COMMENTS
I work for a "young" company (all execs under 35) that is slowly awakening to the potential of internet marketing. Thankfully, our crazy ideas get very little pushback from the upper echelons.
If you're stuck w/ one of the above types of supervisors, try to break them in slowly. I've found that curbing our enthusiasm (or distributing it over a longer period) helps gun-shy managers warm up to edgy concepts they're unfamiliar with. But all that within reason!
While I love the stories, I really wish you had examples of how you would convert these people to believers. I've experienced a lot of these same people. Maybe a follow up blog with different approaches used.
There's a lot of meat here, Pete. The thing that struck home for me was the point about 'pretending'. Pretending to want to do what it takes to attract younger buyers. Pretending to want to grow a 'sales culture' when employees use the term 'business development' because they can't say "sales". Or pretending that it's the fault of the economy, the president, the prospect when the salespeople are just plain inadequate. The great thing about a RECESSION is that the pretenders are forced to stop pretending that they're in business and they go get a job. Thanks for the mention and another thought provoking post.
@Don. If you have difficulty working through objections, I suggest you call a sales training expert. Fundamental sales skills will help you overcome these objections or learn when to walk away and focus on the next guy.
Basically, the first piece of advice I have is to call on the decision maker first. Then, you should ask questions and find out what's most important to them. Then, whenever you run into an issue, you can always ask, "Are you going to let this issue stand in the way of your goals?" or some variation of that question.
@Shawn. Thanks for the insight, Shawn. Slowly introducing new concepts is a good idea. If you have a track record of helping the company achieve it's objectives, and you have credibility and trust from the management, I think it's also a good idea to just align your project's goals with the goals of the company. Then, make sure the stakeholders are in agreement that your project is the best use of company resources.
Sometimes it just makes sense to start doing things too and demonstrate the value. (EG. Starting a twitter account takes 5 minutes and you can do it in your own name. If you're in sales or marketing and you can show how it helps generate traffic, leads and sales, then you're golden.)
Most importantly, I would enlist the help of sales people like myself. Some of us are experts at asking the right questions (the hard ones that are hard to ask if you work for someone) that get a manager to really think. And of course, we've presented solutions to people 100 times more than you have. We also have a variety of experiences helping people in different situations. Usually, we've helped someone just like you and can draw from that to help you.
@Rick. Thanks for the link. That's extremely relevant. Just like in war, there's always new technology to take advantage of to be more effective at business and ultimately, win.
I agree. A lot of people are "pretending" to want to do something. If they really wanted to make success happen for themselves, they'd overcome their own challenges and they'd go and do it.
Thanks again for the inspiration.
I feel like Story B a lot of the time, although I don't consider myself young.
The biggest challenge from my client experiences has been combating the misunderstanding of how more and more online consumers spend their time. They're not simply out there sucking up any information that's tossed in front of them. They're actually participating and communicating by sharing their experiences and interests with others.
Overheard from a national trade group marketing director was how they needed to essentially "infiltrate" digital media spaces by amplifying their messages. I cringed a bit. As with anything else, trust is built through relationships. Pushing a message without any personalization is fast becoming one of the biggest turn offs to online users.
Sure, maybe a blindly launched press release hits its target. More than likely it won't even cross the path of the audience it's trying to reach.
Finding ways to respectfully engage a target audience, be it through a presence on social networks, well researched SEO work or a thoughtful, actively maintained blog site are all proving to be valuable assets in marketing. Because they're personal.
It comes down to the fact that brand discussion is taking place and affecting images online whether companies like it or not. The challenge comes in ensuring their own voice gets acknowledged in the conversation. And you wouldn't do that by just butting in now would you?
@angela The first step is admitting there's a problem. :-) Let us know if we can help.
@Chris. That might be the most insightful comment I've read on our blog in a long time. Are you looking for a new job?
There is one common thread to these fictional stories. In order to assist these people, the sales rep must be customer-centric and solution oriented. A cookie cutter approach will not work because every situation is different. Each person has different needs, obstacles, resources, goals, etc. The job of the sales rep should be to find a solution to fit the customer's needs, while taking into consideration each person's relevant circumstances.
