When the recession hit, many companies lost their nerve. They began to second-guess their own decisions. They compromised on what they believed was right because right was too expensive. They chased after business that wasn't really a good fit — because any business was better than the potential of no business.
And they lost their way. A side effect of being lost is being scared. Sometimes being scared leads to being paralyzed. In my opinion, that's why this recession got so bad.
We got scared and we got stuck.
It's time for us to find our nerve and get ourselves out of this recession. I highly doubt there's going to be a bailout for any of us.
So how do we break loose from our fear and get some nerve? We get back to our core.
When a person has a strong connection to his or her own values, morals and belief structure — he or she seem to be able to weather even the toughest storm and stand firmly in place. No matter what gets thrown at them, they stay centered.
I'm not suggesting they're infallible or super human. But they are grounded in their own truth. They've done the hard work of figuring out who they are and what they stand for. (Which by default means they have also figured out who they are not and what they won't stand for.) And that hard work and self-understanding creates an anchor of sorts. An anchor that helps them avoid drifting every time the wind blows or being pulled from their spot during a particularly difficult life storm.
The same is true for an organization. When a company has done the difficult work of truly understanding their brand — they are anchored by their own beliefs. That's the source of their nerve. They know themselves and don't have to over-think every decision. It's organic. It's instinctual. And it is a business lifesaver.
Sooner or later, every business leader is faced with an Oh Shit! moment as coined by my friend Steve Farber in his book Radical Leap. When your brand is intact, those moments can't derail you. You're able to meet them with conviction and just “flow” through them. Your brand acts like a gut check and you intuitively know the right course of action.
The businesses that understood and embraced their brand before the recession like Apple, Zappos and Thomas A. Johnson Furniture Company are having a fantastic 2009. Why? They stuck to their core. They chased after only right-fit customers. They didn't try to sell something they weren't brilliant at doing. They didn't let the economy or a slowdown change the core of who they are.
They simply stayed true to their brand and as a result, they weathered the storm much better than most organizations. It's time that we all follow suit.
To find your nerve — find your core.
Making Money Beyond Your Wildest Dreams
Imagine yourself on your best day. It seems like you’re productive before you wake up, because something happened while you were asleep to charge your batteries, clear your thoughts, and give you inspiration while you snoozed.
You wake up and nothing can stop you. The path is clear and the ideas are flowing. You settle in to work earlier than usual and start plugging away. And it all starts clicking. You accomplish one goal.
And another.
And another…
This is how the day goes right up until the end when you check the clock and can’t believe how quickly the time flew by.
As you reflect on the day you think, “Man, did I make it happen today!”
Now, multiply that by days on end. Weeks on end. Months on end.
What would happen? How successful would you be?
You can’t know exactly, but you know you’ll make a lot more money and be able to enjoy things that are, right now, not happening for you. You’ll earn the respect of your peers and your market. Success will be yours.
And you’ll gain freedom. Freedom to do what you want with your time and what you want with your life.
…OK, I’m going to stop for a minute now and ask you to think about how you’re feeling. Like you can succeed? Get more done? Overcome a challenge that’s been dogging you?
What just happened to shift your mindset to make you think you can now get more done than you could a few minutes ago?
What’s happened is I’ve appealed to your emotions. I’ve painted you a picture and given you a vision of a place you want to be – you want to be free, to be successful, to be respected by your peers.
Making this type of emotional connection is extremely important, but it’s often eschewed by professional services marketers. It shouldn’t be.
As professionals, isn’t it our job to help our clients see what’s possible and help them achieve? Sure, we all have our special way that we do it, but it still comes down to – at the risk of repeating myself – what’s possible and what clients can achieve.
Though for some reason, often because of some fear of saying something that someone won’t like or sounding a little different, firms don’t concentrate on making emotional connections with their marketing. They focus on capabilities, cut-and-dry business cases, and how their unique blend of people, process, and technology does yadda yadda yadda.
Sure, there’s the occasional high-level nod to emotional connection concepts such as trust, peace-of-mind, partnership, and so on, but it’s usually understated. After all, we don’t want to be seen as anything less than white-glove professional, so we keep anything that could stir up an emotional reaction toned way down.
I think professional firms, with their antiseptic copy and business cases, are missing an opportunity. Missing an opportunity to paint a picture for potential buyers of what personal and professional success actually looks and feels like for clients of their firm, how they’ve helped others make it all happen, and how potential clients are risking it all if they choose not to work with them.
