This anecdote has a happy ending, so sit tight for a moment.
If cold calling strangers in the middle of the work day is what you do or ARE TOLD TO DO to "generate leads", you better pack a good-sized lunch.
I have made thousands and thousands of these types of calls through the years because I was told if I didn't, I would be escorted out the door. Good grief.
For the record, my voice projects very well, I speak clearly, am very effective with cadence, intonation and can make the guards at Buckingham Palace laugh. That said, if you set up a contest between myself and, say, a reasonably intelligent cocker spaniel that speaks English, and asked us to make 5,000 essentially random cold calls to sell widgets, I would win the contest...but BARELY.
We would each, by pure luck, get about the same number of live decision-makers on the phone who happen to need widgets that day or very soon(Grand Total:not many). I would win, however, because in that 2 second window after they say "hello", I would fare much better. My opponent would likely be engaging in some unsavory personal hygiene at all the wrong times so I'd take home the steak knives.
Bottom line: I lose, the dog loses and the business loses because it is a terrible way to sell products or services. It also completely destroys the morale of even the good people you may hire because EVERYBODY has a finite amount of arrows they can take in the face. People have their breaking points, robots do not. (Speaking of robots, the guy who played "The Robot" in Lost in Space, Bob May, died three days ago. That one hurts. It was like the day we lost Brando AND Don Corleone.)
So, as a business, what do you do? I am in complete agreement that we must connect with a significant amount of buyers to sell anything...and that includes using the telephone...alot.
(An aside:I am a HUGE proponent of clever guerrilla marketing. On short money, I have made it work more than once. You ask how? See above re: Buckingham Palace.)
So, if I'm on your payroll, we need to be reaching out to prospective customers who don't know me or our company in relatively large numbers, ideally in concert with a cost-effective guerrilla marketing program that is demonstratively working.
Here's the good stuff: I will be connecting with prospective buyers every day who don't know me BUT THEY THINK THEY DO (and there is not an iota of deception at work here). That's what I do; that's what I teach.
How's that work?
I get paid not only for results but what I know. I could put the whole program in print, right here, and know that people would read it, think "hey..that's a good idea" and then NEVER DO IT. They'd go right back to doing what they do...and that's just fine, if it works.
If the phone is not ringing (and I know for many, it's not), somebody better figure it out.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Like Sand Through The Hourglass...
These are the days/daze of my life.. (My knowledge of daytime soap operas start and stop with that tagline. I swear.)
In fifth grade, I acquired my first library card. I recall seeing the expiration date: it read "1978". I thought "Why even bother put a date that is so far away?". It was 1975 and, to me, 1978 might has well been a date in which the world became a 24/7 scene from the film Blade Runner. It was just so flippin' far away.
Tomorrow will be 2009 and I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that, by mid-week next week, the year will be 2033.
Of all the Mark Twain-isms, Youth is Wasted on the Young might be his most profound. I can say that now I've reached the age where I have hair sprouting out of places that I didn't even know I had body parts.
What a great gig he had, by the way. Writing stories, wearing strange hats, growing and grooming his shag-carpet mustache and rattling off aphorisms so memorable that they still regularly appear in blogs read by millions. Or, in this case, blogs written by me and read by a guy named "Ernie" who lives in Pigsknuckle, Maine.
Back to the passage of time.
Today would be an excellent day for me to stop and smell the proverbial roses. Unfortunately, I live in New Hampshire where a rose garden lives about as long as a fruit fly. For those of you unfamiliar with the lifespan of a fruitfly, their existence is about as long as a sneezing fit.
Maybe I'll go smell one of the estimated 1,298 scented Yankee Candles my wife bought in 2008. I think we have one that's called "Fresh Linen" that, according to Internet scuttlebutt, smells eerily similar to the freshly-washed white linen suits that Mark Twain used to wear while thinking up clever homilies about linen or the film Blade Runner, which he wrote the original screenplay.
