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Sixteen ways to win big at botching
marketing and sales
by John Graham
It 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.
© 2004 Graham Communications
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John R. Graham is president of Graham Communications,
a marketing services and sales consulting firm. Mr. Graham is the
author of four books on marketing and sales, including Break the Rules
Selling: Success Strategies that Beat the Competition (Superior Books).
Mr. Graham writes for a variety of marketing and sales columns for
business and trade publications and he presents his Magnet Power presentations
at company and association meetings. He can be contacted at 40 Oval
Rd., Quincy, MA 02170; by telephone at 617-328-0069; by fax at 617-471-1504;
or by email at j_graham@grahamcomm.com. The web site is grahamcomm.com. |
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