Story A: From reading this example, it is clear how this company generates new business. They use the same old marketing techniques, which are all interruptive based (outside sales reps, print ads). They do have a website but currently it is brochure-like. They've taken what they already have in print and made it into a website. This is far from being interesting content. Actually, it is quite boring so if people do happen to land on their website, they probably won't be there for long. And even worse, there is no lead generation whatsoever so these visitors certainly won't be converted to paying customers.
As a sales rep, I would need to make this company realize that there is more than one way to generate leads. I would need to explain that the sales cycle has changed. When people are looking to buy something (especially if the monetary investment is large), the first thing most do is head to Google. Alex should want his company to show up on the top of the first page in the organic search results because this is where his potential clients are clicking. Alex needs to be found when his potential customers are out there looking for him. Getting to the top of the organic search results takes some time to accomplish, but once Alex's company is there, it will be hard to displace him (especially if he continues to put forth effort into this). I could ask Alex to do a search for 'industrial manufacturing' (or whatever keywords are relevant) and see if his company shows up. Going by what I know about their website and how the IT department is controlling it, I can guess that the company will not show up in the first few pages.
If HubSpot has Alex's company as a lead, then I would have to think Alex has been to the HubSpot website several times and maybe even attended a webinar. So I'd first want to hear his thoughts on inbound marketing. From probing, I already know that their marketing department focuses on redesigning the product catalog and producing one-page product sheets. So they are okay with spending money. But what is their overall cost per lead? From taking HubSpot's 'Marketing in a Recession' webinar, I've learned that the typical outbound marketing lead costs $255, compared to $45 for an inbound marketing lead. If I convince Alex that inbound marketing can help bring customers to him more efficiently, I would then need to find out if he'd be willing to dedicate the time and resources to make this happen. Currently, the IT, marketing, and sales departments work exclusively. Is Alex's company willing to change this? Is he willing to learn a new software and interpret data? Will Alex embrace social media and business blogging? Is the company willing to devote the time and provide the resources that are necessary for inbound marketing?
Story B: The approach for this scenario would be different depending on who the contact person is. For this example, I will say it is Jennifer Garners. I would first ask Jennifer what she knows about inbound marketing. Assuming (from her profile) that she's well versed, it may be the case that Jennifer is already convinced that her company should take this direction but she needs help convincing management. If all management does is humor her "crazy" ideas, they might be reluctant to talk to a HubSpot sales rep. So we first need Jennifer to do some convincing for us. I would have Jennifer download the slideshow "Inbound Marketing @ YOUR-COMPANY" from HubSpot (tinyurl.com/8swxby) and help her make this document relevant to her situation so that she can present it to management. (This, of course, is assuming that Jennifer is already completely sold and management won't talk to me directly because they still think its a waste of time).
What might be especially alarming to management is how their company fares on keyword searches (using
www.WebsiteGrader.com). By doing the research with Jennifer, we might find that there are X amount of monthly searches for a relevant keyword, but their company is nowhere to be found in the search results. The same poor results can probably be said for finding Jennifer's company in the blogosphere and social media (other than what Jennifer has done herself). Their marketing grade from WebsiteGrader will probably show that they are way behind on the Internet. (This is where management should be admitting that they have a problem!)
Next, we could discuss solutions for this problem. We could outline a marketing plan (SEO, blogging, social media, etc.), set goals, and create a budget. Jennifer can present all this information to management and convince them that they need to call me because inbound marketing is something that should be a priority for their company in 2009 and beyond.
Story C: Not knowing what other information Brad provided to you, I would want to know what he is currently doing to generate leads, how much each lead is costing him, and is he hitting his sales goals? Does he have any tools to measure his results right now? My next approach would obviously depend upon his answers to these questions. Brad seems very analytical which is probably why you presented him with numbers (and also why he would love HubSpot's software). Unfortunately, he didn't believe the data was accurate. Or maybe that was just a smokescreen because he doesn't want to admit that he himself is incapable of the work that is necessary if his company were to adopt inbound marketing. Brad also seems like he has a hard time delegating. He likes to do everything himself (still manages PPC), which is problematic when it comes to inbound marketing because he has no idea what he is doing.
