We all have fears when thinking of refreshing our marketing – time, cost, ROI…

But from time to time, we hear this nugget…

“We don’t want our competitors to see our ideas”.

Sort of valid, but guess what?!

If they can’t see them, your prospects can’t either…

Like it or not, the majority of your potential clients are online, researching and gathering ideas before you’re even on a shortlist.

Let us give you an example of what we mean…

Why your celebrity chef is rich and famous

Anthill Online stirred a discussion recently on “why is your celebrity chef rich and famous?”. We could think of no better example to illustrate our point…

The answer?

They give away their recipes – their tips and their personal advice. Their IP!

The chefs that do this are well known, and highly paid. Think Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson…

Not interested in becoming a celebrity chef?

Doesn’t matter.

The lesson here is that the people who do this inspire their audience. They break down how they do their best work. They empower their audience to think they can do it too…

What happens? Are you out of a job?

Certainly not. What you have won is their trust. They know you can do it and trust you’re the expert. They’ve tried it themselves and know they need a professional.

We’ve seen many try DIY Social Media before they understand how hard it is to get a result. How many years it takes to learn from your mistakes and get a kick-ass strategy.

Sure, the tyre-kickers will make do with a subpar, makeshift solution they’ve done themselves. But who wants them as clients anyway?

Elevator pitches are like Chinese whispers…

Elevator pitches are like Chinese whispers; unless it’s compelling, it won’t be memorable.

Can you imagine that we used to try to explain our complex range of services in one sentence?? Something like…

“We use SEO, direct marketing via LinkedIn, Google AdWords, snail mail, copywriting and much more to help you get new clients.”

Would usually be remembered as:

“They use Google AdWords and some other stuff I don’t understand.”

Focus on their core fears and desires

Recently we went through a huge clarification with our PR advisors Cannings…after a round of pretend media interviews, they said to us “so really what you do is shorten the sales cycle”. It just confused things when we tried to explain the tools we use. Our clients only care about the end result of our work – new clients!

The core lesson?

You can’t evaluate your own elevator pitch – often you need someone outside the business to tell you it sucks and why.

You’re in the business. You understand everything you do. Somewhere along the way you forget that prospects need to be told very simply how you’ll benefit them, not what you do.

Once you’ve got that right, THEN your web copy, newsletters and sales team will start resonating.

7 words or less – First Wednesday Workshop

Come along on March 7th to workshop your elevator pitch with a great business audience to challenge and contribute. See more details and register here…

Someone’s always announcing the death of something or other. But this time it’s something to get excited about.

With information so readily accessible, it’s a given that Google is the first point of call when buying anything – particularly B2B services. We can research so quickly now, and get a good understanding of what our options are.

So what happens when you simply have a brochure website, with little information and no way to interact?

The small amount of prospects that actually do find your website may be interested but still have little knowledge of what you do. What your promise to them is. And how you differ from other companies.

The result?

You now need to do lots of HEAVY LIFTING. Make concessions. Sell hard. Cut the price. Perhaps take on work that isn’t ideal.

Turning your prospects into clients before you sell to them.

What?! This is turning sales on its head. The heavy lifting is done before they come to you. And leads to a new definition of selling.

In the information age, it’s possible to reduce your sales calls, to shorten your sales cycle. To turn your prospects into clients before they come to you. That’s the beauty of having a content strategy, and a process of reaching out that gathers all your best prospects together. In one place.

We experienced this just yesterday – we met up with a CEO who received an invite to a LinkedIn Group of ours…he asked us for the meeting. When asked what we do, we simply said “well, our LinkedIn work got you here, that’s what we do for our clients”. No further selling was required; we were already positioned as the experts.

And, just for reference, here are the new definitions of selling….

Buying: Willingly acquiring something you need, with your selection usually based on the recommendation of others. You generally finish the transaction feeling satisfied. Maybe even happy.

You only want ‘buyers’. Who has time for tyre kickers?

Selling: Attempting to convince someone they need your service even though they may not. The purchaser often leaves the transaction with buyer’s remorse. Was I oversold? Did I do enough research to compare suppliers?

Buying starts with them picking up the phone and asking to meet. When they do, who has the power?

There are 6 reasons why cold calling doesn’t work in today’s world:

1. Even the most ardent fan of cold calling would admit it’s less effective than it used to be.

Everyone’s tolerance of being interrupted whether by phone or by email is falling – there’s too much of it because it’s so easy with all the new technologies. So there is too much interruption, but increasingly we have the ability to filter it out. And busy, successful people do just that. Filter it.

2. Cold calling positions you as a supplicant in B2B sales

Anyone who sells anything knows one truth in their guts:

You must come across as not needing their business – and that you are ready to walk away at any time; that you have options.

