Perfect Games in Sales & Marketing

In baseball there is all the rage about perfect games this year. But it’s not whether there have been two or three perfect games (I say 3) this year that strikes me. What occurs to me is the tremendous advantage baseball has to know what perfection looks like.

In baseball, you know what a perfect game should look and feel like when you get there. You can envision the 3 hour battle, the tension rising, the crowds standing all throughout the 9^th inning and the euphoric on field celebration as the 27^th consecutive batter is retired.

In Sales and Marketing you aren’t sure what that perfect campaign or sale looks or feels like whether you are a big company, small business or sell for yourself. Wouldn’t it be great if we knew what a perfect sales or marketing campaign looked like?

If you knew, you could better build the path, the processes and the tools you’ll need to get there. And when we you see a vision of perfection you can measure better your performance in sales and marketing comparatively.

Don’t take the easy way and say a perfect game in a sale or a marketing campaign would exceed revenue results, would be done ahead of schedule and under budget. That’s not a perfect game. Here’s the scorecard for real perfection.

A Sales/Marketing Perfect Game

1^st Inning: You took a big risk. You targeted a new market. This campaign, this sale is a game changer; no tiny incremental move here; you are going for it.

2^nd Inning: Before you’ve sold anything, you’ve ‘sold” everyone on your team first. You get the Manager on board, your colleagues, your teammates and you’ve got them all ready to play like hell for you. No lone ranger here, the most brilliant sales people and marketers don’t do it alone.

3^rd Inning: You are obsessed with differentiation. 99% of us have at least 1 competitor. In this perfect game your lead story sets you apart in such a way that you create a buzz offline and online; just like a high and tight fastball buzzed inside gets attention.

4^th Inning: You are obsessed with credibility. The marketplace today is trust starved. The internet is the gathering place for pseudo soothsayers and the volume of baseless advice is endless. In this perfect game you pull out all the stops, pick up the best radar gun and prove how credible you and your company are.

5^th Inning: You focus on your prospect or your targeted market’s time. It’s scarce and more valuable than ever. The perfect campaign respects this. The perfect campaign invests in this. Maybe even pays the prospect just for their time. Knee jerk spray and pray selling or marketing is the bane of the 6 hour, 9 to 8 game that is far away from perfect and creates indifferent fans.

6^th Inning: This perfect sale doesn’t hit the prospect or the market just at the right time, no siree. This perfecto takes perfectly normal consumers or businesses that have no interest in what you have to sell, have no need, no desire and no problem just waiting to be solved and instead, creates interest where there is none. If you can do that, that is really something. This inning is where heads start to really turn and focus.

7^th inning: The 7^th inning Stretch where the marketer and the sales person are getting real interest but instead of closing and/or pushing shopping carts; you are in it for the long haul. You stretch the closing of the sale. You ache to personalize the solution, the consultation. You tailor your product for each client as this is a relationship you want beyond the first sale. You want to build raving fans.

8^thinning: No need for a closing (or a closer for that matter). The perfect sale or marketing campaign doesn’t need discounts, special offers, expiration dates and the like. This perfect game needs none of that. The visitors sign up in droves, the prospects ask for not just 1 but 2. They leave a voicemail on your cell that they want to start on Monday.

9^th Inning: Here is where the perfect games in sales and marketing matches that of baseball. It’s a celebration. Nobody is surprised (because they’ve all been really watching since the 6^thinning.) It’s a moment for posterity; everyone remembers where they were when that campaign or that sales rep delivered like no other.

You can still win lots of games without pitching a perfect one but at least now you know what one looks like in sales and marketing. And just because of that, my guess is you’ll start playing better right away.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Pssst! Check These Out

I’ve got some uncommon sales tips for you. Not sure why you don’t hear much about them; they really work.

Learn From Radio Commercials: These are some of the best guides for how to create interest and sell. A radio ad has just 30 seconds (or less) to grab our attention and drive you to action and/or make an impression you won’t forget. Often your sales people have just about the same amount of time. Next time you sit in the car, really listen and break the commercials down. You will hear concepts likely in this order; credibility, commonality, benefits, applications and testimonials mixed with humor, contact info and perhaps a jingle. I guarantee you’ll hear something you can steal by listening, really listening, to radio commercials. Sales managers, bring a radio to your next huddle, listen to a live commercial and break it down with your team ( I’ve done this for real and it makes a huge impact with your staff) or perhaps gather folks around your car with speakers blaring just before the shift starts- it will be worth it.