But ultimately, Brad would need to empower his employees since he doesn't have the skills necessary. Naomi needs to be able to do her own marketing work. If Brad would completely empower Naomi, this means she would also take full responsibility for the results of the inbound marketing campaign. Brad might feel uncomfortable at first giving Naomi full control, but where he might be comfortable is letting her take full responsibility. If inbound marketing fails (unlikely), he can blame Naomi and his ego doesn't have to take a hit. If its a success (likely), then I'm sure Brad will be the first to pat himself on the back :-)
Story D: Since the price point of the entrepreneur's service only works if the growth is driven by internet marketing methods, it would seem that HubSpot would be perfect for him. Unfortunately, he went with a lower cost service. But what is even more unfortunate is that the company he hired is a "Do it for me" consultant (see Mike Volpe's blog http://tinyurl.com/78ymzo). I would let the entrepreneur know that if he ever stops paying this company, the benefits immediately stop. And even worse, the entrepreneur hasn't learned a thing. If he goes with HubSpot instead, sure his team (which already has the skills) will do much of the work; but the employees are directly involved which makes them much more motivated to grow the business than a third party getting paid by the hour. Doing inbound marketing with assistance (from HubSpot) will get better results, will turn your employees into experts, and you will have control over the process at all times.
OMG! Bianca.
I'm pretty sure you'd do a better job than I would have. I would have walked away from a few of these. But, I think your approaches are extremely solid.
I really appreciate you taking the time to provide so much awesome insight. I love your approach in every situation.
Greetings.
I work for a new-comer to internet marketing, Zero Day Media. We have done proof-of-concept testing and various other research, and for the most part, your examples are a nice grouping.
Your Story A: 'Doing the Same Things I Did 10 Years Ago' Marketer vs. the Technology-Focussed Web Team example is among the most common for "established" organizations, that we encountered. Several of the organizations we looked at who had younger and more technically savvy management seemed to elude this problem. I think it was because they may have barely had 10 years worth of habits to fall back onto, but the revelation remains. Teaching old dogs new tricks is possible, but it is best if the dog is used to learning new tricks.
I love the sentence that begins, "Although the situation is probably a clued-in marketer's dream...." This concept is true of so many things ... be it a clued-in marketer or a clued-in engineer, chef, jeweler, politician, ... you name it. The people at Pragmatic Marketing called it,
Tuned In."
Story B was not such an issue with our findings, however, in Story C this becomes a matter of how well the wanna-be techie executives can be talked down, so to type. I wrote something about this a while back, in an brief article called,
Focus on Your Strengths: How Outsourcing Your IT Needs Can Improve Your Businesses Profitability and Fend Off Insanity." It is amazing what can be accomplished when people know their strengths and focus on their core competencies.
Story D can be a tough one, but again, provide enough evidence and the logical will understand.
Having skillful sales people is a make-or-break item for just about any business. People tend to respond best when they are treated like, well, people.
I agree with Don Schindler's comment asking for more ways to convert the unbelievers. At the same time, i understand that one cannot just give away the cake.
Thank you for the interesting read. I was referred to it by someone from Pragmatic Marketing.
Well said, Javier. If you'd like to write a guest post a/b the results of your research, we'd be open to publishing it. Just contact Rick.
We're pretty familiar with David Meerman Scott, the author of Tuned In. Here's an
article we published about the book. He is on our board of advisors.
We've formed our company around the principles he laid out in "The New Rules of PR and Marketing".
Pete,
Wonderful post. I imagine it took you a lot of time and thought to prepare these case histories. It's like I'm sitting across the street from the HubSpot offices at Sloan.
I'm too old to be considered for employment with HubSpot. I probably resemble the old timers with whom you're trying to become trusted advisors. It's a great exercise, so I'll take a crack at it.
