Building relationships versus doing transactions

Marketing, problem solving, relationships, Sales

When we are new into selling, we end up viewing everything from the lens of a transaction. We don’t have a large enough prospect base, at the time so we are desperate to get whatever we can so that we can meet our targets.

And then you have the boss, who is not bothered about how you get the sale, as long as you get it. That actually sends out a wrong signal to the sales guy.

I realized much later that in the B2B space, the world is actually very small and you end up meeting the same people, somewhere or the other. So if you have rubbed someone the wrong way, you can count yourself out of business from that person wherever she goes.

Since then I made it a point to ensure that I was always investing on building relationships….so irrespective of where people,e went, I could pick up the phone and just make a call. Since I was investing in the relationships up-front, it also meant that I was clear that I would keep commitments that I made and would inform in advance if it was not going to be possible to keep it.

The benefits of building relationships , as you climb the corporate ladder are extremely high. You get valued because of your relationships. As you climb higher, the problems you have to solve are also much bigger. It helps if you can leverage your relationships to get you moving.

So work to nurture relationships…..its important in all functions but especially so in the sales and marketing roles, because as McCormack used to say – All things being equal people give orders to friends, all things not being equal, people still give order to friends.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Execute….and you can change trajectory

execution, ideas, Marketing

I keep writing various things on marketing and sales – generallyfor B2B, personal finance and human performance.

My experience has primarily been in B2B marketing- providing industrial automation solutions, then IT and now some amount of media related work.

I was talking to a close associate on the weekend and she raised a point asking if the blogs I write can actually be applied by all kinds of companies in any of the industries that I have listed above .

I believe, except for pure start-ups, with whom I have never worked, if you even have a few customers then, what I write should definitely help you in your marketing and grow your business significantly.

But I can only give you ideas, at the end of the day, its how you take those ideas and execute that will determine your success. A lot of times when I am taking coaching or listening to podcasts, I get a lot of ideas going on my mind, but till I don’t execute them, I don’t realize the challenges that come up. So while these coaching calls are interesting , it’s not useful until I execute.

So while I hope you find my posts interesting, they can be useful only when you use them and then give me your comments, whether things worked out or they didn’t.

Till next time then….keep executing.

Carpe Diem!!!

Messaging – how much is excess

B2B, education, education, follow-up, Marketing, messaging

“Won’t my prospect get irritated with me and unsubscribe” – this is one of the most common statements I hear when I tell people, that they should have a regular communication with their prospects and customers.

All your prospects and customers are in a state of a “moving parade”. So things keep changing for people all the time. And you don’t know when they may need what you sell. But when they need you, they should remember you first.

Now there will be somethings which are impulse purchases like a bottle of wine. Or small value items like a can of an aerated drink. Since the volume of transactions can be very high because of the spread of the decision making, you want to message more often. That’s the reason you see a Coke getting advertised multiple times a day. In the consumer space, you travel- international , less often, so you see airlines advertising less often.

In case of B2B, which is generally high value and less impulsive, you don’t advertise/message multiple times a day. But having said that, you need to keep messaging frequently – I generally recommend once a week. If not, at least twice a month. Anything less than this and chances are that you will float into oblivion.

The key in B2B is more about providing value. Finding ways to inform the customer, something new about what you offer – a new application, a new industry, a faster method, training for their employees. If you have segmented your market well, then you would typically know the kind of challenges that could take place, so providing education, value would be simpler. There can be a plethora of ways you can orient messages and multiple ways to get them delivered. Sometimes email, sometimes post cards, sometimes webinars.

If you keep adding value, then customers / prospects generally don’t mind receiving your mails and in a lot of cases may look forward to them. If some do unsubscribe, even after you are providing value / education, then its a good sign – because that person anyway would not have done business with you.

So don’t think in terms of excess, think in terms of value.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Pain & Gain – the pivot for messaging

B2B, Fear, Human Brain, Marketing, messaging

Its general human psychology that people avoid pain (fear of) and go for the pleasure / gain. People remember the pain forever or almost forever while they discount the gain. You lose a dollar and your brain will remind you about it for a longtime, but if you earned / won 10 dollars, your brain will discount it by saying it was luck.

This is the same logic why people don’t have a Vitamin C tablet which costs a few cents everyday as a preventive measure but go out and spend thousands of dollars when they get hospitalised. The pain & fear makes them spend the large amounts but the idea of spending a few cents and “gain” the positive of good health.

When you do messaging – whatever kind – an advertisement, a video, a webinar or individual sales – you have to keep these two emotions and their relative importance in the brain , in mind, if you want to get your message to stick to your audience. So while the negative or the message of pain will get more attention, you put too much of negative and it becomes dreary.

In every audience there will be people who are reactive since they are in pain and get your message immediately. On the other end of the spectrum there are people who are proactive and want to ensure that they take care of things before anything can go wrong, they plan in advance. Then there’s a large section of the audience which is sitting in between these two ends. The challenge of your messaging is to take this mass of people to either side of the spectrum so that they buy what you are selling.

Generally its easiest to sell to a person who is in pain or recognises the pain, then the set of people who are proactive. Then you should aim for the audience in-between. In case of B2B if you are selling an ERP software, then the ones whose production is completely messed up on one side, while there’s dead inventory lying on the other side, would be the ideal set of people to target first. The next set of companies to target would be the ones who are thinking in terms of growth and want to ensure that they are ahead of the curve.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!