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Make your marketing work!Another month, another P-tek Development Solutions Ltd newsletter - and if you have any involvement at all in sales and marketing, this is the issue for you! As well as our regular trainer profile (this month it’s Graeme Borrill) you’ll find top tips from Ari Galper on building trust in sales, and from Bernadette Doyle on the 'marketing two-step' - creating the right marketing material, and then getting it read by the right people And if you'd like to walk a little taller - click on the giraffe (or see below)... Now read on and find out more…! Chris Barnard, Managing Director, P-tek Development Solutions Ltd Get off to a racing start with Graeme Borrill
For more information, contact P-tek Development Solutions Ltd on 08448 011 733 or by e-mail Ari Galper: Five selling mistakes - and how to put them right...
This is my bi-annual two-week trip back to the US each year that I take to upgrade my direct marketing skills and to visit my sister and dad in Los Angeles. When I moved to Sydney a few years ago, my wife Michelle agreed my travelling back to the US twice a year made sense as a way to consistently invest in my long-term marketing skills. I’m going to be attending Yanik Silver’s Underground Online Seminar in LA and then Dan Kennedy’s and Bill Glazer’s GKIC Superconference in Nashville. Now what prompted me to write you this is the conversation I mistakenly overheard by two guys sitting about three sofa couches away from me. I was sitting here catching up on some personal reading that I set aside for this trip, and my ears perked up when I started overhearing their conversation – which wasn’t hard to do since it was particularly quiet in the lounge. They were clearly both in sales because they were discussing a deal they were trying to close and most likely were partners in a business or worked for the same company. They were saying things like, ‘We need to make a stronger pitch...’, ‘We need to show them more value’, ‘We’ve got to figure out how to be more persuasive’ – in other words, we’ve got to sell better.' You could sense the frustration in their voices. It was a feeling like they weren’t doing enough to make their potential client see things their way – and they were blaming themselves. And you could tell they probably invested a lot of money and time in this deal. It’s almost like they pulled every trick out of their ‘sales hat’ – but, from their view, which clearly was about changing their potential client’s position to theirs, they were stuck. Now you could imagine as I was hearing this, more than a few opinions entered my mind about their situation – that, if implemented, could probably help them see the truth of why they were stuck and what to do about it. And, boy, did I want to step in and hang out with them for a while, but there wasn’t enough time. Because in the next 15 minutes or so, my flight was going to be called and I wanted to get this out of my mind so it didn’t stir inside me the next 13 hours on the plane. So what I’ll do here is briefly share with you why I believe they are ‘stuck’ and why, most likely, it’s their own sales mindset that’s the culprit. You see, their mental view of selling is clearly focused on getting their prospect to see things THEIR way. When you think from that position, it disconnects you from your potential client’s view of the world, which IS more important than yours. Because your ability to draw a short line from your thinking to theirs is the quickest route to determining if you’re a fit or not. If your line is long and going in different directions, your prospect is going to feel you don’t truly understand their needs from THEIR perspective. And, if there is one thing I’ve learned from coaching thousands of sales people and business owners over the years, it’s that the most direct route to building trust with a prospect – getting to the truth of whether the sales really exists or not – is connecting directly to their current problems (not future ones) so they feel understood. And by getting to the truth early on in the sales cycle, you completely avoid feeling ‘stuck’ and blaming yourself that you should be better at selling. NEW SHIFT: The sale is lost at the BEGINNING of the sales process and not at the end – contrary to the mantras of the traditional sales gurus. Things those guys most likely did:
Things those guys could have done:
The world has changed, trust is a rare commodity – learn how to create it and you’ll never have to worry about being ‘stuck’ on a deal again. Gotta catch my flight... For more information, contact Ari Galper on 020 8150 6147 or by e-mail. His website is another good source. Bernadette Doyle: The Marketing Two-StepI recently received the following question from a reader:
