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A Guide to Marketing and Sales Success in 2008

The sun has been rising on a new day in marketing and sales and that day is here. The most important issue is to get through our heads, once and for all, that buyers are in charge. If we make them an offer, it had better be one they want. It’s their vote that counts. Apple abruptly changed its iPhone sales strategy two months out because of consumer demand, by dropping the price on the high-end model and doing away with a lower-priced one.

Gimmicks are out, too. Someone sold General Motors on the idea that “green” marketing and an “alternative fuels” promotion would help change their diminished fortunes. Yet a recent Ipsos Reid study conducted for Icynene indicates that 75% of men and 65% of women believe that labeling a product “green” is a marketing tactic. In other words, “green” comes across as just another gimmick.

There are other critical issues that can spell the difference between success and failure in the year ahead:

1. Pour on the education. Communicating knowledge is at the top of the list. Without question, the Internet has changed buyers, buyers of everything from toothpaste to tools, from cars to canteens. Even those who know this because they do it go brain dead if they are the ones doing the marketing and the sales. They still want to talk about their company or their products.

Recently, the head of an educational organization, a bright person with a Ph.D., was heard to say, “We’re different from others.” That may be understood internally, but they make no attempt to engage prospects with the institution’s uniqueness.

What customers want is to look, learn and think. That’s what pulls them to you; just the opposite of attempting to sell them. That’s why every company can benefit from having a KHO, a Kill the Hype Officer with the authority to get rid of the words and pictures that stand between the company and the customers, including the power to censor what the CEO says.

Here’s the rule: if it educates the customer, pour it on; if not, kill it.

2. Forget about getting through the door. No one wants to see a salesperson. If this sounds harsh and even brash, it’s meant to be exactly that. Let’s face it once and for all: if someone wants to see you, they will get in touch with you! That’s the way it is.

“Today, the computer, the Internet, and broadband access allow consumers to find what they want when they want it. You’re not in control any more,” writes Larry Weber in Marketing to the Social Web. This also applies to business-to-business buyers and not just consumers.

Salespeople like to feel they are in control when it comes to customers. Not any more. That attitude leads to trouble today. It’s off-putting. Customers set the agenda, not the salesperson.

If prospects are not contacting you, that should be a red flag. It means you’re not on their radar screen and you’d better get there fast.

3. Don’t even think about contacting a prospect until you know everything about them. If you say the purpose of a meeting is to gather information about the prospect, forget it. That’s the way it was done; not the way it’s done now.

Customers are willing to spend their time educating salespeople. There’s no reason why they should. Finding out about prospects is easy. Just about anything you want to know is readily available on the Internet.

Any adept salesperson willing to invest the time can learn almost everything about a company, including its issues and opportunities. This background builds the salesperson’s confidence when a meeting takes place and makes it so the “first meeting” is a dialogue for interacting with the prospect in ways that convey competence and understanding.

4. Avoid pressing for buying decisions. Salespeople lose control of the sale when they press for a buying decision. There’s no place for tactics that are meant to force customers to place an order.

“We have the hottest product on the AM dial,” said the sales rep. “I doubt that slot will be available for more than a week. We’re already 50 percent sold out.” On another call a short time later, the same salesperson said to the marketing executive, “When do you think your client will make a decision? This is not going to be around long.”

Salespeople need to learn that pushing for a decision has a negative effect. It only pushes buyers away and even encourages them to pursue other possibilities.

That being said, what’s a salesperson to do? Ask the prospect if it’s acceptable to stay in touch (remember, it’s all about opt-in), encourage the prospect to contact you with questions and provide additional useful information (not hype). In other words, build a relationship of reliability.

5. Take charge of your prospects. It may be something of an exaggeration, but the number of salespeople with a “prospect plan” can be counted on the fingers of one hand. One of them is Richard B. Lockwood, III, Senior Vice President of Bankers’ Bank Northeast, a position he has held since this bank that serves community banks opened a decade ago.

Richard knows his customers. With an average 21-month buying cycle, he actively manages hundreds of prospective sales. Some are first-time sales, but most are presentations he has made for particular services.

What makes Richard unique is his understanding that the decision making process at banks is often lengthy. A banker may be interested in a product, but there are other priorities at the moment or the planning process to implement the product or service may be more than a year away.

If anyone questions one person’s ability to manage a larger number of prospects over an extended period, they can learn from Richard Lockwood. No one should be surprised that he receives calls from bankers who say, “Well, we’re ready to go.” Few, if any, do a better job tending to prospects over the long term.

When he was out sick for six months, his sales record during this time was remarkable. He had kept his prospect pipeline full and when the right moment arrived, the sale was consummated even though he was away from the job.

6. Stay glued to the customer. This is the ultimate issue. Anyone who has watched TV recently knows the “HeadOn, apply directly to the forehead” commercial. Whatever you might think about this rather abrasive, home video type commercial, product sales climbed more than 200%.

In spite of its success with consumers, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams eulogized it as “the most annoying ad on television,” a statement that says more about the state of broadcast news than it does about the commercial.

Of course the commercial was a success. It jumped out at viewers from all the fantasy fare (including the news) found on TV. For once, viewers were given a dose of real relief. No fictitious fluttering butterflies or adolescent dreams of endless lovemaking. There was a reason Brian Williams got it wrong––he didn’t understand it. This was the most successful ad on television because it was perceived as genuine, a lesson every marketer and salesperson should take to heart. A heads up from HeadOn.

All this suggests that the opportunities for innovation, creativity and success in marketing and sales lie ahead if, and only if, we recognize that our goals and what we want to accomplish must be pushed aside so we can be free to connect with customers.

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 topics for company and association meetings. He is the winner of an APEX Grand Award in writing and the only two-time recipient of the Door & Hardware Institute’s Ryan Award in Business Writing. He can be contacted at 40 Oval Road, Quincy, MA 02170 (617-328-0069; fax 617-471-1504); j_graham@grahamcomm.com. The company's web site is grahamcomm.com.