Do people understand what you do?

Do they understand why you’re different?

Do they understand you understand their problem? Do you understand their problem?

And, how easy to you make it for people to understand these things?

Improve these simple things and your business improves. Simple? Yes. Easy? No. Don’t confuse simple with easy.

The real joke with FFB selling: it was old when I learned it.  Exhibit A:

[youtube] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm1IxHOXm00[/youtube]

So, why does it creep into most sales presentations and sales copy today?  Beats me.  But the why isn’t important.  The let’s-change-it is.

What’s wrong with feature, function, benefit selling?

Simple.  It was invented when companies actually had technological advantages.  Most of what I sold for IBM you couldn’t get anywhere else.  So you better believe we sold features (this unit comes with 50 separate memory channels), the function of those features (so, if you are a lawyer, for example, you could store 50 different standard parts of a will) and the benefits (which means to you less time spent producing the standardized parts of legal documents and more profit in your pocket).

Sort of brings back the magic that of newly designed brake pedal from the video, doesn’t it?!  Today, with few exceptions, technical advantage is measured in months.  Maybe.  Competing on features is an arms race nobody wins.

FFB selling is fundamentally manipulative.  It, by design, takes the sellee down a path toward the logical conclusion that they need to buy what you’re selling.

Plus, it tends to be one-sided, pitting the salesperson against the prospect.  Information wasn’t that available; at least you had to work much harder to do your homework than the few clicks required today.

All the reasons this type of selling worked are gone.

What’s replacing it?  Fundamentally, two ideas: it’s your story, stupid; and free.

Story

As I said in the video, if you don’t have features to talk about, what are you left with?  Your story!!  The thing you should have been talking about all along.  The thing that, IF understood, connects you with your customers.  The thing or things you can say nobody else can.  That which is truly unique about you.  I have an entire site devoted to story.

Free

It’s hard to find a piece of software that doesn’t have a free trial or free version.  The basic idea behind free is to reduce the barrier to use your product to almost zero.  This does two things.  First, it doesn’t require as much selling up front.  And two, it gets you using the product so the product can sell itself; AND so the company can focus its efforts on “qualified prospects” (the people who are in the free trial period or using the free version).

Not everything can be free.  But how about risk-free (send it or bring it back if you don’t like it)?

Okay, okay, so what does this mean if you don’t sell software or you already have a risk-free return policy?  It means increasing your footprint beyond your website.  So bloggers are writing about you, customers are talking about you and you are part of the conversation in the places where the people who buy what you sell are spending time.  Online and off.  It means striving for a new level of engagement with people in the social space.

It means asking yourself THE BIG QUESTION:

If my sales revenue was based on how well I educate (for free) people who want what I sell and how many of those people I educate, what would I do?

Breathe that in a while.  Because I believe that basically this is where we are today.

In today’s economy it might be said this way: convenience is the enemy of getting results from your marketing.  Okay, not nearly as catchy, but true.

The convenient marketing methods, the strategies we know, the things that have worked for us in the past, aren’t the solution.  Today people are in a fundamentally different place emotionally and, in some cases, financially as well.  This certainly changes why they buy and in some cases how the buy.  Have your marketing methods and message fundamentally changed too?  It’s not convenient.  It’s not comfortable.  But it just may well be necessary for you to move forward.

As a marketing consultant for small business I see companies  in this quandary: “We’ve tried what we know, so now what?!”  Actually, it’s rare when I’m invited in in any other circumstance.  I know, lucky me.

The first thing I do is talk to my clients customers.  I find out what’s going on in their world, how they’re feeling, what they’re thinking.  The first thing I have the client do is answer the following question: If you were starting your business today, fresh, what would that look like, what would you sell, who would you sell to and how would you sell?  Unencumbered by everything that you are literally and figuratively invested in, what type of company would you start?

Those things inform how the message ought to fundamentally change, how the  marketing methods ought to fundamentally change and if a client’s value proposition ought to fundamentally change.

