So how do you become a rock star on the new marketing  stage?

First, show up on the computer screen on a Google search for what you sell.  Then, your website must engage and create action.  And finally, you need to be back on the stage when they call you on the phone.

This post focuses on the stage most of us are a no-show on: the phone call.

From No-Show to Rock Star:

Choose a screen-sharing tool and get good at using it.

I’ve looked at several and have probably 50 hours in GoToMeeting, DimDim and Acrobat ConnectNow.   I use ConnectNow.  It’s easy to use, includes a video window so prospects can see me and doesn’t require a  download to use it.  “Excuse me, you’ll need to download this 12 mg file and we’ll wait awkwardly together for the next 90 seconds while it happens.”  Not something you want to say to a prospect three minutes into your first conversation.

Buy a Logitech 9000 webcam.

“Oh wait, I’ve got this crappy one in someone’s drawer from two years ago.”  No, buy this one.  Google it, everybody sells it.  It’s cheap at about $80, simple to use and is simply the best webcam on the market right now.  You want people to see you and you want the picture to be a good one.

“Dress the set.”

Do you look like what you are?  A successful, respected resource/vendor/whatever?  Or some schmuck in a closet?  See what other people see; what you look like, what’s behind you.

Get a good telephone headset.

You need great voice quality and you need to be hands free.  Speaker phones (below average sound quality) create attention fatigue.  Same with webcam mics.  I use a wireless Plantronics Savi 200, $290 from Headsets Direct, the only place to buy from and the best money I’ve spent in a long time.  There are headsets you can buy for less and still achieve good quality.  Talk to them about your budget and they’ll find you something.  Headsets Direct is a client, so I’m prejudiced.  But that doesn’t change the fact they’re experts, give great advice and service and offer discounted pricing.

Use presentation materials that move the conversation forward.

By materials I mean everything from a PowerPoint deck, pdfs, your website open, their website open, etc.  By moving the conversation forward I mean materials that both present AND capture content.  Slides of your PowerPoint, for example, should let you capture notes you make and comments your prospect adds.  Notes your prospect can see you taking.  This honors them and underscores your interest and understanding.  And isn’t building trust and comfort an important part of a marketer’s job?

As generally used, PowerPoint is just plain awful: presenters seldom do more than simply read the bullet points on the screen.  “Wow, great presentation, come closer so I can strangle you!”  Want to really make your presentations rock?  Use PowerPoint the way Bob Lane teaches.  It’s what I practice; and I say practice because it isn’t easy and I’m still learning.  But it breaks PowerPoint out from its linear constraints and takes it to a whole new organic level.  If you want to know more, go to Bob’s site or contact me, I can train you on what I know.

To summarize. . .

Test drive a few screen sharing tools, or go with ConnectNow.  Practice.  Get a good webcam and telephone headset so you look good and sound good.  Create a good looking stage.  Use presentation materials that both deliver and capture content.  Then. . .rock and roll !!

You can play with dozens of the latest desktops, laptops and netbooks, see every conceivable monitor, satisfy your ZuneHD lust, talk to the experts at the Apple Genius Bar ripoff, play the most popular games and generally leave feeling Microsoft is a bit hipper than when you entered.

Are they eight years behind Apple (first Apple store opening: May 15, 2001)?  To the subset of the 8% of the U.S. population who own an Apple computer who are Apple hardcore fans, absolutely.  To the rest of us, we’ll feel a bit better toward Microsoft than when we entered.

It’s an expensive path to repairing a brand image, but smart all the same (branding as theater).  It’s fun to be in the store.  I want to go back.  Plus I got a cool Bing T-shirt. 

So, late or not, ahead or behind the curve, it doesn’t matter, what is your Microsoft store?  That experience you create for the people you want to attract that makes them feel a bit better about you than they felt before?

So where does that put you?  The reality of innovating, in my experience at least, is you don’t have to shock the world to goose sales a good bit.  What I mean is sometimes simple changes or steps forward (baby steps!) can have big impacts.

Two quick examples from the past-

John Wanamaker started one of the first department stores in America  in 1876, Wanamaker’s.  He’s known for several department store firsts (first to use electricity, first elevator in a store).  But the innovation that took him from just another department store to a leader was. . .wait for it. . .price tags.   Huh?

You see, before that there were no prices.  You haggled.  Price tags made shopping easier and gave stores a new dimension to promote.

Have you heard of Lee Iacocca?  Chairman of Chrysler, father of the Ford Mustang?  You know what thrust him into the spotlight as a junior executive at Ford, long before the Mustang?  Installment payments.  Before Iacocca if you wanted a car you wrote the check.  I don’t need to tell you what happened to sales.

We can look back on price tags and installment payments with a chuckle; oh, how quaint, right?  Sure.  But both had major impact because they significantly changed the buying experience.  Price tags made shopping easier and engendered a level of trust that did not exist.  Installment payments made buying a car significantly easier.

What can you do to make buying what you sell significantly easier?  What can you do to take risk out of the process of buying what you sell?

Two quick examples from today-

Sponsored search, or pay-per-click.  Show ads that relate to the topic of people’s search when they’re searching.  Simple, adds value to a search in a way that doesn’t bother anybody and, the real innovation: an advertiser doesn’t pay until someone takes an action (clicks through to your website).   Very smart.

