Articles
Sixteen ways to win big at botching marketing and sales
by John GrahamIt didn’t take long for the list in the “Botching Marketing
and Sales” computer file to fill up. It seemed to happen overnight,
almost. Looking through the various items, it became clear why companies
wait for a rising economic tide to lift their sales. If left to their own
devices, it would be straight downhill.
A case can be built for the view that we’re more proficient at destroying
sales than we are in making them, more effective at sending the wrong messages
to customers and prospects than the right ones.
Here’s how to botch an organization’s marketing and sales efforts.
Each example comes from “the real world.” How many marketing mistakes
does it take to sink the ship? In some cases, only one. In others, a combination
of three or four is necessary before the bow disappears beneath the waves.
• Keep everything to yourself. Most B2B advertising
is all about products, products, products. Is this what customers are looking
for? One company ran ads featuring the expertise of individual salespeople.
It was called “Champions in the Field.”
Even competitors were talking about the ads and the impact on customers was direct
and dramatic. The ads weren’t about relationships based on ballgames and
golf outings. They focused on the value the company’s salespeople bring
to meeting customer objectives. Lesson: customers should demand salespeople who
know something, not who hand out freebies.
• Tell it all. The more desperate we are to make
sales, the more words we use. We load up email bulletins, email, ads, and
direct mail with as many words as we can jam into the space.
Yet, each of us knows that we flip right past ads, emails and direct mail that
are word heavy. Simple, clear and direct wins. Keep it simple and sell.
• Ignore stupidity. Stupid ideas seem to have a
life of their own. Here’s an example: “No letter should be
longer than one page” is at the top of the list. How many times have
we heard this mantra? Who said so? Where’s the evidence? A great
letter is as long as it needs to be to tell the story. If it takes eight
pages, so be it. If it takes three paragraphs, that’s the right length.
Is it so difficult to understand that what you say and how you say it is
more important than the length?
• Use down-the-hall decision-making. There’s a difference
between collegiality and being gutless. Collegiality suggests that you listen
to a variety of ideas and suggestions and then make a decision that best meets
your objectives. Gutless means walking down the hall getting everyone’s
“opinion” and then coming up with a compromise that keeps colleagues
happy but emasculates the program.
• Keep ’em in the dark. Nothing is perfect. This
goes for products and services (as well as people). For some reason, we
think that customers will turn us down if we tell the truth. They won’t
buy what we’re selling if we admit to flaws. How totally stupid.
Every product and service is evaluated to death on some Web site somewhere.
Why not be upfront and admit to limitations and then emphasize where the
product or service excels? Customers are more likely to believe the latter
if you include the former. Revealing the dark side can let in a little
light.
• Get serious. A little humor doesn’t diminish
what you do or sell. Flip through most business publications and the ads
are painfully dour and quite depressing. Then ask yourself, “Which
consumer ads get my attention?” The answer is obvious––those
with humor. Business is serious enough these days without acting so serious
about everything. Perhaps a sales pitch with a little ham might help make
a few more sales.
•
Avoid the facts at all cost. Businesses can be quite efficient
at ignoring facts.
Marketers are forced to fight for market research dollars. They know that what
you don’t know can hurt you.
Those who assume they know how to hit the target generally wind up shooting themselves
in the foot or someplace a little higher.
• Don’t worry about the outcome. What’s missing in
most sales contests, PR programs, promotions, direct mail campaigns and just
about everything else we dream up? It’s the outcome.
We start with what we think is a fantastically clever little idea and get so
excited about it that we ignore what it can accomplish. For example, we wonder
why a six-month sales contest with a great payoff for the winners peters out
in six weeks. Why didn’t we bother to ask the sales staff what they would
get behind? Don’t want to do that. Then it wouldn’t be our idea.
• Play ‘follow the ignorant.’ From all
indications, we’re terrified by new ideas. We run from them. But
we are quick to pick up on what others are doing––even though
there’s no proof that they work.
For example, what do companies say makes them great? “Our people and our
service.” That’s interesting since we are laying off the former and
cutting back on the latter.