Lower Your Voice:. It’s a given in the electronic media and social psychology research shows that the lower the pitch of your voice (even relative to your normal speaking voice pitch); the more credible the message sounds. Think of this; have you ever heard anything other than a lower pitched voice do commercials or voiceovers on the radio? (This includes female voices, which like males on radio, are more likely to be lower in pitch than the average person of their respective gender). So pick your critical sales phrasing appropriately and lower the tone in just the right places. And the next time you are justifying why you need a raise, keep that voice nice and low…

Stop Selling One Day Per Week (or more) Have an existing customer base? Spend one day per week visiting / calling out and just overtly thanking your clients. That means more than just saying “Thank You” of course, but the specifics I’ll leave to you. You could include an article too about how the local demographics are changing saying “I was thinking of you” or drop off a branded promo item with your sincere acknowledgement of their 7 years with your company. You get the idea. This day will leave one heck of an impression that will lead to more sales and referrals than you can imagine.

Till next time,

Grow the Business.

Mark

5 New Rules For Business Writing

Let’s be real. People don’t read as much as they used to.

They actually read more.

It’s a texting crazy world. It’s a blogging crazy world. It’s a facebookin’ crazy world. Just look at your kids or your spouse or even your Mom and tell me I’m wrong that we are reading and writing more than ever before.

Who would have thought that reading and writing would be so popular today? Who would have thought 20 years ago that that personal email and the personal letter would still be so much alive when it came to communicating to customers and prospects?

You’ve got to write to your customers. Clients expect it now; they even prefer it sometimes. But the world is changing and so are the writing rules. Here are 5 you need to know:

Quit Sounding Like Your Brochure. A letter from a person (you), should sound like a letter from the person (you). And a professional person mind you, not a buddy- chummy- BFF one. In your emails or letters, lose the “The 3 major benefits of our product are….” Change it to “I’ve noticed three ways customers use this service to get the most out of it…” The easiest way to think about this is to bring the “I’s”, the “I’ves and the “me’s” back to customer correspondence. Save the “We’s, the “Ours’” and “Us’s” for the brochure. This letter or the email is from you isn’t it?

Don’t Screw Up. OK, so this one is not so new; but the pain you get is a new kind of pain. It’s quick and severe. Mistakes in spelling or punctuation in the past might have been “cute” or could even make you look “human” (I remember in the early 90’s purposely indenting something too much so the prospect wouldn’t think this was a template letter!) Today, you make a spelling mistake and it’s a reason to delete or trash your email. Why? Because all the customer has to do is click twice and she can find your competition who actually knows how to spell. Don’t give her a reason to look.

Don’t Lose Your Sales Process. This one drives me crazy. If you weren’t betting on closing the sale on your first phone call or visit, why does your email or letter try to? Why does it have the link to “sign up” or have the complete pricing listed? Sales are like dating; you rarely marry the girl you meet 20 minutes after you meet them. A (marriage) proposal inside of 2 minutes in a letter and you’ll rightly get slapped in the face (and deleted or trashed). Remember your prospect “hears” you as they read; stay with your trusted sales process, don’t change it from real life or a real phone call.

Long Paragraphs Kill. I love Jack Falvey (you can love him too if you go here http://www.falvey.org). But jeepers criminy, every morning when I get his post I cringe. It’s just a big ol’ block o’ words; One paragraph. One looooonnnnggg paragraph. Maybe it’s his brand or his style but I sigh, I shrug and then I ball up some energy, raise my head and bloody well decide if I want to read this thing. And honestly, half the time I don’t. We need the visual breaks; they are the eye candy of writing. There is a reason Tweeting at no more than 140 characters is popular. Break it up; think space.