In fifth grade, I acquired my first library card. I recall seeing the expiration date: it read "1978". I thought "Why even bother put a date that is so far away?". It was 1975 and, to me, 1978 might has well been a date in which the world became a 24/7 scene from the film Blade Runner. It was just so flippin' far away.
Tomorrow will be 2009 and I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that, by mid-week next week, the year will be 2033.
Of all the Mark Twain-isms, Youth is Wasted on the Young might be his most profound. I can say that now I've reached the age where I have hair sprouting out of places that I didn't even know I had body parts.
What a great gig he had, by the way. Writing stories, wearing strange hats, growing and grooming his shag-carpet mustache and rattling off aphorisms so memorable that they still regularly appear in blogs read by millions. Or, in this case, blogs written by me and read by a guy named "Ernie" who lives in Pigsknuckle, Maine.
Back to the passage of time.
Today would be an excellent day for me to stop and smell the proverbial roses. Unfortunately, I live in New Hampshire where a rose garden lives about as long as a fruit fly. For those of you unfamiliar with the lifespan of a fruitfly, their existence is about as long as a sneezing fit.
Maybe I'll go smell one of the estimated 1,298 scented Yankee Candles my wife bought in 2008. I think we have one that's called "Fresh Linen" that, according to Internet scuttlebutt, smells eerily similar to the freshly-washed white linen suits that Mark Twain used to wear while thinking up clever homilies about linen or the film Blade Runner, which he wrote the original screenplay.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Have you folks decided?
Yes, my friendly waiter wearing a powder blue tuxedo, we have decided we would like at least two more rounds of beverages before we start grazing on food.
But seriously...
People are terrified of making decisions- especially making the wrong decision.
But often it's any decision at all. A guy I like who writes about business and marketing uses a parable about a bunch of salesguys at the watercooler just before lunchtime. They decide they want to go out to lunch.
Twenty-five minutes later, these banana brains ARE STILL TRYING TO DECIDE where they are going to eat!! Are you kidding me?? Nobody can make a freakin' decision!! And these are the people PAID to get others to make decisions.
This same writer makes an excellent suggestion.
If you do this for a living, selling that is, do the following. When you're speaking with the decision-maker early in the game, tell them if you two do the dance together and move this thing WAY along, let them specifically know subsequent to the (insert sales cycle moment here...proof of concept with the CFO there, whatever) tell Mr. Decision-maker that, if you get that far, you are going to ask him for the business. Boom.
No surprises. They know it's coming. And, at this juncture, you have WAY earned the right to ask. Then try to figure out where you want to go to lunch.
But seriously...
People are terrified of making decisions- especially making the wrong decision.
But often it's any decision at all. A guy I like who writes about business and marketing uses a parable about a bunch of salesguys at the watercooler just before lunchtime. They decide they want to go out to lunch.
Twenty-five minutes later, these banana brains ARE STILL TRYING TO DECIDE where they are going to eat!! Are you kidding me?? Nobody can make a freakin' decision!! And these are the people PAID to get others to make decisions.
This same writer makes an excellent suggestion.
If you do this for a living, selling that is, do the following. When you're speaking with the decision-maker early in the game, tell them if you two do the dance together and move this thing WAY along, let them specifically know subsequent to the (insert sales cycle moment here...proof of concept with the CFO there, whatever) tell Mr. Decision-maker that, if you get that far, you are going to ask him for the business. Boom.
No surprises. They know it's coming. And, at this juncture, you have WAY earned the right to ask. Then try to figure out where you want to go to lunch.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Greasy Eddie’s Software
As the old expression goes, “you don’t fired for buying Greasy Eddie’s Identity Management Software”. Or was it you don’t get fired for buying IBM?
Doesn’t matter. I can make my point just as easy either way.
People are going to buy what best serves their self interest. In this case, their self interest is often don’t screw this up, Wilbur!!
Employers often hire new people in sales to have access to their rolodex. It’s a good idea. We always prefer to deal with the devil that we know. But nobody with more than 42 brain cells is going to make a corporate or an individual buying decision because they think “that Timmy fella sure is a nice”.