But when a prospect receives a cold call from you, you are demonstrating the complete opposite – that you need their business.  At the same time you convey that you are not busy; that you don’t have anything more important to do than ‘smile and dial’.

So are you calling random prospects? You come across as needy and desperate. And every time you make a call, you do a little damage to your brand, to your positioning as a successful expert.

Here’s something no-one can argue with: People with power cannot be reached by phone. Have you tried calling Gates or Obama or Winfrey recently? Gurus don’t have their mobile numbers on their business cards. And if they mistakenly do, they certainly don’t say “call me anytime, day or night. I’m there, just awaiting your call”.

3. Cold calling won’t find what we all want: Qualified leads

How could it? It is not what cold calling is designed to do. It’s a numbers game; a random numbers game.

And a large and growing proportion of buyers are like me: we don’t take unsolicited sales calls – ever.

Because it’s now so easy to do research, most of us know we can find what we need via Google when we need it, so we don’t need to be interrupted. And, most importantly, we can dig out the sellers who are well regarded from our networks; who come well recommended with lots of (meaningful) testimonials.

4. It limits your results and wastes valuable time

In the Social Networking Age we all have the ability to leverage our time (our scarce and valuable B2B sales time) using all the amazing new connection and engagement tools.

The problem is cold calling allows you to be in only one place at one time. Making one phone call or opening one door. So your results are strictly finite. There is no leverage in this one-by-one approach.

On the other hand, leveraging Social Networks and other New Media allows you to be in many ‘places’ at one time.  Create the system and it can almost run itself if you have clear goals and a clear strategy. And the results are open ended, not finite. A good B2B sales system builds over time. Money spent is money invested, unlike cold calling where every day is a new day (and a day from hell!).

A sales system stops you from spending time with people who:

• Have no need for your product
• Might buy your product at some future but undetermined date
• Have just bought from a competitor
• And, god forbid, are already a customer! It happens if your CRM is out of date, and whose isn’t?? One of the benefits of Social Networking is that it’s your ‘self updating CRM’.

And over 90% of cold calls clearly fall into one or more of these categories. A truly sad call could cover all four!

5. Cold calling puts you in a negative light as a time waster

If there’s one thing that always annoys a busy, successful person, it’s wasting their time. And it is precisely the busy and successful who are your best prospects. But given it is unashamedly a numbers game, it has to be a waste of time for over 90% of those you call, because the calls are unqualified and unfocused.

Why risk starting on the bad side of 90% of your business prospects? People who otherwise might have bought from you?

6. Reason number 6, the big one: Sales people hate it!

The biggest reason for why it’s time to think again. Now, I worked in HR and career guidance for many years. The following is well known, backed up by serious of research:

Love what you do and success is likely

Hate it, and failure or ‘merely average’ performance is inevitable

So why choose failure by executing activities that you hate? Activity that in some companies has come to dominate BDMs’ valuable time as they plan the calls, make them, record them and finally prepare to justify to their Manager what they’ve done.  And, at best, sales people regard cold calling as a necessary evil. Unfortunately they and their bosses don’t know there is another way. In B2B sales it is a system that embeds LinkedIn amongst other online tools.

Overall, these are 6 compelling reasons to find a different approach to B2B sales. But let’s leave the last word to Albert Einstein – one of his most famous quotes, and incredibly apt when it comes to the dinosaurs of cold calling:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

It’s one thing to have an amazing product or service. The much bigger challenge is gathering and engaging with the large number of people who need it.

And with over 95% of Australian professionals online, businesses need marketing tools that allow them to capture a piece of this market.

However, many companies invest thousands of dollars in telemarketing or advertising to gain leads, and then struggle to follow through with the sales process. Especially those selling BtoB.

The B2B buying decision is different.

The problem is that the B2B sales funnel is complicated. The buying process is long, and you’ve got competitors. Lots. Credibility, trust and relationships are critical to make sales – a simple website or AdWords campaign won’t sell your services.

Here are 5 ways LinkedIn will shorten your sales cycle or reduce your sales costs.

1. It’s quick and easy to fill a big funnel – connecting with your prospects is a fairly simple process. Though on its own, connecting is meaningless. Treat it as what it is: a simple first step towards your goals. However what most people miss is having clear long term goals for LinkedIn – White Paper downloads, newsletter list, traffic, event registrations. This can all be done through your connections, or for more advanced users, the powerful LinkedIn Groups.
2. Easy to target the most valuable and get results – the ones that will change your business. Why? They can be easily searched. They have job titles. Location. Often some history. How does this rich information compare to buying one of those old school email lists?!
3. Your prospects come to you with all the “heavy lifting” done: use LinkedIn to position you as the expert. So you are on the front foot. Advising, not selling. And that sure cuts sales time and costs.
4. It’s a self-updating CRM – they update the records for you! And with a lot more information than you could ever collect or maintain.
5. Communicate easily once you have them in your funnel – and you can do it one-on-one or in bulk. Just don’t overdo the sales. Or your new connections will walk. We know we would if you start flogging stuff before you’ve earned the right.