Lose Your Pontificating Signature Quote. I know you love Sartre or Brecht or Roosevelt or Einstein; good for you. No one’s opinion but yours though belongs in a business letter or email to a customer. You’ve messing with fire if you dangle a quote under your name or signature as your personality and your passion should have been in the content above the quote: not here under your name. You haven’t a clue if your reader cares or will be offended. The worst of course are the people that write “Think twice about printing this email….”. OK, I will. I was going to print your awesome letter it and share it with my husband or my wife or my family or colleagues and consider you as a partner, but instead I’ll delete you. How dare you preach to me, I don’t even know you! Please don’t pontificate your views about green or blue or red or life or death or taxes in customer correspondence. Save it for your blog 🙂

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

You Don’t Know, Jack

“Well Jack, that may be real, but it sure as hell isn’t interesting.”

Interesting how an insult Jack Nicholson received over 40 years ago is so relevant today. The insult was one he deemed the best piece of advice he’d ever gotten. (See extras in The Shining DVD at Netflix)

I think it is great advice for us too.

The “insult turned advice” as Jack puts it, came from a film director back in the 60’s after reviewing Dailies in which Jack (like many actors of the period), performed scenes with great effort on being as “real” as possible on screen. Hey, it was the 60’s and “being real” was where it was at.

“Well Jack, that may be real, but it sure as hell isn’t interesting”

If you are in sales or marketing (and the reality is, we all are), this advice is perfect and a little more of what we need these days. You can be “real” all you want with customers/prospects; stay the course, keep the message clear and lay out the values. You can even do it like you’ve never done it before using YouTube or Twitter or WebEx or whatever, but truth is since everyone else is doing it that way, and you are largely just changing your mediums, that may be just a different kind of real.

And while that might be a different real, it sure as hell isn’t interesting.

And that’s a problem. With all the clutter and all the short attention spans and all the competition, we should worry a lot less about being real, and start to get more interesting.

When you are selling for real, skip the “real”. Sell with a story. Sure, you can lay out the benefits of your product, it’s solving a problem or driving more clicks, or how that new logo can create a lasting impression with a prospect, or you can be interesting and start a “mental movie” in the customer’s mind by saying the same thing but with a story. A story about the prospect that followed the van with the super cool new logo just to see where the business was who owned it, is way more interesting than the customer focus group data about changing a logo. The stories are out there, and they are compelling.

When you are selling for real, skip the “real”. Sell with emotion. Nicholson learned “real” doesn’t work on the big screen, but ‘interesting” does. Make a big deal with whatever it is you are selling and let’s hear the passion in your voice or on your video. Let’s hear the energy about your 5 favorite products as you describe them to your client in breathless, halting, excited tones. Go big with emotion and storytelling when selling, it intrigues and it works.

Assume that camera is filming live as you converse with your client or your media is making its first impression. Your audience is critiquing you.

Don’t be real. Be interesting.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Are You Smarter Than Your Website?

I hope so.

I’d like to think most people are smarter than their website and quite frankly, realize they need to get even smarter.

In a cluttered marketplace, Sales people, Service people and anyone who actually talks to customers must become the Differentiator, the Linchpin, the Trust Agent, the Service Ninja etc. etc. to stand out from the competition.

Before more smartness can happen, we have to make sure we are at least not dumber than our own websites.

Here’s 5 ways you can tell.

If your website gives testimonials of how products helped solve a problem, grew top line revenue or saved costs, and you don’t; your website is smarter.
If your website recommends a new product based on the current purchase leveraging what “other like customers buy” (like most websites do), and you don’t; your website is smarter.
If your website doesn’t require a prospect to give more than a name and an email address before it sends out more information, and you do; then your website is smarter.
If your website allows a customer to quickly start an order, stop midstream and check out something else, then go back to the order, and you don’t, then your website is smarter.
If your website shows smiling, enthusiastic and happy people on every page, and you’re not; your website is smarter.

If you missed even one of these, start studying hard, maybe even get a tutor; expectations of you are high my friend.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Open Ended Questions Are Overrated

It’s like a religion almost.

Every sales trainer since the turn of the 20^th century has proselytized* that open ended questions are the key to sales success. Those glorious questions like “How do you market your business?”, How would you describe your relationship with your current supplier?” and “How do you differentiate yourself in the market place?” are a constant in any sales training revival session.

