Sales Laundry

Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’

Last night I saw a small business owner hitch her business to a much larger cause and pull off an absolute rock star marketing strategy.

Forget how Kellogg’s tied breakfast cereal to our kid’s education, pardon the pun, but that is kid stuff by comparison.

I was watching America’s Got Talent (you can slap me later) with my two little girls when Pam Martin’s Top Dog act began.  The act was just as you would imagine; a routine with owner and dog doing tricks to music trying their best to be one of five acts out of twelve on the show to make it to the next round.

In real life Pam Martin runs a small pet obedience training business called Top Dog in what might as well be Dallas, Texas.  Pam branded her act on America’s Got Talent with the same name as her business, so every time Pam is on television her business gets a plug because at the bottom of the screen is “Pam Martin’s Top Dog.”

Now for the Rock Star Marketing Genius part.

By going on the show with her act, appropriately called “Pam Martin’s Top Dog” and showing off her training skills, Pam has successfully created and aired two commercials almost two minutes in length each showcasing her business to a national audience on prime time network television.

If Pam were paying for commercials on America’s Got Talent she would have paid $800,000+/- for that same air time, plus the cost of making the clips, not counting the 30 second human interest pieces that endear the performer (or business woman, in this case) to the audience. No matter the outcome,  Pam has already won $1,000,000 from America’s Got Talent and spent all of it advertising her business.

Consciously or not, Pam has tied her business to the number one television show on network television in its time slot, with 11.2 Million viewers that Tuesday night alone.  Pam has also benefited from NBC’s own marketing spend in all forms of media promoting America’s Got Talent for the price of a couple of costumes and stage props.

That beats the pants off of the marketing strategy and budget of every other pet obedience school in Dallas, TX.

Pam will also get to carry forward a little bit of celebrity to add to her business raising her exposure in her market and raising obedience training as a priority in the minds of her prospects.

Where else are you going to get to spend six weeks with a minor TV star for $100?  Call Pam.

I would bet Pam’s business is booming from the national exposure boosting her efforts to earn her next million on the back of that million+ advertising budget, regardless of what happens to the million the TV show is giving away.

Genius.

Pam tied her small business to a bigger business that could raise her exposure, add celebrity and other elements making her services a higher purchasing priority in her customers minds and managed to squeeze a million+ in free advertising out of the deal.

What can you do to think outside the box to become a top priority in your customers mind and start to work on your own million?

Image courtesy of http://topdogdallas.com

Today something remarkable happened, I got a piece of junk mail that I actually felt compelled to open, and once I read the contents I was even more compelled to give them a call.

This impressed me because 99.99% of the junk mail I get does not make it past my office door where the shredder sits consuming the daily unwanted unopened contents of my mailbox.

I have read that the average American adult receives 40+ pounds of junk mail every year, so what did this company do that was so remarkable to get their one ounce sales message past my shredder?

The small envelope was hand addressed to me with a first class stamp.  Inside was a single page handwritten note off of a mini legal pad with a name, pitch and a phone number.

They made it personal, made me curious, communicated their message quickly, and they got me.

In this world of demographic driven marketing-to-the-masses, could simply sending personal messages to targeted groups of individuals be a successful strategy to improve lead quality/quantity and help your company stand out?

I don’t know, but at 75 cents a lead, I can afford to find out.

How personal is your company’s message?

A good first step is to read your own marketing materials.  Does the text talk about you and how great your company is or does it talk about how your product benefits the person buying it?

It’s easy to write on our websites and press releases that we are “industry leaders,” or talk about our own accomplishments and how many years of combined experience we have, but that is not a very compelling read to a potential buyer trying to answer the age old question “What is this product/service going to do for me?”

No matter the method, make your message personal and a little bit different to get your prospective buyers attention.  Then make the most of that precious attention by delivering a message that does more for the person experiencing it than the marketing department that wrote it.

Image courtesy of zcache.com

As a sales person you need to read “What does better mean?” It is a very short article by Seth Godin that will take you one minute at the most to learn a lesson it took me a long time to figure out.

 His message is aimed at marketing types, but the message hit me right between the eyes in its simplicity.

 Which is better Microsoft Office or Open Office?  Google or Live?  Firefox or Chrome?  Coke or Pepsi?  McDonalds or Burger King?  Best Buy or Circuit City?  Ok, winner declared on that last one.

 While you may be selling version 2.0 or version 10, just because Marketing, the CEO, you, your Sales Manager, your mother and the mailman all say it is better absolutely does not mean that it actually IS better to the one person that matters.  That would be the one making the purchase.

 So the next time you find yourself thinking  “How could they not see that our solution was OBVIOUSLY better?” you should have a better answer as to what went wrong than the one you have today.

 You thought you were selling something that was obviously better, you just did not make sure it was obviously better to the buyer.

In the battle of which is better, the buyers “better” always wins.

From my experience, most companies don’t know their sales department is dead until they begin to smell the corpse and see their sales numbers fall off a cliff into Lake Competitor.

 It has been my job from time to time over the years to identify sales issues, diagnose sales health and return these sales organizations to top form.  As a result, I have learned where to look for the signs of decay.  Here is a rough version of the roadmap I use to find the problems.

Sales Metrics

 How are the Sales Managers measuring their existing sales team’s performance?  More often than not, I find that the sales organization as a whole is only using one sales metric consistently, final sales numbers. 

You can’t steer a dog by its tail and if you try you will eventually end up stepping in it.  The same is true of the Sales department.

 The final sales numbers should not be a measurement tool because it is too late at that point to do anything about it.  Final sales numbers are only a gauge, measuring your sales success for one moment in time.  No different than a customer survey or comment card after a sale measures overall customer service on a single sales transaction.

 A good sign would be to see multiple sales metrics in place and seeing Sales Managers actually use them to manage their business.  (CRM packages setup and used properly are a great source of information assuming the stored information is current, complete and accurate.)

The Sales Managers

 If the metrics are out of whack or missing I look for the Sales Manager to understand how he is managing his team and how he reviews his sales pipeline.

 Typically I find that a struggling sales department has a Sales Manager that is spending too much time looking at the bottom of the sales funnel or has never been trained how to  measure his team’s performance.

The Forecast

 The next stop is the individual forecasts of the sales team, present and past if available.  I want to understand how leads are collected and the process determining how a lead is converted to an opportunity and how it moves its way through the system toward a close.  I want to know what specific information a sales representative used to rank every opportunity on his or her forecast.

Usually this will tell me there is no consistent process for converting leads in place and the present standard is a combination of guess work and wishful thinking.

 I also want to understand what they are selling and equally important, what they are not selling and why.  This helps me understand what other departments outside of sales I need to visit.

Sales Training Process

 A look at sales training is next on my list.  How are the sales representatives being trained?  What methodology are they using?  How do they get trained on new offerings?  How have they been trained to manage opportunities through the pipeline?

The Services, Support & Systems Engineers

 Next I want to meet with the services manager. I want to understand how he decides what he will train his staff on, how they maintain certifications, how skill sets are allotted to the various offerings the company sells, and if there is communication with Sales to keep them in lock step with what Sales is actually selling. 

The Marketing Department

 The marketing department, if there is one, is next.  I want to compare the message Sales is sending with the message Marketing is sending.  I also want to understand how they coordinate their efforts in the end goal of bringing in more business.

C-Level Executives

 I want to understand the overall company direction.  What are the company objectives?  What are the company commitments to vendors and distribution relationships?  What is the company sales message? Etc.

Summary

 Decay in a sales organization can come all the way from the top, manifested in bad policies or poor communication that puts various departments in isolated silos.  From my experience it is the well connected CEO, or oddly enough the lowly Sales Manager that is in the best place to diagnose these problems internally.

 In the early days I only looked at the Sales department but as I worked through the challenges I began to expand my scope because many of the problems manifesting themselves in Sales I found were created by seeming innocuous decisions made in other parts of the company.

 If your sales department is inconsistent, struggling or darn near dead, look at the quality and quantity of your leads, analyze your forecast, focus on managing the top of the sales funnel and take this list and use it to find the root cause of your problem, don’t get caught up treating symptoms.

 

Discussion boards are rife with comments from business owners lamenting the problems they have experienced on their quest to find an exceptional sales professional.  Arguably, a person that is exceptional should, by definition, be hard to find.

 So how DO you find the right sales guy for your company?  Begin by defining your sales process and the role you need this new sales professional to fill.

 This is ONE aspect, mind you.  Future posts will define other aspects selecting and building a solid sales team for your business.

 I use the terms “hunter” and “farmer” in this post, I assume most are familiar with the terms, but just in case, here is a brief definition:

 Hunter – a sales person engaged in finding new opportunities with new clients.

Farmer – a sales person engaged in managing existing client relationships.

 

Sales Intern – Free to low paid position, the primary reward for this position being the resume worthy experience and references the position can provide.

 Hire for:  sales lead data entry, basic sales contact management, assist with proposal development, general support host for in office lunch meeting, answer the phones, take some messages, general sales gopher.

 

Telemarketer – Typical entry level position with higher than average turn over and typically the lowest rung on the sales job ladder.  Could be home based, office based or outsourced to a 3^rd party call center.

Role:  Sometimes Farmer; Rarely Hunter/Farmer; Typical Hunter

 Hire for:  Hire a telemarketer if you have plenty of leads, you just need someone to call them.  Hire this person to do simple product driven sales, call to set appointment, research, sales or service add-on’s, follow up or act in a supporting sales role or layer of marketing for a larger sales organization.

 

Inside Sales – Home based or office based sales professional of entry or mid-level career experience.

Role:  Typically Farmer; Sometimes Hunter/Farmer; Rarely Hunter

 Hire for:  Hire a person for this role as a training ground to develop future outside sales professionals.  Hire a person in this role to assist an outside sales team, cold call, develop leads, manage an existing client base, develop proposals, do sales follow up calls, or as your primary selling organization if you do not need to build strong client relations or an outside sales presence.  In many instances this role is blended with aspects of telemarketing.

 

Account Manager/Executive – Like the Inside Sales Representative, typically home based or office based sales professional of entry or mid-level career experience with minimal to no activities supporting other sales teams.

 Role:  Typically Farmer; Sometimes Hunter/Farmer; Sometimes Hunter

  Hire for:  Hire for this role if you need someone to manage all aspects of the sales process that can be accomplished bound to a desk.  A person in this role can work in support of an outside account manager(s), or be your primary sales weapon if you product or services can be sold without the need for an outside sales presence.

    

Account Manager/Executive – Outside Sales – Like the Account Manager, except working a defined territory, visiting a prospects place of business.  Typically mid to senior level experience.

 Role:  Sometimes Farmer; Sometimes Hunter/Farmer; Often Hunter

 Hire for:  Hire for this role if you need someone to engage with your client at their place of business, at networking events, seminars, trade shows or other external promotional events.  The person engaged in this role is typically a hunter.  In many cases these individuals are responsible for finding their own leads, sometimes this role is supported by an Inside Account Manager or Inside Sales person.  Sometimes leads for this individual are driven by Telemarketers as well.

 

 Business Development Executive – Can be another name for an Inside/Outside Account Manager but is a title typically reserved for those engaged in activities beyond selling a set product to a set market.  Typically mid career to senior level experience.

 Role:  Rarely Farmer; Sometimes Hunter/Farmer; Often Hunter 

Hire for:  Hire for this role if you need someone to create new lines of business, new markets for existing products, new applications for existing products or new partnership opportunities.  As with an Outside Account Manager, in many cases these individuals are responsible for finding their own leads and are sometimes supported by an inside sales staff. 