The free trial or the free version.   And you’re right, this isn’t even very new.  But, it’s hard to find a piece of software anymore you can’t use for a month free, or use a free, albeit stripped down, version of it forever.  This fundamentally changes the selling dynamics, doesn’t it?

I was looking at a relatively pricey inbound marketing tool; $500 per month per user.  They offer a 7-day trial free, but I had some questions, so I called and wanted to talk to a salesperson.  He was totally uninterested in talking to me or selling me.  He simply said, just try it for a week.  This company’s sales job changed from convincing me their tool is worth the $6-12,000 per year cost I’m looking at to, hey, just download it and play with it for a week.

So, I ask you again, what can you do to make buying what you sell significantly easier?  What can you do to take risk out of the process of buying what you sell?  It doesn’t have to be complex to make a major impact on the dynamics of buying what you sell, but it does need to  make a major impact on the dynamics of buying what you sell to make a major impact on your sales.

Anyway, we went where you might expect to go on such a mission (Sharon, my wife, was a buyer for an 1,100 store chain, so it was very much a mission): Kmart; Costco; Sam’s; and a local specialty store.  With the exception of Costco, which was only moderately busy, these stores were empty (the picture is THE MAIN ISLE in Kmart–two people!).
Yesterday, Monday December 1st, “they” made it official.  We’re in a recession.  And it began last December. 

Really?  Doyathink?!  What’s that Dylan lyric, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows?  And, what’s that first part of that 12-step program, moving from denial to acceptance?  Hello, my name is Hamilton and we’re in a recession.

How to think about it?  Folks, it is what it is.  You need to know how to market when things are headed up and when things are headed down.  So, as kindly as I can put this, accept it, get over it and get moving toward a solution.  How?  See:

Recession Proof Your Marketing Tip: Who Else?

Recession Proof Your Marketing Tip: Go Small

The Most Powerful Question for Q4 2008

What Happens to Your Customers Happens to You

At its most basic, marketing’s “moving parts” are: your message; how you deliver that message; and to whom. 

Message

The questions you need to ask about your message: does your audience care about your message (does it resonate?); do they understand it (clear and consistent); and does it “stick’ (can they describe you as you want them to)?

The McCain campaign’s message strategy was comparative; to focus on the weaknesses of his competitor.  “The other product is too expensive, not reliable, whatever. . .not as good as our product.”  He did this by focusing on different aspects of Barack Obama as the days and weeks went by (no experience, a celebrity, too liberal, he’ll raise your taxes, socialist, etc.).

The Obama campaign had a mantra: change. 

It would be difficult to argue that the McCain message was clear and consistent and the Obama message was not. 

How about on the issue of whether the audience cares about the message?  I believe we care whether a candidate has enough experience, etc., (the McCain message) and whether the candidate will deliver change (Obama’s message).  The election results would tell you we cared more about change, however, I believe the results speak more about the campaigns’ abilities to make their message stick.  The results = Obama’s message stuck, McCain’s did not.

Why?  Consistency and execution. . .which leads to my next topic

Delivery

I made donations to both campaigns so as to become a target of their communications.  I received text messages and emails from Obama.  Obama used Twitter (110K+ following him) and Facebook effectively.  I received a door hanger from the Obama campaign two days before the election with my polling place printed on it (think about the logistics of that!).  The message was equal parts donate, volunteer, here is where I stand on this issue.  McCain’s communications were primarily email based, although I received two letters.  All but just a few asked for donations.  None of which were personalized (Dear Friend or Dear Supporter versus Dear Hamilton).  This surprised me, the lack of personalization (Marketing 101).

The other part of delivery: volume or frequency or reach or budget or call it what you want.  Obama clearly won this battle.

To Whom

Both campaigns did a good job communicating to their targets.  The difference: the Obama campaign created a larger target audience.  McCain was talking to his “base” while Obama targeted a much larger group.

In summary, I believe Obama won because he built a bigger audience and delivered his message more effectively (better execution).  Again, please, apart from how you feel about the outcome, what can you learn?  Keep your message simple and consistent.  Execution is critical.  And make sure you’re targeting a large enough audience.

Managing the scope of your failures — never fail so big you can’t afford to move forward

Learning from each failure

And always taking the next step.

Rarely is everything about a failed marketing attempt wrong.  Figure out what went right, do more of that.  Figure out what went wrong, stop doing those things, learn from them, and take the next step.  As long as you take the next step your failures won’t work against you.  They’ll inform your next step – your success.

Managing the scope of your failures:
Large companies do this every day.  They call it testing.  They test a new product in Albuquerque before they roll it out nationally.  Why?  A newspaper or TV ad in New Mexico costs a fraction of similar ads in New York.  Learn on a dime instead of a dollar.

If you want to start using direct mail, for example, test on a portion of your total universe of prospects, not the total number.  Get the bugs out by sending to 1,000 two or three times, then mail to the entire 10,000 list once you’re profitable at 1,000.

Learning from each failure:
Be objective.  If you cannot, find someone who can.

The key:
Always take the next step.