Story A: Alex Baldwin impresses me as the type of leader with brass balls. He's the guy that removed the coffee machine from the sales office, because coffee is for closers.
Alex is a straight shooter. He's got a great product and is today's market leader. Alex's challenge is growing his business. My guess is in 2 years, he'll be losing market share, and revenue growth will be heading south.
My approach with Alex will be to help him reach the conclusion that his business is broken, and he has to be a change agent to fix it. Trying to get HubSpot in the door without changing the sales culture will be a disaster. It'll be a short lived victory.
I'd ask Alex if he was satisfied with his revenue growth and profit over the past 2 years. I'd ask him for his projections over the next 2 years. I believe that he'll tell me he's far from happy with his numbers. That will be my hook.
So, for Alex we're looking at change, and guiding him though the transformation of his sales team into a team that can succeed in today's marketing environment. The new sales montra will be to start talking talking about benefits, not features. Turn the radio dial to WIIFM. Remember your customer is not buying your features, he paying for the results your features will bring him
Story B: This is the tale of a bright, young, energetic PR lady trying to convince someone like me to change the rules of the game. She's not going to accomplish this alone.
My first step will be to understand that I'm in a negotiation scenario with my boss. I'd want to win some allies from people my boss trusts, before I approach him directly. I'd focus on those people in the organization, earn their trust and enlist their support. You can lead from anywhere in an organization.
My tact would be to educate these people on the power of relationship's developed through on line social media. You don't have to be sitting at a bar having a cocktail with a customer to get close. You can do it on the Internet.
So, with my young, PR lady, I'd be trying to win allies and support from trusted colleagues of my boss. My goal would be to demonstrate through You Tube, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogging, etc how powerful internet relationships can be.
Story C: I'm a firm believer that Techies and marketers can find common goals and work together to reach those goals to move the company ahead. We're just tackling challenges from different angles.
I'd start by repeating something Seth Godin wrote in yesterday's blog. I'd promise to spend money only on marketing that works. Who wouldn't by $1.00 for $.75?
This is the type of leader that plays right into HubSpot's strength. Analytic tools and a thorough understanding about how to use them. I'd promise to design a marketing strategy that includes measuring every tactic.
He'll know how many leads were generated from one keyword. He'll know where every visitor to the company website came from. He'll know exactly how much money each lead and new customer cost. He'll know exactly how much revenue my marketing campaign generated and at what cost. What more can a techie ask?
That's the direction I'm header with fearless Leader C
Story D: My entrepreneurial leader is my dream customer because its the HubSpot story. I'll approach this guy with a compelling narrative about 2 guys from MIT wanting to help small to mid size businesses running on a tight marketing budget.
I'd rely on success stories from other clients. I'd point him to their web sites. I'd show him how affordable my solution is. What entrepreneur likes to give up control? Very few. The ones that do are probably working for someone else by now.
Leader D is my HubSpot guy.
I've really enjoyed working through these challenges. Thanks!
Pete: Agreeing with the others before me, this is a great post. For some reason, I feel like I've worked at all of those companies... Here's to 2009!
Pete, these are great case studies. Thanks for the opportunity to respond.
Bianca makes a good point that each story brings it own challenges because of the resources, goals, needs, etc. I do believe that the same process can be applied to each situation to reach the salesperson's goal of helping the client uncover pain points and take advantage of opportunities. It's clear from all four stories that there are both pain points and significant opportunities in every scenario.
One of the primary functions of the salesperson, and how he or she can add the most value, is to be the outside perspective that helps their client see problems and opportunities that their client is too close to see. Sometimes companies are so accustomed to doing things the old way, they don't feel the pain, even though the symptoms are right in front of them.
I've found that one of the most effective ways to help a client see more clearly their current situation is to engage with them through a dialogue of thought provoking questions. What's great about using this strategy and process, is that it is no different than what companies should be doing as part of their online strategy: engage their customers through a dialogue via social media!
Some examples of questions to ask the client to help them see potential pain and opportunities include: "What will happen if you don't make any changes to your current process?", "If you can't find a solution to this problem, what will be the effect on the company, department, market share, etc.", "Why is finding a solution to this issue important? Why does it matter?", "What happens if you wait to act? What are the opportunity costs?"