In the case of buying corporate software, your contact at MegaHyperCorp won’t blow up what he’s already pregnant with because, you,“his friend” at Wile E. Coyote Corp (a wholly owned subsidiary of Acme).. well, he thinks you’re a swell guy and his boss thought your PowerPoint presentation was just delightful. They only way they’re buying your stuff is if they have a gaping hole in the roof, it’s raining anthrax spores and you’re selling Acme’s Instant Roof Hole Fix’er Upper (and the Acme product is compatible with their 3 million dollar investment in IMB infrastructure).
What if there are no pre-conditions to a sale happening? That’s great. That rolodex helps here, providing lubricant to that squeaky door that everyone keeps trying to push open.
But back to self-interest, because it’s highly relevant here also. Whether you’re incredibly kind and benevolent (like the Dalai Lama) or not (like Charles Manson), humans put their self-interest first. Always. This includes the guy who volunteers at the soup kitchen. He’s a nice guy, don’t get me wrong…a very nice guy. But a HUGE reason he does that volunteer work is because it makes him feel good to do good. That’s self interest being exercised in an enlightened way. If everyone consistently served even part of their self-interest in that manner, we’d all live in paradise. But most people’s laundry list of needs is highly tainted by trying to avoid pain, unpleasantness and just trying to avoid being disturbed.
It doesn’t make you a bad person, it’s the way 99.999% of the planet operates, including many very nice people. It’s a time-stamped trait super-glued on our DNA and, sometimes, it serves a purpose like keeping us alive. But usually we act in this manner because we are afraid. We are afraid of losing what we have, we are afraid of losing what we know. We don’t want any surprises; we want to be “secure”.
So, kids, what can we take from all this if our job is to sell things? Find the people who not only needs your stuff but won’t be constantly playing doomsday scenarios in their head. How do you do that? You ask them DIRECT questions in a polite, diplomatic yet firm way. Ask them to be truthful and assure them your feelings will not be hurt if they are unwilling or unable to legitimately consider what it is you hope they’ll consider.
Doesn’t matter. I can make my point just as easy either way.
People are going to buy what best serves their self interest. In this case, their self interest is often don’t screw this up, Wilbur!!
Employers often hire new people in sales to have access to their rolodex. It’s a good idea. We always prefer to deal with the devil that we know. But nobody with more than 42 brain cells is going to make a corporate or an individual buying decision because they think “that Timmy fella sure is a nice”.
In the case of buying corporate software, your contact at MegaHyperCorp won’t blow up what he’s already pregnant with because, you,“his friend” at Wile E. Coyote Corp (a wholly owned subsidiary of Acme).. well, he thinks you’re a swell guy and his boss thought your PowerPoint presentation was just delightful. They only way they’re buying your stuff is if they have a gaping hole in the roof, it’s raining anthrax spores and you’re selling Acme’s Instant Roof Hole Fix’er Upper (and the Acme product is compatible with their 3 million dollar investment in IMB infrastructure).
What if there are no pre-conditions to a sale happening? That’s great. That rolodex helps here, providing lubricant to that squeaky door that everyone keeps trying to push open.
But back to self-interest, because it’s highly relevant here also. Whether you’re incredibly kind and benevolent (like the Dalai Lama) or not (like Charles Manson), humans put their self-interest first. Always. This includes the guy who volunteers at the soup kitchen. He’s a nice guy, don’t get me wrong…a very nice guy. But a HUGE reason he does that volunteer work is because it makes him feel good to do good. That’s self interest being exercised in an enlightened way. If everyone consistently served even part of their self-interest in that manner, we’d all live in paradise. But most people’s laundry list of needs is highly tainted by trying to avoid pain, unpleasantness and just trying to avoid being disturbed.
