickety clack clickety clack.  “What’s your name again?” you are asked by the prospect and then you hear the sound repeated: clickety clack, clickety clack.  Yep, she’s typing away and Googling you Mr. Sales Rep checking to see if you are worthy to meet with or even just to listen to anymore.  You best have a very compelling web presence.

2) “When can we see each other?”  It won’t be those 20 lbs you lose creating your sudden irresistibility or even your liberal spraying of Axe that will make this phrase be heard in 2011 but rather, your clients will really just want to see you before they move forward.  What do you look like Ms. Account Manager?  Do you have a professional YouTube video I can see?  Can we Skype our next meeting?  Where can I see your face; on LinkedIn?, Twitter?,  Facebook?   Ironically (yet fittingly), faces will mean more than ever in this increasingly digital but less trusting world.

3) Sploouurgshhthwwppt!  Yes, you guessed it!  That is the sound of a self inflicted needle plunging into the eye of your customer.  Gross yes, but it is often metaphorically a choice people make versus listening or considering us and we just can’t hear it over the sound of the customer sigh.  The stakes are higher now with each and every client impression.   Information is free.  Reviews about you or your company are free.  Products & advice are often free so when we interrupt a customer via marketing or sales in 2011 we had better bring our A game.  .  When you waste client’s time by not bringing value in every contact you just might hear that sound as that crazy busy customer yearns to suffer a different pain.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

A Wii Bit of Advice

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It was a blast.  It was nerve wracking.  It was mentally exhausting.  

And there was a lesson to be learned.  

Strike One.        Strike Two.        Strike Three.   

No baseball here, those strikes came in the first three frames of Nintendo’s Wii Bowling.    Cool.

Bowling alone on the Wii gaming system in my basement “Man Room” Saturday, little did I know it would be a night for the history books in the ol’ McCarthy homestead.

Strike Four.       Strike Five. 

Five strikes in a row.   Don’t think I’ve done that before.  If I did, it was never in the first 5 frames out of the gate, that’s for sure.   I’m not going to lie to you and say that I don’t ever bowl with the Wii;- I have.   Not that much though, and not for months now.

Strike Six.      Gulp.

I’m feeling pretty good right now.  I know exactly what I am doing.  I am holding the controller in a special way with my hand held high but slightly cocked to the left.  I know that on my backswing, my hand is brushing within an inch or two of the Christmas tree because I hear the jingle of the ornaments from the breeze my arm swing makes.   I’m taking a perfect and consistent half step forward toward the TV and with a jagged sharp twist of my wrist just at the right time – I am giving the ball a wicked left hook right into the pocket. 

Strike Seven.           Strike Eight.  

Holy Jimoly.      Gulp.  Gulp.   

Strike Nine.

I am standing, just staring at the screen; looking at the 9 strikes in a row.  Wow.   I admit I am perspiring a little as I realize I am on a course with destiny.   Am I going to bowl a perfect game? A perfect 300 game?  There are websites dedicated to bowling the perfect 300 game in a Wii.  It is not at all easy to do.   Is it possible for me to get 12 strikes in a row?

Deep breath…..hold controller up high, angle to the left……press the “B” button…….

WAIT !  I yell to myself silently…..   This is no good……….  I am alone. 

What good is bowling a perfect game without a witness?   What good is playing golf by yourself and getting a hole in one if nobody sees it but you?   What good is making the half court behind the Subaru, off the garage “nothing but net” basketball shot if you don’t have someone there to see you do it?

“Boys!  Boys!”  I yelled upstairs.  “Come downstairs, you have to see this!” 

Both came running.  I showed them what was happening; The 9 strikes in a row; The perfect game in progress.   I knew I was taking a big risk bringing attention to myself.  My timing will certainly be off now.  But at least I have witnesses.  Maybe I can do this and these two 13 year olds will see electronic bowling history made before their eyes.

Strike Ten.

Would you believe it?    I was more shocked than anyone.   I did not lose my touch.  I had the special grip, the swing back, the breeze, the stride, the twist and of course; the 10th strike.

Two more to go.   I smiled; nodding my head while simultaneously showing the boys my special grip on the controller.  I then pressed the B button and swung my arm back……

Into the Christmas Tree……..aaahhhhggghhh…………and only…. nine pins fall down……

 

I picked up the spare and ended with a 289. 

Crushed though I was having missed the perfect game of 300, it was the best I’ve ever done and I think it might have been worse if I had rolled a 300 and there was no one there to see it.

So what’s the lesson learned by this story?   It’s simple.   Everyone’s big event is better with someone special there to see.

When the anniversary date comes for your 10 year employee, be there when the gift and the certificate are presented; it makes a difference in the experience.   The “drive by” a week later acknowledging the date just isn’t the same.

When the results come in on the sales contest on the 3rd business day of every month; don’t post the winner on the wall or email the results to all.  Stand by the winner’s desk, wait for her to arrive and share the news aloud for all to hear.  She’ll remember that feeling and that moment far better than the memory of opening a congratulatory email message.

When the promotion is approved, the new program launches, the degree is acquired, the first presentation is given and other big moments in a person’s work life happen perfect or not, having witnesses first hand makes it all that much better.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark