Casual Thought Friday… at what point do you need outside help to improve your performance?
A friend of mine recently tried to help fix my golf swing in the middle of our round. I’m no Tiger Woods, but on that day I was more like Charles Barkley. And in the middle of the game the advice of others seems to be readily available in hindsight and rarely sought at the opportune moment.
The pearl of wisdom was not to work with the clubhouse professional to get better results; it was why I needed outside help…
“You can’t fix your swing by yourself because you are part of the problem.”
Great companies refine their strengths and outsource their weaknesses. The ability to create value (your relevance to the customer) should be the strength of your sales strategy. Your weakness will be figuring out how to integrate social media and remove the antiquated sales pitch from your marketing. Accepting this is the first step in the best direction.
Ask a respected professional for an honest assessment of your 2010 business development plan. Because it will be an extremely competitive year, and you will need to change something to improve your sales performance. There are no mulligans.
Casual Thought Friday… how relevant is cold calling in today’s B2B Sales Strategy?
Results would indicate it is about or less effective than direct mail, which puts it around 4% effective at best. Of course there are amazing success stories, and yours truly has had more than a few. But the cold hard fact is you won’t be able to grow your business in 2010 or beyond without a marketing plan that supports dialing for dollars.
As for scripting the call, this is not the time to tell your story or cite your brochure. If there was a Biz Dev bible, it would say cold calling is about as relevant as your ability to create value (give me a reason to care) in 30 seconds or less. The person on the other end of the phone has other priorities, so out of consideration you should be able to deliver your best message in this time frame. And this also includes leaving a voicemail.
If you are lucky enough to spend more than 5 minutes on the phone, then hopefully you took advantage of the time to let them talk. The more you know the better, because you want to pitch big picture vision at the C level and sell at the influential level.
The objective of a cold call is a warmer introduction. Close the call with a “first date” invite or find out if they are attending any networking events in the near future. You don’t need a login and password to be social. The handshake may be old school, but all new business relationships begin face to face.
The Organizational Framework is an HR doctrine, but there is definitely a crossover in how the framework identifies a company’s behavior and their decision-making process.
As marketers (and B2B salespeople), we must take into consideration not only who we are pitching and at what level, but will our idea make sense to the client? While these are generalizations, a company will fit into one of these 4 Frameworks:
Structural (Intel, Microsoft, Bank of America)
• Central Concepts: rules, roles, goals, policies, technology, environment
• Decision Process: Architecture
Human Resource (Stumptown Coffee, New Seasons, Southwest Airlines)
• Central Concepts: needs, skills, relationships
• Decision Process: Empowerment
Political (Universities, Municipalities, Non-profits and Associations)
• Central Concepts: power, conflict, competition, organizational politics
• Decision Process: Advocacy
Next time the sales team meets to discuss pipeline reports and opportunity assessments, test the relevance of your company’s proposal against the Top 10 prospects and their framework. Because if you are pitching Nike it better be dynamic, and that is distinctly different from pitching Intel, who wants to see case study ROI.
Part Three: Selling Change to the Structural Company
It is almost July and soon there will be CTJ meetings to discuss sales, or lack of them. The business world around you has been rapidly changing over the past 6 months—how can you expect better results anytime soon if you don’t change now?
The truth is… it is not the economy. Your marketing sucks.
Example: GM was in trouble long before the economy went south and they did nothing about it. The media ads running up to day they filed for bankruptcy were the same ineffective ads they’ve been running for decades.
• Sexy images of a new car in the showroom or hugging a turn
• Spokespeople touting “special pricing… act now” calls to action
• Bottom line numbers with an asterisk* that nobody understands
One of the biggest companies in America failed because they grew disconnected with the car buying audience and continued to make products 4 years past their relevance. And they could have sold off inventory if their marketing spoke to people with a greater understanding of their shared situation.
Everyone is looking for a deal and they don’t care if your company is making money. And they still want customer service, environmental ethics and quality guarantees. If you are ill prepared for this (either your B2B Sales Strategy or B2C Marketing Strategy), then something needs to change if you plan on being in business next year.
In the spirit of doing things differently, Relevant Chews is presenting an Eight Part series on “Selling Change.” This marketing insight could be used internally or to pitch new clients, and the business you save might be your own.