First of all, if the telephone isn’t ringing, you know you need to do SOMETHING differently, but this question highlights exactly why I DON’T recommend just printing up a bunch of flyers and randomly distributing them. The flyer itself may be perfect, but not getting seen by the right people. Or the flyer may be reaching the right people, but not doing a good enough job of motivating them to take action. The problem is with this method of marketing is that it’s hard to get feedback on what specifically you need to change. So, first of all, you need to ask yourself, have you got the right brochure reaching the wrong people, the wrong brochure reaching the right people or, worst of all, the wrong brochure reaching the wrong people?! The one thing I know for sure is that, when you have the right brochure reaching the right people, you are well on your way to becoming a ‘client magnet’. So, this time, I am going to focus on two areas: first of all, making sure that you have the ‘right’ marketing materials and, secondly, making sure that it reaches the right people. Getting your marketing materials right 1 What action do you want the reader to take as a result of reading your brochure/webpage/e-mail/sales letter? The job of your marketing material is to motivate the reader to take action, so, first of all, you need to be really clear on what you want to accomplish. Try to accomplish too many things simultaneously and you will fail. 2 Does your marketing material inform or persuade? Many people think all they need to do is print up some information about themselves and the services they offer, and then wait for the telephone to start ringing. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that! I think of marketing literature as a ‘sales person in print’. In other words, it needs to do all the things a real live sales person would do: get rapport with the reader, engage in a dialogue about their needs, understand their problems, recommend a solution, overcome objections and close. Take a long hard look at your marketing material, does it do all of these things? If not, then you need to change it. Even if the action you want the reader to take is ‘phone for a consultation’, you need to include all of the above steps. When you have done the above, then you need to make sure that your marketing material gets read by the right people. Getting your marketing material read by the right people As I said above, I don’t recommend randomly distributing flyers because you have no way of measuring their effectiveness. You can’t tell who saw your brochure and who didn’t. You have no idea who was tempted and who was put off. So, for this reason, I favour a ‘multi-step’ approach which focuses on getting your target audience to ‘raise their hands’ first, THEN you send your brochure and now at least you have some way of measuring the effectiveness of your brochure. The number of sales divided by the number of brochures you sent out equals your conversion rate! So this is where you need to get creative. Start to brainstorm lists of places where your target audience is likely to congregate. Will you find them online, offline or both? Are they members of clubs or associations? After you have identified a few places, you need to give them a reason to ‘raise their hands’. I like to offer an ‘ethical bribe’, such as a free report, e-course or teleseminar. When people raise their hands, then you can send them your material (by post or e-mail) and gauge the response. The point I want to make for now is that YOU need to take steps to make sure your marketing and sales materials are being seen by the right people. It doesn’t stop there... So, now can you sit back and wait for the phone to ring? Well, if you have followed the above advice, you can certainly expect SOME response, but the thing you now need to do is measure the effectiveness and see what you can do to increase conversion rates. This is the fun part of marketing, as you can start to see what small changes can bring huge results, just like the flap of a butterfly’s wing in Honolulu causing a tornado in Texas! But my overriding message for you this time is this: just changing your sales literature – whether it is a brochure or a webpage – without paying attention to WHO is looking at it is a just a stab in the dark. © Bernadette Doyle, 2008 Bernadette Doyle publishes her weekly Client Magnets newsletter for trainers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, then get your free tips now at the Client Magnets website. For more information, contact P-tek Development Solutions Ltd on 08448 011 733 or by e-mail. Getting that edge at the University of EssexAlthough the 2007/08 academic year is coming to its end, there is still the opportunity to take the following specialist business and management training courses at the University of Essex:
For more information go to their website or send them an e-mail.
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Graeme Borrill is a training and development specialist and a business partner who has designed and delivered over 1,000 training days in a wide variety of management and soft skills training programmes, working with senior managers to deliver training and development solutions tailored to their needs in a wide range of business environments, including Formula One racing, IT, the financial sector, the NHS, chartered surveying, engineering, retail and government bodies.
I’m just sitting here in the Quantas business class lounge waiting for my flight to leave from Sydney to Los Angeles. It starts boarding within an hour or so.
‘I’m not getting massive success with the marketing I’ve done so far. In fact, not one person has called me because they’ve seen my flyers. I’m starting to think people may be turned off by them. Any suggestions on how I can judge if they’re a turn off?’ 