My experience:

Most of the time the message needs to change.  After all, the reasons why people buy today have changed, so should your message.

Some of the time the marketing methods need to change.  Usually, methods need to be added.  It’s rare when I find a company maximizing its website traffic or conversion, and even rarer when they have a presence in the social media space.

Occasionally a client’s basic value proposition needs to change.  This is potentially the most painful since it requires you change, to some degree, who you are.

You can do this (talking to customers, answering the “what if you were starting your business today” question) or you can have someone like me lead you through it.  But you need to do it.  Convenient?  No.  Critical to your moving forward?  Yes.

My secret formula for coming up with ideas?  Pay attention.  There are great ideas swirling around us all all the time.  We just have to pay attention.  Actually, let me qualify that.  There is the inspiration for great ideas swirling around us all all the time.  We just need to pay attention and make the connections.  What do I mean by that?  Glad you asked.

I’m in Silver City, New Mexico, a small but growing artist/environmentalist/hippie enclave (Santa Fe without the money) driving down a street and I see a sign outside a church like so many signs outside churches.  Except this on stopped me.  Believe me, with the exception of the sign, it was a very plain vanilla church; not one you’d expect to be the 1st Church of What’s Happening.  I thought, wow, what a great use of juxtaposition to create attention.  Then I thought, wow, one reason people go to church is to make sense out of what’s happening now, what a great way to drive that home.  THEN I thought, wow, what if we tried juxtaposition in the new release of LIMS-plus Version 4, forensic lab case management software a client of mine is introducing.  Eureka, lab rats!  A software vendor calling forensic scientists lab rats (they affectionately call themselves this) when talking to them about something as serious as  forensic lab case management software (trust me, this is very serious stuff) is quite a juxtaposition and ought to attract some attention.  We’ll see, the campaign goes live in about three weeks.

You can’t see the sign on the back of this pool service truck, but it says something interesting.  First of all, every pool service truck as the company’s name, phone and sometimes their URL.  And in Arizona, about every 10th vehicle is a pool service truck.  This one says “If you’re having a problem with your pool, call me right now and I’ll follow you home.”  I thought, wow, now that’s smart, give people a way to take immediate action, and immediate gratification.  THEN I thought why not put a “free quote” form on every page of a pool remodeling client’s website.  Now we have a link to the form on every page.  The form on every page is more immediate.  This is not a game-changing idea, but I’ll bet you it translates into an additional 15 projects a year for the client.  Paying attention. . .

This is a billboard for a realty company advertising no commission with the subhead: Now More Than Ever!  Now, I don’t use deceptive tactics and this appears to be one (no commission implies it’s free–it isn’t!).  But I was taken by the fact they are acknowledging the position home owners are in who want to sell their homes.  Uh, at least in Arizona, I think the technical term for someone wanting to sell their home right now: totally screwed.  So, good strategy: take a big potential objection “off the table” from the start (no commission).  This is similar to the offers you see on TV from the furniture stores; no payments until 2012!

I haven’t done anything with this one yet.  How about you?  What one major potential objection can you take off the table for your prospects?  Start paying attention and you’ll come up with some good marketing ideas of your own.

// A NON-AD is something that doesn’t feel like an ad.  It informs.  It has value. 

It becomes an ad when it causes action.

You know what I’m talking about.  A white paper.  A report.  A guide.  An article reprint.  Something you can do for prospective customers that has as its goal to inform, to add value.  Now that’s a non-ad ad. 

Because if you can inform and deliver value, you can persuade.  Correct?  You don’t always have to “advertise” to advertise, right?  Take the video below, it’s a good example.

 [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwfJqCI74t4[/youtube]

This is a video by a respected member of his industry talking about what his organization feels is important about software that manages cases in forensic laboratories.  If you work in a forensic lab you’d learn some things about how to select case management software.  The company that paid us to create the video, JusticeTrax, is never mentioned.  The video obviously is on their site.  The implication is the software he uses is theirs, but it is designed to help someone in the early stages of considering this type of software.