We’ve been creating sales funnels on LinkedIn for quite a while now. Drop us a line if you want to learn how to do it in your business. It’s easier and way cheaper than you probably think.

Shortening the Sales Cycle – First Wednesday Workshops

In February we’ll be covering this topic in our First Wednesday workshop. Register here. We’ll have more details up in a few weeks.

Sarah Wooltorton

Cold newsletters = Frozen prospects. Don’t spam your prospects

Now, within 5 years 80% of them will vanish. And the 20% who survive will look nothing like they do now. ‘Social’ networking is changing their world forever.

How are they meeting the threat? Over 90% are rearranging the deckchairs: pretty new websites; working on their ‘positioning statements’ with high priced marketing consultants; and revamping their cash cow, education. Not realising the poor cow will soon be dead meat.

Why are they so blinkered? Well, associations were traditionally run by administrators and managers, hired for their organising and people skills. Not for their strategic thinking. So they only see the future in terms of fixing things that already exist.

But that’s old news, and is the topic of one of our articles in Fast Thinking.

A growing proportion of their CEOs are innovators, and will be in the 20% who survive as they are dynamically looking forward.

What will the association survivors be doing?

Smart ones will take advantage of social networking tools: powerful, free, global AND local. What does the future look like in this new and highly connected world?

No need for crystal balls here, associations will simply be using the technologies that already exist. Just using the tools to do what they are capable of, using them to their full potential. Here are some of the changes that are coming:

1. Associations will be much bigger, thousands of members, not hundreds.

The old State based organisations will vanish; and many of the sub-groups will vanish with them. For example there is just no need for 12 or more legal associations in little old Australia! State borders have been meaningless for a while. And national borders are getting very porous.

One example: A property development lawyer has more in common with one in the UK than she does with a lawyer working in family law in Australia.

2. Education programs, the cash cow of the bigger associations, are about to die.

The fatal blow will be from technology that is already here. Live video, webinars, online surveys, iPad apps, etc. There is room for one association to profit from this, perhaps 2 or 3, but not 12. A smaller number will be able to provide all the content at a fraction of the price of the old fashioned classroom/conference model. And deliver it at a time and to a place and on a device totally of our choosing. We the customer will choose.

Does anybody really believe that the Apps revolution is not going to revolutionise education?

Their biggest cash cow, the Annual Conference? Where we chooks all fly into one city at vast expense to attend a 2 day talk fest? Going the way of the Dodo, at least in its current form.

3. State-of-the-art software that is fully integrated

The backend will be organised seamlessly. The best software, well supported, used efficiently. Eliminate the thousands of admin staff who currently do all the back office work for all the associations.

4. Event software – free or virtually free.

Removes the biggest administrative expense and delivers so much more value and saving of members’ time than emails and phone calls could ever do. This on its own will have a huge impact on costs, including in the delivery of the new style education programs.

5. LinkedIn Groups – the big one.

The Groups can do much of what the association currently does, but for free. They can connect all the members nationally (and in some cases, globally). Then connect the local chapters, by city or in some cases, suburb. Then connect the members by industry. And by areas of special interest.

So an association might have 20 or even a 100 LinkedIn groups. All for members only, with each member being in multiple Groups for different needs.

And these Groups will deliver so much more than we can dream of – though some of us are already starting to deliver it. It’s just that first you have to think about the Groups very differently, and we have in the 14 we have built to date.

Will your association vanish? Can you help stop it?

Maybe you think Associations are peripheral. Or that they are somehow a special case because of what they do. Well, you’re wrong.

Every industry, particularly in BtoB, will be transformed by social networking. The only debate is how fast it will happen to yours.

Toby Marshall

The Future of Professional Associations – First Wednesday Workshop December 7th

We will be looking at the tsunami sweeping over this giant industry – the existing technologies that will totally transform them, and some that are coming over the horizon.

We’ll have some great boutique wines as always and some gourmet nibbles, hope to see you there!

On top of this, there always seems to be a shiny new marketing tool, the next silver bullet.

So we implement a few things, put up a Facebook page. But none of it seems to be working, and we’re not sure if it is.

We just want more clients!

But finding new clients requires pizzazz.

It starts with your marketing. Your outward projection on the world.

Word-of-mouth only goes so far – you must do something different. Maybe even a bit wacky. And do something remarkable to get noticed in this busy world.

Seth Godin’s Purple Cow is a lovely story to explain this important concept:

“While driving through France a few years ago, my family and I were enchanted by the hundreds of storybook cows grazing in lovely pastures right next to the road. For dozens of kilometers, we all gazed out the window, marveling at the beauty. Then, within a few minutes, we started ignoring the cows. The new cows were just like the old cows, and what was once amazing was now common. Worse than common: It was boring.