It doesn’t make you a bad person, it’s the way 99.999% of the planet operates, including many very nice people. It’s a time-stamped trait super-glued on our DNA and, sometimes, it serves a purpose like keeping us alive. But usually we act in this manner because we are afraid. We are afraid of losing what we have, we are afraid of losing what we know. We don’t want any surprises; we want to be “secure”.
So, kids, what can we take from all this if our job is to sell things? Find the people who not only needs your stuff but won’t be constantly playing doomsday scenarios in their head. How do you do that? You ask them DIRECT questions in a polite, diplomatic yet firm way. Ask them to be truthful and assure them your feelings will not be hurt if they are unwilling or unable to legitimately consider what it is you hope they’ll consider.
Monday, September 8, 2008
The Bone asks you to get creative.
You know that product you pitch? There's no less than two dozen companies whose product/service, for the most part is as good as yours or better.
As uttered in the opening credits of the multi-Emmy winning TV show Cops, What cha gonna do?
("sir...can you please put your shirt on??...ummm, ah..and you, too, sir..I'm sorry!!..I meant 'Miss.").
I'm going to walk you off the ledge but, before I do that Vinnie Vertigo, tell your Marketing/PR hacks to shear off some of their asinine adjectives they use to describe how life-altering and spiritually uplifting your particular brand of widget is. Nobody reads that garbage. They line their birdcages with it and train their puppies on it.
If the person you're trying to see doesn't know you or your company, you've got one shot and it doesn't have anything to do with what company you work for or what kind of stuff they're making. What they might be interested in is you.
It's been said that if you pick up a ringing telephone and the you hear (in this exact order) 1. First Name 2. Last Name and 3. Where they are calling from...what follows is not going to be good. It's the police or possibly a lawyer or maybe even a staff member from the local hospital. Worst case scenario, however, it's some "account executive" interrupting you with a pitch.
If that's all you got or your enlightened boss/company demands you do that all day long, Starbucks has health bennies, it's climate-controlled and it smells just lovely in there.
If you don't consider yourself creative but you feel strongly you have something to say or that may interest someone, find someone who is able to create a crack in that door. And don't worry about the humor-impaired or who may find your approach "unprofessional". You don't need to be Chris Rock but you do need to be yourself because that's what they may be interested in.
They're not interested in leading edge, bleeeding edge, out-of-the-box, blah, blah, blah blather.
As uttered in the opening credits of the multi-Emmy winning TV show Cops, What cha gonna do?
("sir...can you please put your shirt on??...ummm, ah..and you, too, sir..I'm sorry!!..I meant 'Miss.").
I'm going to walk you off the ledge but, before I do that Vinnie Vertigo, tell your Marketing/PR hacks to shear off some of their asinine adjectives they use to describe how life-altering and spiritually uplifting your particular brand of widget is. Nobody reads that garbage. They line their birdcages with it and train their puppies on it.
If the person you're trying to see doesn't know you or your company, you've got one shot and it doesn't have anything to do with what company you work for or what kind of stuff they're making. What they might be interested in is you.
It's been said that if you pick up a ringing telephone and the you hear (in this exact order) 1. First Name 2. Last Name and 3. Where they are calling from...what follows is not going to be good. It's the police or possibly a lawyer or maybe even a staff member from the local hospital. Worst case scenario, however, it's some "account executive" interrupting you with a pitch.
If that's all you got or your enlightened boss/company demands you do that all day long, Starbucks has health bennies, it's climate-controlled and it smells just lovely in there.
If you don't consider yourself creative but you feel strongly you have something to say or that may interest someone, find someone who is able to create a crack in that door. And don't worry about the humor-impaired or who may find your approach "unprofessional". You don't need to be Chris Rock but you do need to be yourself because that's what they may be interested in.
They're not interested in leading edge, bleeeding edge, out-of-the-box, blah, blah, blah blather.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Guilt Trip
I'm watching a television show geared towards my six-year old on television. It's a commercial break and a Sinister Stepford Mom is doing the hard sell on me. In the background, her young children are finishing up their learning-tool program while simultaneously accepting their advanced degree diplomas from Harvard.
