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It’s Better Read Than Said

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texting

It’s Better Read than Said

How many of you like pulling VM from friends or colleagues on your smart phones, home phones or work phones these days? 

That many. 

I thought so.

So cumbersome, this voice thing:  So much time wasted listening to the slog of a human voice blathering dozens of extra words around the likely simple intent of the message  added to the process of accessing, listening and remembering what was said ( or worse –lunging for a post it note to scribble it on).

It’s getting harder and harder to find the time out there to listen to the human voice share information.

Why?  Because it’s getting so much easier, faster and efficient to read it.  And type it.  And text it.   And Like it.  And Follow it.   And also to Learn and Share and Refer and Recommend.

We are information hogs, all of us now.  We can’t get enough.   We want information in huge amounts,   And we want it in a way we can save it, retrieve it and share it.    We want so much so fast, that it becomes easier to accept the inefficiency of the human voice and not want to use it or as we more increasingly feel, hear it.  

You need to understand the change here on a couple of levels.

You as a person and an employee should know:

  • When you do talk or leave a voicemail, it better be good and meaningful and compellingly vital because if it’s not- it should have just been an email or post and eyes will roll.
  • Human nature yearns for the sharing of “one to many”.   Everything you might have wanted to say to some one you can say to hundreds or thousands at the same time but without the fear of Public speaking.  That is outrageously attractive to people.  And that’s a powerful thing for your self and your career if you embrace it well.

You as a business owner should know:

  • This is Word of Mouth now.  This is where your clients rave or rage about you.  You must make it easy for your customers to pass along good things about you and your business.  One to one still works but people would much rather “tell 10 friends” except this time they can do it for real in seconds.  
  • You have to be smarter and cooler and more valuable than your website.  If talking with you takes 5 times longer than what the prospect could have gotten in 3 clicks on your website then you are not adding value where you should.  Think hard about what your voice brings to your business.  Think brand.  Think feel.  Think purpose.   Then plan and speak accordingly. 

 

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

 

Mark’s Blog

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If You’re Confused, What The Heck Do You Think Your Prospect Is?

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If You’re Confused, What The Heck Do You Think Your Prospect Is?

I spend a lot of time looking at, and experiencing training these days.     And sometimes it’s clear that the things we train our own employees, like some of the products and services we sell,  can be …well …..confusing.  Not every service or product as everyone well knows,  is tangible or simple.  Some,  like financial products or online marketing products can feel particularly abstract and complex.

And if it’s confusing to my Trainers when they first start to learn the products and then later for the Sales and Service people who then have to present in front of customers, do ya think it might be that much more confusing for prospects and clients when they are first are approached or exposed to these things? 

And if you’ve ever read anything in this blog before, you already know that confusion kills sales.

Here are 3 ways to alleviate that confusion when you represent a complex product or service:

  • Teach your Sales people to teach.  Get past the idea that sales of complex or non tangible products / services begins with the pitch.  It doesn’t.  It begins with the teach.  It’s OK to build teaching into your sales cycle despite the fear of lengthening the sales cycles.  You aren’t lengthening the sales cycle – you are starting earlier – you have to.    It’s OK to get all your sales people to a level where they become experts with online webinars under their belts, with  killer LinkedIn pages and Twitter followers who look to them for as much insight as they do for what’s on sale. 
  •  3’s:  Everything in 3’s:   The mind is not wired to remember more than 5 numbers, let alone 5 points.   If you have a service for example that manages your online marketing spend then even if it has 12 steps to get started, it should sound like “…Only 3 key steps to getting you started.  In the first step we’ll interview you around 3 important areas like…….  Then after that, we get to tackling 3 areas of your current website like…..” You get it.  “3” sounds simple.  Simple eases tension and sales can keep on moving.
  •  Analogies:   Nothing simplifies better.  Are you a marketing consultant? Nope, you’re a marketing GPS that gets the business to the destination of 25% more customers.  Are you a website developer?  Nope; you are building an automated employee that works 24 hours a day taking orders and that never sleeps.    Think hard about what you sell or service and find that perfect analogy that makes it click and stick. 

This blog is not complex but I kept it to 3 points.  More than that and it gets confusing who the heck wants to read that?

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Mark’s Blog

Mark’s Twitter

That 70’s Twitter

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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