Now do you have to write over-the-top copy like a late night TV infomercial? This is what everyone’s afraid of. If you want to sell success, you have to do it with big pictures of dollar signs, big houses, fancy cars, and a Hugh Hefner coterie. Right? I don’t think so.
You do, however, have to use your imagination and focus your keen powers of observation on how great marketers make emotional connections so you can make yours.
There’s no reason for you to apologize or downplay the great things you can do.
There’s no reason why what you bring to the table shouldn’t inspire people to succeed.
There’s every reason to make an emotional connection with buyers in the market.
All this starts with not being afraid to break out of the same-old same-old “efficient and effective solutions with people, process, and technology” copywriting mode. Start connecting!
Do so and you’ll find you’ll win more than your fair share of new clients, you’ll help them succeed, and you’ll make money beyond…well…you know.
Recent Lead Generation Poll Shows Converting Leads-to-Sales Pipeline is Biggest Frustration
I recently hosted a poll to ask fellow marketers which aspect of the B2B lead generation frustrated them the most.
Overall, 34% of the 94 participants replied that converting leads to pipeline revenue is the biggest issue for them. According to the comments, most folks weren’t surprised.
When poll responses are broken down by company size, we found that converting leads falls slightly below closing the loop for enterprises. And, for 50% of the large companies closing the loop was the biggest frustration. If you look at the results by Job function, you’ll see that converting leads is the biggest issue for consultants, PR professionals, marketers and business developers alike.
Overall, I think it’s fair to say that if these individuals were closing the loop, they would be able to understand how to improve lead quality, which would in turn raise conversion. Closing the loop and converting leads to pipeline revenue go hand-in-hand.
Because “passing leads off to sales” barely even ranked on the poll, I’d think it would be safe to say that these companies and individuals aren’t getting the right feedback on leads from sales. It’s a vital element in making sure the leads are being acted upon as well as lead refinement.
If you rely only on your CRM or SFA to manage your closed loop lead reporting you're likely missing valuable data to improve sales conversion. That's why I recommend closed-loop feedback huddles structured around open discussion and questions such as:
• Have you been satisfied with the quality of leads that has been generated?
• How can we make our leads more actionable for you?
• What are unique attributes of leads that went into the sales pipeline or or were closed?
• What other questions would help you better prepare for the next action on new leads?
• Why are leads getting stuck? What can we be doing to help you sell or win this deal?
• What questions or challenges are you hearing that are stalling deals?
Other elements that these companies should be incorporating into huddles include:
• Timing – Huddles should be consistently held, at least once a month. With our partner, we started with a
weekly huddle to get the system rolling, and then shifted to biweekly as the system took root.
• Status – Where are the leads currently in the sales process? Which leads have been incorrectly qualified and need further follow-up? Which leads need to be handed back to Marketing for additional nurturing?
• Review – What’s working with the current process? What still needs to be improved? What wins can be celebrated with both teams?
Feedback huddles can be met with resistance from team members and be a challenge to organize or facilitate especially with larger companies, but the reward for this extra effort is well worth the improvements you’ll see in all aspects of the sales and marketing partnerships.
Worth noting:
1. Sales professionals responded that figuring out which names are valuable was the biggest frustration. I would suggest that they compare each lead with their Ideal Customer Profile to help them narrow down the list and consider using lead qualification and a universal lead definition.
2. One Marketing Executive who said she was surprised that "volume of names" didn’t rank higher. She said “Most of the teams I've worked with are still buying lists and don't really know where to start building an opt-in list. There's a sense of urgency to everything they do, so they don't think they have time to build it themselves. Of course, that may be why 'figuring out which names are valuable' came in second. If the names on your list didn't opt-in it's hard to tell who is valuable and who is not.”
October 20, 2009
Internet Temptations: How the Prospects of Easy Sales Can Get You Off Track
Everyday we read stories of successful marketing campaigns on the internet.
Some small company’s viral YouTube video gets massive numbers of downloads, success is just around the corner, we think. Or the website gets mentioned on a major news website, prospects must be begging for the product.
Because these stories are everywhere, heads of sales and marketing departments are hearing from their CEO: “What do WE need to do to get some of this ‘easy business’ from on-line?”