You know what I mean.  You just need a reminder to plug this type of non-ad into your marketing and advertising program.  So, consider yourself reminded!

//  AN AD isn’t an ad when it doesn’t create action.

Lots of those around, aren’t there.

There are lots of reasons why an ad isn’t an ad and talking about them can help you avoid them.  So let’s go:

It’s not in front of enough of the right people.  You’re selling a high-end product to high-end people so you go into a high-end magazine.  Makes sense.  Until you ask yourself what percentage of those readers are in the market for what you’re selling at any one time.  Buy interest, not income.  If you sell high-end boats advertise where boat buyers go, not where high-end people go.  This is a mistake we see all the time.

Me-too.  Hey, we offer quality printing, personal service and a great price!!  Really?  You and every other printer on the planet.  A huge mistake advertisers make is building their ad in a vacuum only to have it fall flat because it says the same thing every other ad says.  What is truly different about you?  Ask your customers.  Highlight that.

No compelling offer.  You want people to take some type of action from your ad (or it’s not an ad!).  Typically, that means you need to give them an incentive.  Free shipping, a discount, come to our website and register for a free whatever.  Offer them something.

Too tough a call to action.  Ads need to ask the reader to take action.  Too often, ads ask too much (Call for a free, no-obligation demo!).  That’s what you want them to do, right?  But that’s a bit like expecting a kiss on the first date.  Baby steps.  Go to our website and download a brochure, free report, white paper.  Call for a catalog.  You’ll get their email or their address.  You can follow up later for your kiss and probably get kissed more often than asking for a demo right off the bat.

Not enough information.  Oh god, you need lots of white space and don’t ask people to read too much or you’ll lose them!  Thus is born the beautiful ad that your graphic designer is in love with and that generates zero response.  Because you don’t give people enough information to take the action you’re asking them to take.  And take it from someone who has asked millions and millions of people to take some type of action many, many times, it takes a lot more information than you think to generate even the smallest action (call for more information).

Make sure your ad is an ad before you pay to have it placed.  Start early.  Give yourself two extra weeks before it’s due.  Print it out and paste it into a current issue of the magazine and compare it to the other ads.  Do you notice it?  Does is look the same as the others?  Does it make a compelling offer you can find quickly?  Does it motivate you to take action?  If so, then maybe you have an ad!

It’s too easy to change your marketing and not your product when sales slows to simply put a “new coat on the same old dog”.  Now, I happen to like old dogs.  But if you haven’t changed, improved, overhauled, tweaked, blown up, or otherwise monkeyed with your product in the last 12 months, well, it might be feeling like the same old dog to your customers.

Blow it up
If everything about your product “blew up,” if you couldn’t offer what you offer now and your goal was to create, from the ground up, a replacement product, an AWESOME replacement product, what would it be?  T-h-e   u-l-t-i-m-a-t-e   p-r-o-d-u-c-t!

Write it down.
How can you change what you have now, given today’s realities, to more reflect the features you imagined in your replacement product?

Your product is at the heart of your marketing.  Changing it is your most powerful marketing tool.  Think about it:

Everything, all your marketing and sales efforts, are designed to “sing the praises” of the product you offer.  Maybe your product simply is beginning to fall out of favor with your target customers.  All the changes in the world to “everything else” won’t completely stop people from deserting your product if this is the case.

“We buy products and resell them as is, there’s nothing to change. . .”  Maybe, but what can you add?  Free installation?  Bundle the product with something else; an extended warranty, a service contract, a related product or service?  In 20+ years I’ve never seen a situation where a product couldn’t be changed or improved.

Don’t be afraid to throw changing your product into the mix of things that can be changed when sales start to go south.  Probably the single most powerful change you can make to your marketing is to change your product.  Move with your market.  If they want smaller, lighter, more durable, and your product is big and heavy, change it!  Or introduce another model that is smaller, lighter and more durable.