Cows, after you’ve seen them for a while, are boring. A Purple Cow, though: Now, that would really stand out. The essence of the Purple Cow — the reason it would shine among a crowd of perfectly competent, even undeniably excellent cows — is that it would be remarkable. Something remarkable is worth talking about, worth paying attention to. Boring stuff quickly becomes invisible.”

Toby Marshall of Lead Creation has his ‘cow’: When he presents to CEO groups, he wears a salmon (OK, pink!) jacket. It makes him stand out. It gives the audience one more thing to remember him by. And it is great segue to purple cow!

So what does practical innovation in marketing mean?

It’s finding the orgasmic mix of messages, audience and platforms that will have clients lining up at your door.

Because after all, marketing is not logos, sponsorships and 100 different tools, it’s about reach and getting noticed.

Perhaps your best marketing tool is a fax machine, not your Facebook page. But how do you know?

Innovation that actually makes money?

First Wednesday Workshop November 2nd

Just having ideas is irrelevant – real innovation is about making it happen.

At this First Wednesday, Nigel Collin, the innovation guru, will give you the theory.

Then we’ll show you how to get the answer to the biggest question of all:

How do I get new customers in this complex ­­­online world?

At the event, 10 of our specialist staff and the audience will brainstorm a real business. Unpacking the innovation and marketing techniques in the room so you can later apply them in your business (if you want to be the featured business, see the booking form).

Last time we talked about Social Media as a platform for connecting and communicating.

Still didn’t do anything?

Many business people have trouble getting their head around Social Media. At our last event, one of the attendees rightly commented “I’ve got 500 connections, but what do I do with them?”

We think you’d be absolutely bonkers not to use this growing platform to fill your funnel, so here are some simple ideas (which we’ll also be discussing at First Wednesday next week.)

Direct Marketing and Sales with LinkedIn

There’s no doubt most people aren’t aware of LinkedIn’s tremendous application to sales. Or at least, aren’t doing it right.

• Hyper-target your prospects by demographic and need: LinkedIn allows you to filter prospects by Location, Company, Job Title/Seniority, Gender and Age. But what most people don’t consider is targeting prospects by need:
• LinkedIn Groups qualify your prospects: By joining groups relevant to your niche, you can find ones that are highly qualified (due to the nature of their comments, and which ‘discussions’ spark their interest). For example, if we saw a prospect asking ‘How to get business from LinkedIn?’, they would be a target for us.
• Reach Out: The next step is to just reach out! LinkedIn allows you to In-mail (email via LinkedIn) people in your network and people who share a group with you. Your offer must be engaging, personalised and not too pushy of course, but the key here is:
• Recency, Frequency and Relevancy: The key to staying top of mind with a prospect is to be consistent and highly relevant in your contact with them. I.e. – you can’t just email them once. You should have 2-3 messages lined up if they are a valuable prospect for you.
• Track it: As with all marketing, keep track of your efforts. Send them a link to download which you can track through your mailing software or Google analytics. And of course, track who you are emailing and who responds.

Still haven’t got a response?

LinkedIn is similar to cold calling – the more contact you have, and the more targeted your offer, the better your chances. And it’s very much a numbers game.

At the next First Wednesday, we’ll be delving into this topic more deeply and will workshop the theory for 2 businesses so you can see it live in action.

We’ll show you:

• How to get found by prospects on LinkedIn
• How to then capture and engage them with this powerful tool (using techniques like bulk personalisation)

Sarah Wooltorton

What are the psychological elements at play? Of course paid events need good marketing and positioning (we can help!), but it will have a huge effect on the way people perceive your event:

1. It sends a message of value – your service and your time
2. Removes fear that “I’ll just be sold to, it won’t be valuable”
3. Filters out the ‘cheapskates’ and some of the tyre kickers
4. Get them used to paying: First baby step to the real purchase (a lot of psychology here)
5. Makes them turn up (and if they don’t, can ring them and offer to transfer it to the next event = gift + opportunity to engage)
6. Event makes a profit or breaks even – so you can hold more events and/or bigger ones
7. Can create a better event, one that’s more enjoyable. For example, better wine, better food.
8. Can offer places to clients or prospects as ‘your guest’ – and the gift now has value (law of reciprocity then kicks in – people want to repay your gift in some way)
9. Inducement to purchase (e.g. wine tastings charge $20 – then deduct it off the first case they buy) – people love discounts
10.  Leads to club membership – e.g. after 3 wine tastings and a case or more – “club tickets”. Benefits could include one day warning of specials.
11. Can pay guest speakers to come – high quality speakers, they are the ones who tend to charge!
12. Bring a friend for free – it becomes something of value they you can give away to one of their friends