There is no easy way to making a sale, for most businesses, it takes hard work and smart effort no matter what the medium. We all want this to not be the case. We want to find that magic formula, that one thing that we do not do now, that if we could just do, sales would skyrocket.
But, you say, in my business…if we just had a more user-friendly website, sales would improve. Maybe.
Or, if we could do podcasts, more people would hear about us, and sales would improve. Yeah. Or, if we could just email every prospect with relevant, insightful messages about our products with our reasoned approach, a significant percentage would buy. And, we could just sit back and cash the checks, right?
We heard this in days gone past, pre internet.
It might have started with company literature. “If only we had a sales piece that showed this, my sales would improve.” This is still a favorite of many sales people….the idea of sales literature actually selling or even advancing the sales ball a little…is as old as lazy people who want shortcuts, rather than hard work. Sales literature will actually SLOW the sale down in most cases.
It is the same today.
But you know this, down deep. You are just afraid that this new atmosphere is somehow different, that THIS time, there will be an easy route to financial or sales heaven. I’m thinking there isn’t, so take comfort in the fact that if you continue to do the basic things well, and often, with ever increasing, incrementally improving efficiency and effectiveness that you will win the sales battles.
I am reminded of the old time sales plan of “mail 10, call 10.” The idea was that everyday, the sales rep would mail ten prospects a note or piece of literature, and then follow up with a phone call. Every day, every single day.
What happened?
Most of the time…because every sales person is above average…the sales person would think, “that plan will work for old Joe, but I am going to do it this way….” So they would stop with the disciplined approach. They would search for the shiny penny, for the easy path.
A few people would continue to work the plan. If they were smart, and if their company was also smart, easy mailing piece got better and each sales call got better too. These happens when you realize that small and incremental improvements are more important that some kind of panacea.
By no means am I suggesting that you completely avoid the new twitter-type, mobile-texting platform arena for your business.
Just don’t bet the ranch on it.
CIO Tells Us How to Sell to CIOs
I had a great conversation with my dear friend and neighbor, Walt Thinfen. He’s the Vice President & Chief Information Officer (CIO) of a high tech company here in Pleasanton, California. I took the opportunity to get his thoughts on how our clients and other technology vendors could do a better job of selling to the CIO. Listen in on this conversation for some great gold nuggets some of which might really surprise you.
Tell us a little about your role as CIO of Visioneer?
Visioneer provides a broad range of scanning solutions for the desktop, distributed and departmental document imaging markets as well as the mobile and remote business scanning segments. In 2003, Visioneer combined its leading scanner technology with the Xerox brand recognition to develop the Xerox DocuMate product line. Visioneer and Xerox DocuMate high-performance business scanners and imaging software solutions offer users speed, image quality, advanced paper handling and ease-of-use with exclusive Visioneer OneTouch® technology. That means we make desktop, portable, and workgroup scanners. As CIO, I am responsible for Visioneer’s Global IT function as well as and our support organization.
What sort of technology and services do you buy?
We buy hardware (servers, desktops, storage, networking equipment and firewalls), software (SAP ERP and Business Objects, EpicoreCRM, Microsoft Exchange) and telecom (Nortelfor unified communication). We also buy services such as data center hosting, remote application monitoring, network management, and even applications delivered as a service (Droisys, and Protera).
What are some dos and don’ts for selling to a CIO?
It’s important to recognize the CIOs are very different from sales people. We are more analytical not as emotional so we don’t respond well to rah rah stuff. We depend of facts and figures because we are very process oriented. If a sales rep wants to connect with me, he needs to do his homework and know what business I am in, what problems I likely have, and uncover my needs and only then should he pitch a product that solves a specific problem for me. And finally, respect the CIO’s time. Get to the point.
I would also strongly recommend that sales people stay engaged from the pre-sale phase all the way through to the implementation. I find it very frustrating when companies transition personnel from pre-sales, to implementation, and to technical support. The disconnects between these teams are very very obvious to me and disruptive. I find that some of the folks downstream of the sales rep are clueless about my business goals and all the needs I already expressed to the sales team. The sales rep does his song and dance then disappears. That’s very bad for the relationship and even hurts results.
What collateral or information do you find most valuable?