The thought is that these types of questions will get your customer to leap to his feet and open up to you about his motivations, beliefs and values.

Except when they don’t. The reality is that open ended questions are effective when there is already a good degree of trust established. Open ended questions asked when trust is low can feel intrusive and just too much work to answer. Both of these feelings by the way, shut down the sales process.

Here’s why it happens. When you ask, “I’m curious, how do you market your business?” The client often thinks “Who the heck are you asking me that?” (The client rarely says this out loud, but rather will insert “brush off” language like “I’m really happy with my current supplier”). The client could think as well “Gee, that’s complicated and you know what?, I’ve got work to do”. Both of these reactions are the result of an unbelieving, untrusting audience.

There’s a better way to get at the same information when trust is low.

Here’s how: Say “I’m curious, is the business marketed online, offline or both?” Think psychologically why this makes more sense:

You took the “you” and “your” out of the question. When trust is low a question about how you do something (especially something important like “marketing”) is a little too personal. By saying “is the business marketed…” defers to something that, while it may be close to the client’s heart, is an it and not a you.
You gave options like “marketed online, offline or both?”. Every Malcolm Gladwell Blink reader knows that options help decisions to be made and ideas to be chosen. Wide open questions with no options, especially in this harried, rushed world, can stop communication altogether. If the client has choices of responses, they are more likely to respond.

So here’s the message. Take your list of open ended questions and ask yourself a closed ended one before you use them. “Does the client/prospect trust me or my company enough to be asking these questions this way?” If the answer is “no” or “I don’t know”, take the “you” out of the question and add options to choose from.

Till next time,

Go Forth and Grow The Business.

Mark

* Yeah! I can knock this off my “Bucket List” now. I always had a dream to use “proselytize” in a blog!

8 Minutes Ago

A lot of bad things happen 8 minutes ago. One in particular, is really bad. But don’t worry about that one yet, we’ll get to it. Just focus on helping the four people below, will you?

Just now, sales rep was getting all jazzed about making like 70 calls out in the next 3 hours and about making something happen on that phone. Truth is that 8 minutes ago when he decided he was going to just click and dial and not do any real research or set objectives for each call, that he already guaranteed making no money for the rest of the day.

Just now, the product manager is thinking that the folks in the room that came to hear her presentation must still be “settling in” because they are not totally paying attention just yet. Truth is that 8 minutes ago, when she began the meeting focused on herself, her department and her initiative, the audience tuned her out and will never be coming back.

Just now, the team leader thought it was really bad that there were no pens or pencils in this required training class and gosh darnit, she really needed one. Truth is that 8 minutes ago her boss wrote her off for that next project opportunity because he saw that she chose to show up for learning without so much as a piece of paper, let alone a pen.

Just now, the call center rep is miffed that he didn’t close on the quantity upgrade with this customer even though he fixed the problem really well and fast. Truth is that 8 minutes ago he lost that sale when at the beginning of the call he didn’t really apologize in any meaningful way for the problem they had.

You all know someone who doesn’t realize that bad things can happen 8 minutes ago. Most people have a hard time seeing it themselves. Some things can happen 8 minutes ago that are far worse and can offer a nice counter balance perspective as you go about lending a hand.

Just now, you were thinking that the sun is shining. Truth is that 8 minutes ago the sun went supernova. But because light (and heat) can only travel as fast as 186,000 miles per second, you won’t have a clue for at least the next 8 minutes, that you are toast.

Now don’t you feel better about the wee problems of the 4 people you are about to go help?

Go to it. Help them. You can even cut across the parking lot. No need for sun block, you’re good I think.

Check back with me in 9 minutes.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

That 70’s Twitter

I was way ahead of my time. You can be too.

Social Media is still exploding. Like huge. The FaceBooks, the Twitters, the Blogs and a dozen other tools are top of mind for consumers and businesses these days.

Businesses are scrambling to figure out these tools fast because haven’t you heard? People like you and me who use social media are supposed to have new thinking, new desires, new buying motives and if you happen to be about 20ish, perhaps you may be a new species of human known as a “millennial”.

Nope, I don’t think so. It’s not the people that are different so much; it’s the tools.