In all four stories, once there is an understanding of the challenges and opportunities, that's when the sales rep can match the Hubspot solutions to help the customer fix the pains and take advantage of the opportunities discovered through this dialogue.
Story A - The two main points I take from this story are 1) the uncoordinated efforts across several departments is having a negative effect on their sales process and 2) the seemingly exclusive use of interruption based marketing tools.
A strategy with this company is to understand how Alex has been affected by current and past efforts, including why he feels the e-commerce efforts failed. It would be important on this account to bring in others affected by these marketing efforts besides Alex, including management, IT and Sales to begin a coordinated effort to effect change.It appears that all these players have a vested interest in the current process. Without their input, just about any effort no matter how good the intentions is bound to fail. Being a market leader, and having the knowledge assets stated, this company is an ideal position to lead and facilitate the discussion in the industrial manufacturing arena and leverage these assets into tangible leads and sales.
Story B - This story highlights the need for education and buy-in from everyone in the organization affected by the product/service you are selling. Because Hubspot's products and services impact sales and marketing, a core driver for most businesses, just about every department is affected in some way. However, it is crucial that senior management see the impact.
Hubspot has some great tools that can help facilitate the dialogue mentioned earlier, including the Powerpoint template on bringing inbound marketing to your company and website grader. The combination of these tools would help senior management see what a poor job they are currently doing at capturing the "elusive Gen Y" segment and what they can do about it. A good strategy for Jennifer to show sales management what online marketing can do is to add online marketing components slowly in conjunction with their traditional marketing tools, so as to get some "proof of concept".
Story C - This one is a fantastic opportunity. Brad already has exposure to Internet marketing which I believe gives him the foundation to understand the other tools his company is missing out on. Similar to Story B, there is an education component here for senior management, or in this case, Brad. Brad, with his engineering background, is likely a numbers guy and might explain his resistance to SEO given his opinion that is was "too much of an art" to implement.
Naomi's strategy with Brad, with the help of the Hubspot sales rep, would be to 1) demonstrate how PPC can be complemented by SEO and blogging by showing him how both these tools can raise his website's organic search rank and lower the cost per lead of their entire online marketing strategy. 2) Have a discussion with Brad to begin to show him that there needs to be a new way of measuring the ROI of marketing (i.e. number of downloads of an e-book, number of people exposed to their ideas/products through blogs, how many people are talking about their products, etc). We should ask Brad the question David Meerman Scott's poses "what's the ROI of putting on your pants in the morning?!" to demonstrate that not everything can be measured using dollars and cents ROI metrics.
Story D - I think this story is about the price battle that so often comes up with a cheaper competitor. To me, this story is about creating value. Until the entrepreneur sees the value of Hubspot over the Asian marketing firm, no amount of convincing and persuading would work. A strategy for this account is to dig deep with the entrepreneur through questions that help him see the pain of using a completely hands off marketing approach versus taking what is arguably the most important component and keeping it in house. Without knowing all the numbers, I suspect it would be a good exercise to look at the net cost of both solutions over a long term period. I'm confident that the long term benefits of internet marketing, including blogging, PPC, SEO optimization, etc, would yield a lower cost per lead, plus, a higher quality lead (one in which the company could begin a dialogue with the customer about the product earlier in the decision cycle) that would lead to a shorter sales cycle.
@Lawrence and David.
Thanks for taking the time to think through these and respond. And also put yourselves out there. As you can see, there weren't a lot of people that were willing to lay their approaches out for all to see. If there's an important characteristic of a salesperson, it's having the willingness to put fear and other's judgment aside and go for it. So, kudos.