The need today is to be smart enough to know what’s going to give the customer
the edge. That takes brains.
• Stay wimpy. Experience is a terrible teacher when
it comes to expressing ideas. We learn to shut up, lest someone takes offense.
Then we learn to equivocate. Someone must offer courses in “How to
Say Nothing Successfully.”
Don’t hide behind hedging. The ability to put your ideas on the line, clearly
and accurately, is a necessity. Asking questions that challenge the status quo
is a necessity for survival today.
After World War II, history reveals that the Ford Motor Company was near death.
Old Henry had surrounded himself with a coterie of self-serving sycophants. They
all just about went over the edge together. Is this what happened with Challenger?
• Deceive whenever possible. We may be enigmas to
ourselves, but not to others. They figure us out. The company executive
who mouths “quality customer service” but who cuts service
budgets is only kidding himself.
When it comes to selling, it’s time to get rid of the phony titles: Customer
Consultant, Systems Engineer, Financial Advisor and all the other euphemisms
we dream up to try to cover up the fact that we’re selling something. Why
be bashful about being a salesperson? If you’re good at it, it won’t
matter. If you’re not, it won’t help.
• Thinking makes it so. No wonder we can’t think. Our minds
get clogged with all sorts of junk. Ultra-popular self-help books are a good
place to start. What we really need to do is help ourselves. Yet, that’s
exactly what we avoid. For example, we are told to say,
“I’m wonderful.” “I can do it.” “There’s
nothing stopping me.” “I am the best.” This isn’t
just nonsense; it’s a lie. Do I become an educated person by saying,
“I’m educated”? Do I become competent by listening to
a tape? The joke’s on me.
The truth is simple: The solution to just about any problem is hard work, extra
hours, doing more, sticking with it, taking on challenges, coming up with creative
ideas.
• We’re not wearing clothes, either. Are the
decisions we make and what we do really for the customer’s benefit?
We install the latest telecommunications equipment. Why? To make it easier
for customers or for our operation? For their convenience or ours?
While we can try to convince ourselves that it’s all about the customer
and wrap the package in a term such as “customer care,” the customer
isn’t deceived. The strategy is painfully transparent to everyone but ourselves.
When you go to amazon.com, you get the feeling that someone is really thinking
about you.
• Stay all wrapped up in ourselves. It’s difficult
to be sure––so difficult in fact that most of us never make
it. Perhaps one way to define brilliance is being able to escape from self-captivity.
An experienced marketer can tell who wrote a letter, ad, brochure, email
bulletin or just about any other form of communication.
“How so?” you ask. Simple, actually.
If the focus is on “what we can do for you” or “how great we
are” or “how fabulous is our product,” guess who wrote the
copy? That’s right. Chances are a letter or press release with the words “We’re
excited to announce…” was written by someone who has never figured
out that the only acceptable goal is to get the customer excited. Simply
put, it’s not about us; it’s about them. Get unwrapped because
no one cares if either you or your company is excited.
• Never be candid. We become so careful to “scrub” every
word we utter, making sure we don’t offend anyone by taking a stand.
We’re mostly a generation of communication eunuchs. It isn’t
only that we communicate poorly; we don’t communicate at all. We
have nothing to say and never take a position. Couch everything in “yes,
but.” Is it any wonder that no one listens to us or takes us seriously?
•
Forget about knowing anything. If there’s one unbreakable
rule, here it is: If you can’t write it, you don’t know it.
The surefire way to detect ignorance and confused thinking is to ask someone
to write out their ideas. There’s nothing wrong with not knowing,
but there is everything wrong with not knowing we don’t know.
Nothing wastes more time and money than assuming we know.
As you can see, the file folder is full. If we really are committed to meeting
customer needs and making a success of selling products and services, we’re
making it awfully difficult on ourselves.
John R. Graham is president of Graham Communications, a marketing services and sales consulting firm. He is the author of The New Magnet Marketing and Break the Rules Selling, writes for a variety of business publications, and speaks on business, marketing and sales issues. Contact him at 40 Oval Road, Quincy, MA 02170; 617-328-0069; jgraham@grahamcomm.com.