Vendors do, of course, need to do all the usual things like webinars, trade shows, datasheets, whitepapers, analyst briefings, etc. But I actually find the most valuable ones are opportunities to speak with fellow CIOs whether it’s on the golf course or in customer reference calls. I never turn down “lunch and learns” and events where I can have quality time with a peer. Remember the absolutely best thing for a CIO is word of mouth from another CIO. That’s why I have agreed to be an SAP customer reference. It helps them but it also helps me as I get to speak with peer CIOs. I like to ask colleagues “so how’s this working in your own shop” and “how did you solve this issue?”
How does a vendor get you to be a customer reference?
Well I have to be a happy customer first. Then they need to provide an opportunity to speak with other CIOs. You know, we CIOs are actually a very talkative bunch. Just get us together, let us react to your product roadmap, and facilitate questions. That’s it. I’m a member of a CIO group called the Office of the CIO, and this group meets monthly share experiences etc. I’m happy to share more about this wonderful organization.
How important are analysts like Gartner Group, Forrester, and IDC to your in purchase decision?
Not very. I find that they do not have the hands on experience that we do. Of courses vendors do need to cultivate a relationship with them to keep their product visibility up.
Tell me a memorable story of a particular buying process?
Well I’m afraid my more recent experiences have not been too pleasant. I was recently working with a vendor in the iSCSI SAN market. They sent nice people seemingly very interested in our business. They tried hard to understand our needs, my urgency, and working within a tight budget. They helped me identify the right solution which I then bought. That’s when the frustration began. The vendor shipped us off to a completely separate business unit and even farmed out the implementation to a third party company. It got worse from there. The third party botched up implementation. I tried calling the sales rep but he was onto the next kill. I had to escalate up the flagpole to the VP sales to get the original pre-sales team back in here to straighten out the implementation. Ironically, I would’ve bought more if hadn’t been for the poor handoffs and transitions. This is why I feel strongly that vendors really ought to have at least one person stay in contact with the customer from purchase through to deployment.
So have you ever had a great buying experience?
Yes. My best purchases are with Dell for servers. We simply order what we want, they ship it out, and we plug it into the rack and it works. The best purchases are actually the ones that have no involvement with the supplier. The minute it requires vendor involvement and a system integrator then things gets convoluted and more chances for things to go wrong.
Who’s involved the purchasing process?
My team defines the technology roadmap. We identify, select, and negotiate with vendors. I take the contract to the CFO to ensure the contract has acceptable terms and risk. Then it goes to the CEO for signoff before purchasing cuts a purchase order.
How do you justify a purchase?
I justify purchases based on how it would increase or maintain our revenues. I look at the impact to revenue with and without this purchase. How does it reduce operations costs both capital and operating expenses? How does this mitigate risks? I look at risks such as PCI compliance, credit card theft, and especially risk of downtime affecting orders.
Should You Task Your Staff to Create White Papers to Spawn New Ideas?
Let’s say the idea vault is looking pretty empty. No one at your company has really contributed any new thoughts in ages. Does it ever make sense to ask your key players to contribute white papers, outlining new ideas for corporate growth?
This is the essence of a question submitted by Jason, working for an international organization:
I am working for a international high tech company and they have planned a management meeting with the 80 top managers (R&D, Engineers, Sales, Marketing, Finance). They will spend a week together, working on different issues. The outcome of the week must be that everybody has the same mindset and the same goals.There will be presentations of the CFO, CEO etc. and there will be discussion about how and what technologies the company must develop. To structure the discussion we want to set up a workshop.
Is it a proven technique to give everybody the assignment to write a white paper for the company? From their point of view, and with clear guidelines of how to write it of course.
Here’s my response:
Jason, this is a great question! First, to address your main question. No, this is not a proven technique. And frankly I do not think I have ever heard it being done before. But wait. Does that mean it’s a bad idea? Well… Let’s take a look.
First, the issue of asking 80 top management folks to commit the time it takes to craft white papers may be unrealistic. You are talking at least a 40 hour commitment for a non-writer to craft a white paper. They just won’t have the time. So, from a practical standpoint it’s not a viable idea.
A few ideas…
Why not give incentives for management to participate in this exercise. Explain that if the company implements an idea directly resulting from a white paper submitted to the meeting, the author will be eligible for a bonus of up to $XX,000 dollars! Money talks for a lot of folks and this will spur many of them to action.
I should also note that indeed white papers are the perfect platform to introduce new ideas. You’ll want to give the executives some guide to make it super easy for them. For example, a good outline structure (I have a bunch in my book) would be a smart starting place.
Keep us posted on how it goes? Does anyone else have any advice to share on this matter?