I think that some of your assumptions, Lawrence, are a little off. I think the worst thing a salesperson can do is assume. Of course, it's a natural thing. But, if you take a look at Bianca's questions, she asked very good questions to help figure out her approach. She also used ONLY the information available. In other words, she didn't assume anything and she asked questions to figure out what else she needed to start tie-ing the prospects pains to the capabilities of internet marketing. You made some assumptions, especially about Alex that weren't necessarily based on facts. It seems like they were based more on a bit of intuition and maybe some previous experiences you've had. These are fictional scenarios, so your intuition maybe right or wrong. Who am I to say. But, generally, making assumptions isn't a great thing to do in a sales process.
David, everything you've explaining sounds like it came from a sales text book, which I think is a good thing.
You started off strong suggesting that you'd ask a lot more questions. And your response to Story A includes a description of questions you'd want to get answered. I think you would have done well with that one. Ironically, when I face situations like this, I usually cross them off of the list. At HubSpot, Story A requires too much work to sell a $500 solution. I usually refer this kind of deal to a partner of ours, as a sale is going to require 3 different sales processes for all of the stakeholders involved, probably face to face, and then be a huge burden/time sink to manage and align all the stakeholders towards a common goal (assuming they move forward with my proposed solution). It's more than HubSpot can pull off for the price we charge and the way we have our processes set up. Dealing with internal complexity is one reason large companies have to hire large marketing agencies to manage their marketing.
With Story B, C, and D, it sounds like you got happy ears and went into a description of the presentation phase. That's good. But, I think you needed to ask more questions.
That said, you did preface all of your answers with a bunch of GREAT questions which would identify pain and consequences. So, I'll give you a close second to Bianca's response.
The only thing different is that she wrote out her custom questions for each scenario, where you laid them out in the beginning. That's obviously not much of a difference.
As anyone at HubSpot will tell you, all I do is ask questions and tell a few stories until I'm satisfied that the prospect WILL buy after I make my presentation. Many times, after a good qualifying call, I'll ask, "Assuming the solution that I present to you can do x, y, z and meet your requirements a, b and c within time frame g and for investment size $h, how and when will you buy?"
The power of asking the right questions is that more people turn into customers, which means the more people you can help.
Again, thanks for your answers guys.
Pete,
Thanks for your feedback. I hear what you're saying. Very valuable sales advice.
I responded to your hypothetical case studies from a wider angle. My training as a law student and 33 years experience practicing law teaches me to "assume" that every sentence in a case study, or a real live case has meaning, or it wouldn't be included by the writer.
Asking the first question is easy. Actively listening to the response, and artfully asking the follow up questions sets you apart from the pack. Do you find metaphors helpful? Success stories? Or do personal stories resonate best with your customers? Or, does it depend upon the responses to the questions you ask?
I remember going to a party one night with a bunch of my wife's co-workers. I only knew one person. I spent the evening asking everyone quesions about themselves. Some stories were interesting, others not so. But, I listened attentively to eveyone. No one bothered asking me about me.
The next day I wasn't surprised to learn that my wife received calls from her friends complimenting me on my conversation ability. "What a great guy". They had no idea who I was. I knew them.
I considered your comment in the opening paragraph, "It's a sad story. But, one that could have been prevented if the leaders of the company recognized their weaknesses and built their team around the skills they were missing", as asking me to discuss how I'd influence the leader of 4 companies. Study A and D from an outside sales perspective. Study B from a young PR person's perspective. Study C from a talented, new hire marketer's perspective.
I chose not to ignore naming the President of Marcomm, Alex Baldwin. I thought it was a great reference to the star of a remarkable scene in Glengarry Glenross. It's the most widely used sales training video ever, as I assume you know. My characterization of the personality of the President of Marcomm, was just a response to that reference. Otherwise, why include a reference that any sales person worth his salt would pick up on?
How is a young PR person going to gain the ear of the President of her Company? Where's her credibity? Do you expect her to meet with the President and close the deal with questions and a story?
You may find Michael Watkins book, "Shaping the Game" of interest.
In Case Study C, how does Naomi change Brad's thinking. What quesitons should she ask?
I missed the rules of the game. I read Rick's post, after responding to your case studies. My mistake.
I broke my cardinal rule. Always do your research before responding.
I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to respond to my response. Very stimulating discussion for an old man.
Thanks, again