 

Sales Overlay/Subject Matter Expert – Role typically defined as a single product champion within a multi- product sales organization.  Typically mid to senior level experience.

 Role:  Specialist; Supporting Hunter/Farmer

 Hire for:  Hire for this role if you need to focus attention on one product line, if one product line is vastly more complex or difficult to sell than other offerings, or if there are too many products for your primary sales organization to promote consistently.

 

Sales Engineer/Subject Matter Technical Expert – Role

 Role:  Specialist; Supporting Hunter/Farmer 

Hire for:  Hire someone for this position if your sales cycle involves engaging with customer side technical teams to discuss technical aspects that are beyond the depth of what you expect your traditional sales team to address.

 

Sales Manager – Role responsible for managing single or multiple teams of the sales professionals comprised of one or multiple sales roles.

 Role:  Primarily Manager, Sometimes Farmer; Sometimes Hunter/Farmer; Rarely Hunter

 Hire for:  Hire someone for this role to manage an existing sales team, hire, train, develop, coach, motivate, teach, possibly set compensation models, manage forecasts and pipeline activity, possibly set strategy and marketing direction.

 

 Director of Sales – Role responsible for managing multiple sales managers within an organization.  Can set overall strategy and tactics 

Role:  Manager

 

 VP of Sales/Business Development – Title is in some cases interchangeable with Director of Sales.  Can manage multiple business units, sales directors, and sales management teams. 

 Role:  Manager

 Hire for:  Executive level position providing front line sales experiences with executive management team.  Sets overall sales strategy and company targets for the entire sales organization.

 

—

The title or role of the sales professional is only one aspect you need to keep in mind when hiring the right sales professional for your organization.  Just make sure you understand the sales role you need to fill so you can identify the sales qualities you need to look for in your interview process.

 If you have a question, ask.  If you need a little more assistance, email me at val @ saleslaundry.com

Image courtesy of  http://stillhiring.ie

I got this email today from one of the LinkedIn groups I am associated with trying to sell me outsourced services for my business.  I opened it up, read the first three lines and deleted it.

 Then I decided to pull it back out and see if I could improve on the efforts of the original sales person and make a sales lesson out of it.  I am ignoring the spelling/gramatical mistakes as I am not an English teacher, I am a VP of Business Development.  The names have been changed to protect the sales or marketing knucklehead that wrote it. 

 

The Original – feel free to skip ahead as I could not get past the first 3 lines of this email on my first pass.

 HEADLINE: For Possible Business Collaboration / Oppurtunities

 Dear Mr.Val, 

I represent ABC Company, an offshore based services outsourcing Organization. We help our world-wide clients with our outsourced services such as;

Global HR Services – All Technologies, All Business Domains, All Business skills, At all levels of expertise & Knowledge.
- Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO),
- Worldwide Contractor staffing – Offshore/Remotely working resources/Onsite resources
- Online/Remote/Onsite Training & Development -Technology & non Technology training, e-learning courses development & Administration, Monitoring & Managing Training needs etc.
- Payroll Processing
- Employee records maintenance, & verifications
- Travel &, Accommodation
- HR policies & strategies
- Market /Competitor research
- Employees Compensation & Benefits
- Performance Appraisals processing, Administration & Management.

In addition, ABC Company helps worldwide organizations in the following areas;
1. Information Technology services (IT solutions development, customization, integration, Migration, upgrading, Implementation, Maintenance, Support etc. – All Technologies & Business Domains

2. Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO services – (a) Engineering – Mechanical, Civil, Architectural, structural b) Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO – all skills) c) Technical Writing & Communications d) Remote infrastructure Management (RIM – Monitoring & Managing any IT resources remotely, Technical Help desk, Systems & Database Administration, support, e) Animation, 2D, 3D modeling etc.)

3. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO – Document processing, Data entry, help desk, Data analytics, Data/market/IP research, Billing, verifications, Transcriptions etc, Outbound/Inbound Calling services etc – All Business domains and skills)

4. Bioinformatics (Contract/Collaborative Research & Development, Consulting, Life Sciences Software Applications & Tools, Data Mining/Data Analysis, Data & Applications Integration. Clinical Trial I/Medical informatics, LIMS, Internet/Intranet Applications, Multimedia & Virtual Reality Applications, Education & Training)

We have seen the following benefits accruing to our clients from our services;

1. We have a large team of highly qualified, experienced, talented, efficient, young and enthusiastic resources to support your organization in any of the areas shown above.
2. Our teams work as an extended team of onsite teams of our customers, thereby adding more strength and bandwidth and increase your teams’ skills and servicing capabilities.
3. Our resources can work on a 24x7x365 basis; our turn-around time for our service is very short. In most cases, the output will be in your inbox when you reach office the next day morning
4. We help our customers in cost savings of as much as 30-60% on case to case basis
5. We can provide our resources in good numbers at a short notice, and quickly ramp-up to meet your business needs.
6. Our clients save the hassles of constantly searching around for resources, every time, a task needs to be accomplished.
7. Our teams bring to the table, a very strong technical & English Communication (verbal & written) skills, highly professional & helping attitude, business ethics, services delivery expertise & commitment

I would be very glad to know, if ABC Company can be of any help and support to your organization or any of your client organizations, in any of the areas shown above please. I appreciate your time.

My Version

HEADLINE:  Are You Running Your Business or is Your Business Burying You?

 ABC Company helped me save my business!  ABC helped me identify why my operations costs were increasing even as our sales were slowing down.  ABC handles the backend of my operation so I can focus on bringing in new sales.

 Jay Richards, JR Enterprises (VIDEO CLIP:  Jay talks about ABC Company)

 Val,

Imagine I gave you a magic wand that let you eliminate every aspect of your business that you don’t enjoy, or that just seems to take your focus away from the things you feel you need to be doing.

 How much better would your business be if you enjoyed everything you did and had the time to focus on growing your business?

 What could you do if all of that extra weight was lifted off your shoulders?

 My name is Val King and I specialize in helping guys like you offload all the excessive weight that keeps your business from soaring.

 It is not magic, though, it’s our business. 

 Here are the Top 5 things our customers typically ask us to offload for them.

 Human Resources.

Payroll.

Insurance & Benefits Programs.

IT Services & Help Desk.

Billing & Collections.

Call me at 800-xxx-xxxx and let’s identify the Top 5 things weighing down your business.

If it makes sense, I will offload your Top 5 list for Free for a few weeks so you can experience our brand of magic and experience the impact you can have on your business once that excess weight is gone.

Val 

 ABC Company manages all of the time consuming aspects of my business that I hated.  Our business is growing again and I spend my days doing what I love.  Thanks ABC.

 Dave Johnson, Johnson Medical (VIDEO CLIP:  Dave talks about ABC Company)

LESSONS LEARNED

The original email reads like a laundry list, these guys are into everything from 3d animation to Life Sciences and Bioinformatics.  They list a lot of capabilities but this sales guy has no idea what my problems are, so he just lists everything they do in this email to make sure they cover every sales base possible.

LESSON:  Research your customer and avoid firing a shotgun email like this one.  Narrow your focus to what you are absolutely best at. 

The intent of this extensive list of services is to show me that they can help me in many different areas of my business with a huge stack of sales offerings and services.  However, I read this feeling that they could not possibly do all of this well.  I have no way of knowing which sales offering is their strongest, nor do I want to take the necessary time it would take to figure it out, so my instinct is to hit the delete key.

LESSON:  Avoid the temptation to send out a laundry list disguised as a marketing email.  It weakens your message and erodes some of your credibility.

The original email establishes no credibility for this company.  I have never heard of them and the only person telling me how great they are is the sales guy.

