Learn a sales lesson from the lady in the St. Lucia straw market.
I was on a Caribbean cruise last week – first time away from email in years. The first stop was St. Lucia, home to one of the larger straw markets (local crafts, etc.) in the region. Let’s just say I’m not a shopping fan, but I negotiated a morning of ziplining for an afternoon of shopping – and received $50 in free sales training.
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General, Sales | Tagged: accounting firm marketing, business, business development, demand generation, financial planner marketing, law firm marketing, Sales, Sales Improvement, st. lucia, straw market | 
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Posted by Dave Slovin
And other dumb vendor questions.
I can tell it’s ad renewal season because I heard this question four times yesterday from representatives of major advertising companies – a new record. These companies must be sending their reps to used car sales training, rather than consultative selling.
When I’m asked this question by a rep selling to one of my clients, my answer is a simple, “Zero.” Try it sometime. You’ll leave the rep speechless. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | General, Marketing | Tagged: accounting firm marketing, advertising, advice, business, demand generation, financial planner marketing, law firm marketing, Marketing, Marketing ROI, measurement | Permalink
Posted by Dave Slovin
Improving your 2012 marketing results without spending more marketing $$.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year… 2012 planning season. You’re looking back at your firm’s 2011 results, trying to figure out what went well and how to drive better results (clients and revenue, of course) in 2012.
Before you let visions of social media strategies dance in your head, think about ways that you can improve results without spending more marketing money or even changing your marketing strategy. Look no further than your current flow of prospective clients, also called your prospect pipeline to use a sales term. Read the rest of this entry »
1 Comment | General, Marketing, Sales | Tagged: 2012 Planning, business, business plan, demand generation, management, Marketing, measurement, planning, prospect, Sales Improvement | Permalink
Posted by Dave Slovin
5 tips for improving customer service quality
I just finished up an interesting engagement, helping a professional services firm evaluate and optimize their sales and marketing activities. Dealing with their existing advertising and marketing partners was quite an eye-opening experience. I don’t use absolutes that often (I’m in marketing after all), but overall this was the absolute worst customer service I’ve ever experienced. At this point, let’s call these companies “vendors” because they are order-takers at best. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Customer Service, General, Marketing | Tagged: accountability, advice, business, communication, consulting, Customer Service, expectations, lessons learned, Marketing, thought leadership | Permalink
Posted by Dave Slovin
5 ways to overcome that blank page.
There it is. You’re staring at an empty Word doc or blank sheet of paper. You know that you need to get something written now. Your [clients/prospects/audience] are expecting a new [newsletter/white paper/seminar/blog]. Since you read my blog, you know that it needs to create value in the minds of your audience. You want it to be a clear, succinct message. You may even have a topic in mind. Other than that, you’re clueless. Hey look, someone just wrote on my Facebook wall… Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Marketing | Tagged: advice, business, communication, consulting, content, management, MarCom, Marketing, thought leadership, writing | Permalink
Posted by Dave Slovin
A new spin on “green” marketing – 10 tips.
I keep on pushing value-added content in my posts, so today let’s talk about how to get the most value for your effort. I know what you’re thinking. “Dave, you’re the most amazing marketer we’ve ever met. Where do we send the check?” Or not…
You’re more likely wondering how you can develop enough content to showcase your knowledge and distance your company from the competition. Today’s blog assumes that you can come up with at least one great idea, topic, noteworthy item, case study, survey, data point, result, etc. that offers something of value to clients and prospects. If not, take this week off and I’ll try to address content creation next.
Now think about how you can get more miles per content gallon by “recycling” that content into different formats and media, and modifying the message to appeal to different audiences. Without any new ideas, you’ll have a variety of new tools to address more prospect requests for specific knowledge – that’s a very good thing.
Here are 10 ideas for extending your message, kind of like Hamburger Helper for your content:
Another advantage of recycled content is that your sales team will have additional tools that they can pull out of their bags. For example, some more analytical prospects will appreciate a detailed white paper. Others will appreciate the 1-minute summary. Remember to leave the sales pitch out, or at least isolate it from the core message. The reader/participant will appreciate you more as a knowledgeable source of information. There’s time to sell later.
I’m sure there are many more ways to keep your content fresh and out of the landfill, but I’m out of time. Please share your ideas and I’ll add them to the list.
If you can’t measure it, don’t do it!
Leave a Comment » | Marketing | Tagged: advice, business, communication, content, demand generation, Hamburger Helper, MarCom, Marketing, prospect, thought leadership | Permalink
Posted by Dave Slovin
Know when not to sell. Take the No Pitch Pledge.
In Part I, we talked about how to improve your sales call results by actually doing less selling and more communicating. Now that your reps have taken the No Pitch Pledge and are all wildly successful sales consultants and business partners, let’s talk about the importance of removing your sales pitch from other types of communications, particularly what I call “value-added content.”
Defining Two Types of Communications
There’s a real subtlety between general marketing communications and value-added content. Traditional MarCom has a feature/benefit format, and typically includes brochures, website pages, presentation and proposal templates (before you customize them), mailers, etc. The goal is to describe and differentiate your company and products, so buyers at least understand what you have to offer and general costs. Pitch away here, no worries. But you may want to worry about how effective these communications really are.