According to the mother doing the pitch, If I don't buy the product that will help my child learn to read the entire works of Tolstoy by the time he's done eating his bowlful of Sugar Fruit-Simulated SpongeBob High Fructose Corn Syrup Snaps...if I don't buy this freakin' product from this wildly grinning Automaton Soccer Mom, I'm essentially confirming her suspicion that my goal is to destroy the children of the earth.
This technique practiced my marketers is, in my opinion, on an ethical par with randomly attacking the elderly in shopping malls with spiked bats. It's a pre-mediated attempt to make money by attempting to make you, the parent, feel like squirrel manure.
Resist, my fellow parents. Let your children be children. These people are concerned about your kids well being about as much as Charlie Mansion was concerned about grammatical syntax.
According to the mother doing the pitch, If I don't buy the product that will help my child learn to read the entire works of Tolstoy by the time he's done eating his bowlful of Sugar Fruit-Simulated SpongeBob High Fructose Corn Syrup Snaps...if I don't buy this freakin' product from this wildly grinning Automaton Soccer Mom, I'm essentially confirming her suspicion that my goal is to destroy the children of the earth.
This technique practiced my marketers is, in my opinion, on an ethical par with randomly attacking the elderly in shopping malls with spiked bats. It's a pre-mediated attempt to make money by attempting to make you, the parent, feel like squirrel manure.
Resist, my fellow parents. Let your children be children. These people are concerned about your kids well being about as much as Charlie Mansion was concerned about grammatical syntax.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Compelling, isn't it?
I’m hardly breaking new ground here when I say that, without a compelling reason to buy, well, people don’t buy things. Whether it’s their own personal money or somebody else’s. They just don’t.
Oh yeah, there are a couple of exceptions. The impulse buy is known to all, usually most recognizable as you’re about to drop a hundred and a half on eats at your local supermarket. You’ve got that downtime waiting in line and, amongst other marketing messages assaulting you, including those new LCD brainwashing screens, you are blasted with headlines and glossies about the Celebrity du Jour and how their lives have reached the tipping point. Damn you, Brad and Angelina!! Couldn’t you have shelved and rationed some of that perfection for the rest of us?
There’s a whole industry, sometimes called the impulse giftware industry that falls in line here. Remember the Troll Dolls? I once had a compelling reason to buy a troll doll but then my meds wore off.
If your livelihood is dependent on others buying your stuff, re-read the first sentence.
If also what you’re selling is a commodity, your job just exponentially increased in difficulty, in particular, the time it will take to build, nurture and manage the relationships necessary for people to buy from you instead of the eighteen other knuckleheads with identical products trying to knock down their door.
So what is a compelling reason? Well, that’s easy. You’re a consumer, also. You buy goods and services. Most of these things you buy because you need them; some because it strikes a chord. Either way, unless you’re extremely gullible and/or easily manipulated, NOBODY has EVER sold you anything. You bought it.
The bad news is unless your employer happens to be The Buddha or some other enlightened person or entity, they’re not interested in your sob story. All they know is, twice a month, the direct deposit goes from their account into yours. They pay you for results. Everything else is Charlie Brown’s teacher addressing the classroom.
If your company has a marketing division capable of providing quality leads, you may be in a very good situation. If you are expected to create your own leads- on top of turning these people (most of them complete strangers) into customers- pack a lunch because it’s going to take awhile. Perhaps most important, if you are skilled and clever enough to not only produce these leads but to walk the prospects down the aisle and into the abject bondage that is marriage (Sorry….I completely lost my head there…let me start over).
If you posses the skills required to turn a complete stranger into a customer of ANY product or service (yours or somebody else’s), you are the custodian of probably the most important tool required to be an entrepreneur and business owner instead of an employee.
Editor’s note: Sadly, this also happens to be the ONLY skill of world-class con men.