It’s the tools like Facebook, Twitter and Blogs that the media, the marketers and the businesses are getting caught up in. But don’t be fooled. It’s not enough to just embrace and use these tools. If you are in sales, teaching or marketing; it’s important to think hard about why people are using and loving these tools; what comfort and value they bring; enhance your strategy and then act accordingly.

You see, I was on FaceBook in the 80’s. I needed to be if I was going to have a life. I was actually on Twitter in the 70’s cuz’ I found it cool and informative and I was a heck of a Blogger as far back as the early 90’s.

It’s true. I was.

In the 80’s I had my little black book with Judy Lelievre (I was totally in love with her), Stephanie Bond (out of my league), Paula Kelly (we went on a date once) and a dozen other girls’ names in there. I loved that black book (even without any faces) and every time their phone numbers, or addresses or my opinion rating of them changed, (yep, I ranked them from a measly one star up to four “wicked awesome” stars), I updated that thing religiously. I needed to be connected and in the know.

In the 70’s the Twitter feeds were always on the back of the stall door in he boys’ bathroom at St. Catherine’s School. There I learned the latest thoughts (and some new words) about Sister Mary’s lightning quick back hand and about Sister John’s weight challenges. Always something new on those doors and like the Library of Congress that now holds millions of Twitter posts; I bet that 70’s Twitter is still etched in metal in the second floor bathroom at St. Catherine’s school likely for eternity.

In the 90’s, I wrote a page every night, printed it on dot matrix paper and copied it for the hundreds of call center sales people so in the morning; my wisdom, guidance (and at that time a lot of capital letters), were placed squarely front and center on the chairs of my people. Some read it, some chucked it, but just like today; it better be interesting/ helpful or people don’t care.

Here is the point. Get to know the new tools. Get to know them really well so you can better fill the desires that have been around for ages. People always want to have relationships and always want to share an opinion. They want to know the latest going on and they want a community of trusted friends and colleagues.

Whether they find some of that on Twitter or they find it on the back of a bathroom stall door; it doesn’t much matter. What matters is that you help your customers, friends and even strangers fill their desires really really well.

The tools may change but the innate desires of folks rarely do. Know this and you’ll be ahead of your time too.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Avoid Problems In The Shower

Selling is not always about problem solving. If you are reading the hottest sales books and listening to the trendiest sales gurus though, you might think it was.

It ain’t.

Every time I travel, I check into the hotel, throw the bag on the bed, adjust the heat down to 66 degrees (who can possibly be comfortable at 72?) then step into the bathroom to try to wash away a bit of the day’s travel. I then invariably look up into the mirror and realize the recurring dream I have when dozing off in a plane about my sudden hair growth alas, did not come true. I move on and peer into the mirror past my balding pate focusing in the space just behind me.

I see now as I always do in the reflection, the curved shower rod above the tub and get reminded once again so powerfully, that sales is definitely not just about problem solving.

If you haven’t stayed in a hotel in the last 3 years and have not seen the curved shower rod, this post may not make much sense to you though I think they are being sold in some Home Depots and Lowes now. (Here is a picture):

The curved shower rod. This thing is amazing. Without changing the size of the shower, it just now feels bigger with a curved shower rod. Who woulda thunk it?

That’s kind of the point. Do you think hotel managers across the country were suffering for decades with the pain of having straight shower curtain rods? Had they been for years dealing with complaint after complaint that the showers were feeling too small for the patrons? Do you think they got thousands of letters demanding they make the showering experience feel like there is more room in said shower?

Do you think then that a crack team of salespeople, product developers, sales leaders and marketers hunkered down in some basement trying for years to come up with the product that would fix this terrible problem of the normal straight shower rods? Do you think they created the curved shower rod as a solution to a problem and sold it that way?

Nope. Never happened.

Some brilliant person created and sold this product because it made the experience better, not because there was a problem that needed fixing.

Sometimes if we obsess with “solution” selling or “problem solving” as our lead mantra on the phone or in the field, we’ll fall on deaf ears or worse as we try to illustrate problems that don’t exist in the mind of our customers or frankly in the mind of anyone.

You might get more business when you sell products that add better to a business, not just solve a problem.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

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