Value-added content offers much more to the recipient, and can ultimately sell your company much better than any website or brochure. It should share your overall knowledge and expertise, providing strategies and advice that will help recipients improve business effectiveness and results. Examples of value-added content include white papers, seminars, trade articles, newsletters, benchmarking reports, etc. These most likely cover broader ground than just your specific products, although your products may be an implied part of the overall solution. Avoid the temptation to pitch here, as you will greatly diminish the value of the content.
You’ll want to offer both types of communications, but real challenge is maintaining the separation between Church and State – keeping your sales pitch out your value-added content. Here’s an example of what not to do.
Don’t Do This
I attended a webinar last week that was advertised as a discussion on new email marketing practices. That’s right up my alley, and I’m always looking for new ideas to steal. The presenters were introduced, and they started to give an overview of XYZ Company and its email marketing products. I always expect a brief sponsor pitch somewhere during a free webinar, so I continued to listen. Unfortunately, the pitch never ended. After 25 minutes, I closed my screen and went back to work.
While the webinar was advertised as information that could help me do my job better, it was actually about why I should buy XYZ Company products. Translation — sales pitch.
Put Yourself in Their Shoes
Pretend that you are a prospective buyer who was enticed to attend based on the promise of new ideas. How would you feel? Here’s what I thought:
So think about this as you develop your own value-added content. Remember to educate your audience about a concept, not a product. Think about the things that will make your buyers more productive and effective, beyond just what you have to offer them. Share your knowledge, experience, and aggregate data with your buyers, and they will share their budgets with you… and your content with their peers…
1 Comment | Marketing | Tagged: advice, business, communication, content, demand generation, expectations, MarCom, Marketing, Sales, sales pitch | Permalink
Posted by Dave Slovin
Know when not to sell. Take the No Pitch Pledge.
Now that we’ve discussed how trimming the sheer volume of content can improve your ability to generate interest and demand, let’s talk about making some adjustments to the ways you communicate. Let’s start with sales calls in Part I, and then move onto more general communications in Part II next week.
Sales Calls
So you’ve read all the hip books on selling, and you may even have some pretty consultative selling course certificates proudly displayed on your wall. Or not… It doesn’t really matter.
When you finally get a meeting with your prospective buyer, you diligently ask your 3 tremendously insightful and impactful business questions…
…and then jump into your sales pitch. You lay it all out, hoping that the buyer will bite on something. At the end, there’s a hearty handshake and you agree to follow up in a couple of weeks. You can never reach the buyer again. Hear the Twilight Zone theme playing in the background?
Is this you? I’m sure that you are very passionate about your company and products, and that is commendable. You are just showing your enthusiasm in the wrong ways. The first meeting is rarely a “sales” meeting, so why are you trying to sell?
Here’s where you need to take the No Pitch Pledge.
When you take the No Pitch Pledge, you have a chance to build much more than a PowerPoint presentation. You’ll receive:
Is this more difficult? Absolutely! Does it take more up-front preparation? Much more. Will this work every time? Absolutely not! There’s a happy medium in here someplace, and you’ll need to gauge the buyer’s willingness to communicate based on responses to your first questions. But wouldn’t you rather be the 1% who builds long-term business and client relationships rather than the 99% who just show up and throw up?
They’ll call you back…
2 Comments | Sales | Tagged: advice, business, communication, consulting, demand generation, management, parthership, prospect, Sales, solutions | Permalink
Posted by Dave Slovin
Streamline communications to improve results.
I was reading a company’s PowerPoint sales presentation earlier today… with a magnifying glass. Each page was chock-full of very valuable information about the company, but it was so overwhelming that I couldn’t figure out what they were really trying to communicate. I feel bad for saying this, but I quickly lost interest and decided to write this post rather than read on.
Is your company presentation overloaded with content in paragraph form? Did you have to produce your brochure in 9 pt type to include everything you wanted to say? How many times does a website visitor have to page down to reach the bottom of your home page? If you had to give these questions more than a couple of seconds of thought, you need to cut out some of the fat and focus on delivering a few key messages to the right audience at the right time.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
Enough with the 3s. You get my point. Most communications that I’ve seen could be cut in half and be twice as effective. This type of concise communication is much harder to accomplish, but your results will be worth the effort.
If you can’t measure it, don’t do it!
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Posted by Dave Slovin
Before we begin, let’s get a couple of things straight.
Well, I’ve finally run out of ways to procrastinate the start of my blog. I’ve chosen a technology, come up with a decent name, reserved the URL for future use, built an editorial calendar (more about that later), cleaned my windows, and reduced global warming. Now it’s time to talk about how to measurably grow your business.
The purpose of The Marketing Engine is to provide specific advice that improves your ability to target the right buyers, develop interest in your product or service, convert that interest into the first sale, and then grow business from long-term relationships. Simple, right? Well, you’ll soon see that the ideas are pretty easy to implement. Having the patience to see them through to the successful results will be the more challenging part. While the content is geared to the owners/leaders of small and medium-sized businesses, there’s a little something for everyone.
To me, setting realistic expectations is an important part of any new business or personal relationship. Before we get started, you should know what to expect of me and this blog. So, here are 10 things to expect from me:
Now that we’ve gotten past the introductions, the first real post will be tomorrow once I check to make sure this thing works. Please let me know what you think.
If you can’t measure it, don’t do it.
Leave a Comment » | Customer Service, General, Marketing | Tagged: advice, business, business development, consulting, demand generation, expectations, management, Marketing, networking, Sales | Permalink
Posted by Dave Slovin