Blow it up in your mind, dream a little, write it down — all that’s very innocent.  Then, given reality, what can you do to change your product?  Probably quite a bit.  Now, get started!

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.

Learn from my experience:

1. Your message isn’t customer-driven
What you’re saying about your product is important to you, is understandable to you.  But not to your customer.  It doesn’t matter what’s important to you.  What’s important is what’s important to your customer.  They buy for their reasons, not yours.  Make sure your message is important to them.  How?  Ask them.

2. Your marketing methods aren’t customer-driven
You keep going to trade shows, but the decision-makers inside your customers’ companies stopped going two years ago.  You keep advertising in that trade magazine because it’s the best and biggest in the industry, but the decision-makers inside your customers’ companies stopped paying much attention to it two years ago.  Hummm.  How do your customers expect to learn about new vendors like your company?  How do they prefer being contacted?  Ask them!  Align your methods with your customers’ expectations and preferences.

3. Incomplete marketing support (not a campaign)
I see it all the time.  A company sends one mailing, not much happens and they go about the task of figuring out why their marketing isn’t working.  Or they place one ad or go to one trade show.  No follow up.

Things change.  A prospect may not be open to your message this month, but might be next month.  Think marketing campaign: multiple contacts executed a variety of ways (ads, direct mail, Internet, trade show, etc.).  One ad or one mailing or one trade show does not a campaign make.

4. No testing/quit before you succeed
“We tried direct mail but it didn’t work.”  Tried it one time, did ya, and it didn’t work-well then, forget direct mail!  Sounds silly, but too many owners give up on a marketing method before they give it a chance to succeed.  Make small affordable tests.  If customers tell you newspaper is how they learn about firms like yours, test in a newspaper where a quarter page ad is $400, not $4,000.  Learn, change the headline.  Change the offer.  Change the price.  Add a picture.  Test.  Rarely is something that “fails” 100% wrong.  Testing helps you eliminate the bad and keep the good.  Don’t quit before you give yourself a chance to succeed.

5. Too much “me-too”
Great food, fast, friendly service and reasonable prices.  Wonderful, but why should I eat in your restaurant?  Knowledgeable, experienced staff, made in America quality and fast shipping.  Great, but why should I buy from you?

Are all those wonderful things you’re saying about your product really differentiating you, or do they sound like everybody else?  My best antidote to too much “me too” is two things:

Make sure you’re giving people reasons to buy that are their reasons, not yours (a previous topic).

Be specific.  Quality, service and price are so overused they have no impact.  What does quality mean?  “Our superior manufacturing techniques allow us to warranty our gizmo for 10 years, DOUBLE the industry standard.”  “We have two owners and two superintendents in the field checking every job.  No other contractor our size can say that.  No other contractor cares more about quality than we do.”

6. You don’t contact enough people
At its most basic, marketing is still a game of odds.  The more people you contact, the higher the odds your message gets to people who want your product at that time.

7. You don’t contact people often enough
Same as above.  Get the odds in your favor.  I may not need or want your product today, but I may next month.

Any of this sound familiar?  There’s a reason why you’re still reading this far into this page and my site. . . Email me.

Chris Jones
Owner
CDC Pools – Pool resurfacing and backyard redesign
480-539-7700

Brad Johnson
Partner
Jacoby & Meyers // Petersen Johnson – Accident injury law
602-650-1200  bjohnson@petersenjohnson.com

Ms. Jan Kanaba
Owner
Media People, Inc. – Video production services
623-465-4500

Warren Levenbaum, Attorney
Owner
lawtigers.com – Motorcycle accident law
602-271-0183

Ms. Dallas Porter-Stowe
CEO
AGTS – Training
480-967-7544  dallas@agts.com

Ray Bastin
Specialist Partner
Pan Pacific Partners – Investment banking
480-968-6771