LESSON:  If the only person saying your company is good is the sales person then no one is saying anything good about your company as far as I am concerned as a customer.  Use legitimate references I can call or for a bigger bang for the buck, use video references I can watch.

There is no tie to what any of these services do for me, the guy that is supposed to pay for this fabulous service.  The sales professional should paint some sort of picture of how my life as the business owner or how my company might be better if I just offload this stuff to them.

LESSON:  It is your job as the salesperson or as the organization sending the email to explain to me how I will benefit from your product.  If you don’t make that connection, don’t expect me to respond.

There is too much text in this flippin’ email (and probably this post.)  The text is small, there are acronyms all over the place (RPO, KPO, LPO, RIM, and LIMS.)

LESSON:  Be as short and concise as possible as you are imposing on my time with your email and use language that is plain and free from industry jargon.

They use the work “all” eight times in the email.  Example:  ”Global HR – ALL Technologies, ALL Business Skills, at ALL levels of experience and knowledge”

LESSON:  Horsefeathers.  I don’t believe it.  I will delete it.  

There are 7 stated benefits for me the customer.  Some are ridiculous adjective fests…

Benefit 1:  Large team that is highly qualified, experienced, talented, effiecient, enthusiastic and as if that was not enough they are also described as being young.  I don’t know about you, but I feel better already. 

Some are not benefits to me at all; they are minimum standards like…

Benefit 7:  Our teams bring very strong technical and English communication skills.  

LESSON:  It is only a benefit if it benefits me.  Write your email as if you are standing in my shoes, not trying to talk me out of them.

This was the closing line.  “I would be very glad to know if ABC Company can be of any help and support to your organization…in any of the areas shown above…  I appreciate your time.”

When I read this closing line what I get out of this email and what the salesman wants me to get out of this email are clearly two different things.  I am sure the salesman would like me to look at the list like some sort of ala carte menu, make a few selections and get back to him so he can work up a quote.

What I read is that the salesman at ABC Company is too lazy to figure out what my business is or what I do all day.  He has effectively hit me with a list of SIC codes and a Scan-Tron asking me to color in the little circle next to my selection with a #2 pencil and get back to him.

LESSON:  Figure out what I need to buy before you try to sell me something.  It seems to work better that way.  If you are going to be lazy and not do the research then don’t send the email at all.

 

Got a suggestion of your own to improve on my improvement?  See another lesson here worth covering?  Add a comment.

“Cleaverly disguided” photo – courtesy of  http://rlv.zcache.com

“English photo” courtesy of - http://www.flickr.com/photos/40741986@N00/399082864

“2 shoes” photo – courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/conqenator/2952567054/ 

Q&A’s are excerpts of questions I have answered as part of Sales Laundry or other forums that I am apart of.  If there is a relevant sales message for the masses I post it here to share, gather feedback and discuss.

Q:  What is the best way to keep a (commercial printing) salesperson engaged and motivated during these tough times?

  A:  A small dose of Progress taken daily can wipe out a whole room full of “it’s hopeless.” Retreat as needed.

 

I approach it like the old adage “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” 

I don’t want my team focused on the big picture Armageddon talk with all of the accompanying noise. Quite the opposite, I want them focused, and therefore engaged on what they need to do each day to keep methodically working toward their goal. 

One other thought.  How about creating some of your own print business?

 

I don’t know what objections your sales guys are getting, but I assume one of them is “we don’t have the money right now.”

 If you have several small businesses that don’t have the budget to print flyers or marketing materials, but need the exposure, maybe you can bring a different value add.

 Maybe you can solve a larger problem for your customer that will allow them to take advantage of your services.

 Maybe your sales guys, with a database full of local contacts, can help out the small business community by developing a single marketing piece that features a few companies that are not direct competitors and have a similar target market. 

 The result could be that the small business gets the marketing they need, at a price they can afford, you have a new unique product, your guys get paid, and you can keep the presses running.