Assuming you are a decent human being and you have the requisite communications skills, some marketing savvy, basic management skills, something to offer that people either need or want, at least a two-litre container of integrity and (THIS IS HUGE) the unwavering confidence to shed yourself of the dependency of the moods and whims of others (read: a boss), it’s time to pull the rip-cord and stop making others wealthy in exchange for security.
On the concept of security, and not just job security. I’ve got some bad news for you, Sunshine. Pink isn’t well, he stayed back at the hotel and there is no security in life. Ask the bazillionaire as he draws his last breath about security. That’s not negativity, its reality and it’s not a bad thing. It just is.
Editor’s note, Part Deux: This piece was intended to be about a concept known in Marketing as “Compelling Reason to Buy”.
As John Belushi’s Bluto Blutarsky’s character in Animal House said to the untalented acoustic guitarist on the stairwell in Delta House, moments after utterly humiliating him in front of several fawning females by turning his guitar into electron-sized wooden splinters……sorry.
Oh yeah, there are a couple of exceptions. The impulse buy is known to all, usually most recognizable as you’re about to drop a hundred and a half on eats at your local supermarket. You’ve got that downtime waiting in line and, amongst other marketing messages assaulting you, including those new LCD brainwashing screens, you are blasted with headlines and glossies about the Celebrity du Jour and how their lives have reached the tipping point. Damn you, Brad and Angelina!! Couldn’t you have shelved and rationed some of that perfection for the rest of us?
There’s a whole industry, sometimes called the impulse giftware industry that falls in line here. Remember the Troll Dolls? I once had a compelling reason to buy a troll doll but then my meds wore off.
If your livelihood is dependent on others buying your stuff, re-read the first sentence.
If also what you’re selling is a commodity, your job just exponentially increased in difficulty, in particular, the time it will take to build, nurture and manage the relationships necessary for people to buy from you instead of the eighteen other knuckleheads with identical products trying to knock down their door.
So what is a compelling reason? Well, that’s easy. You’re a consumer, also. You buy goods and services. Most of these things you buy because you need them; some because it strikes a chord. Either way, unless you’re extremely gullible and/or easily manipulated, NOBODY has EVER sold you anything. You bought it.
The bad news is unless your employer happens to be The Buddha or some other enlightened person or entity, they’re not interested in your sob story. All they know is, twice a month, the direct deposit goes from their account into yours. They pay you for results. Everything else is Charlie Brown’s teacher addressing the classroom.
If your company has a marketing division capable of providing quality leads, you may be in a very good situation. If you are expected to create your own leads- on top of turning these people (most of them complete strangers) into customers- pack a lunch because it’s going to take awhile. Perhaps most important, if you are skilled and clever enough to not only produce these leads but to walk the prospects down the aisle and into the abject bondage that is marriage (Sorry….I completely lost my head there…let me start over).
If you posses the skills required to turn a complete stranger into a customer of ANY product or service (yours or somebody else’s), you are the custodian of probably the most important tool required to be an entrepreneur and business owner instead of an employee.
Editor’s note: Sadly, this also happens to be the ONLY skill of world-class con men.
Assuming you are a decent human being and you have the requisite communications skills, some marketing savvy, basic management skills, something to offer that people either need or want, at least a two-litre container of integrity and (THIS IS HUGE) the unwavering confidence to shed yourself of the dependency of the moods and whims of others (read: a boss), it’s time to pull the rip-cord and stop making others wealthy in exchange for security.
On the concept of security, and not just job security. I’ve got some bad news for you, Sunshine. Pink isn’t well, he stayed back at the hotel and there is no security in life. Ask the bazillionaire as he draws his last breath about security. That’s not negativity, its reality and it’s not a bad thing. It just is.
Editor’s note, Part Deux: This piece was intended to be about a concept known in Marketing as “Compelling Reason to Buy”.
As John Belushi’s Bluto Blutarsky’s character in Animal House said to the untalented acoustic guitarist on the stairwell in Delta House, moments after utterly humiliating him in front of several fawning females by turning his guitar into electron-sized wooden splinters……sorry.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)