Andy Sernovitz from Gaspedal pays Craig Flynn giant compliment; Internet police suspect alcohol was involved.
Read it here: WOMM + Tomatoes
(Thank you Andy, the recognition is much appreciated…)
Why WOMM = Sales
Word-of-Mouth Marketing is what can be called the “sales function” of marketing. This quick video with Seth Godin explains exactly why that’s so; and it’s great validation for many of the sales people attending Supergenius, on July 20th!
Well, I’m on YouTube…
Gaspedal had us to do an interview for the upcoming Supergenius Word-of-Mouth Marketing Conference.
You can listen what our talk is about here on YouTube.
Also, take note that there are interviews with lots of the other speakers.
See you July 20th in NYC, and don’t forget we have a discount code for the Conference; so don’t hesitate to e-mail and we can send it right over! craig@TheEmptyBin.com
Cut Everything In Half
We’re all busy; and we get hundreds of e-mails, voice-mails, text messages, etc… every single month.
Do your customer a favor:
- Draft your email/vmail/proposal;
- Re-read it;
- Then reduce the number of words by 50%.
Your customers will appreciate it, you’ll gain more credibility, and your message will be that much more powerful.
[This post used to be twice as long]
It’s NEVER About Price…
… it’s about a mis-understanding of value, or a Basic Issue.
[Note: Many in the MH community will argue that it’s ALWAYS about price for those of us in the field, but that academically the above holds true. Regardless, please read on for my point]
Today, I was involved in a meeting where the customer told us, “Your price is too high.”
After preparing a GST, asking questions, and practicing Golden Silence, we were able to drill down on and understand the Customer’s Concept… that is, what he’s looking to accomplish, fix, or avoid.
Customer initially says you cost too much; after meeting we now understand the following, as spoken to us by the Economic Buyer:
“We’re concerned about margin erosion, b/c we’ve been using the high profits from your product line to compensate for lower margins on our commodity sales.”
That is extremely important information that will help resolve the customer’s pains, and develop an effective action plan.
Boom! The POWER of Questions lives on…
Why use the Greensheet (GST)?
“Craig, do you REALLY take the time to actually fill out a GST?”
Absolutely, and it’s simple math that leads me down that path.
I figure for a Customer that will be buying millions of dollars of our products over the lifetime of the account, taking 20 minutes to plan and assure an effective meeting is an excellent investment of my time; and of course it builds my credibility.
It’s equally important that I plan to explore the customer’s Concept, and what questions I need to ask so I’ll be able to better understand what the customer is looking to accomplish/fix/avoid.
In fact, I had a sales call today was with a Conceptual Selling customer-graduate; we were in a meeting today with his “VP” of the LYard.
It was a very brief sit-down, but I was able to ask my confirmation question, a new information question, and my action commitment question.
I now have a much stronger understanding of the customer’s Concept; and this will help me share the proper Unique Strengths during our next meeting, for which my action commitment question received a “yes.”
[Okay, well it was a “pseudo” action commitment; given the unknowns of my own travel, I was forced to set the date for the next appointment in “a couple of weeks” instead of being specific.]
Planning Pays.
Biggest Competition, Gone?
That’s correct, it’s gone… and for most of us.
There are four types of competition:
- Buying from a competitor
- Using internal resources (prospect does it oneself)
- Budget used for something else
- Do Nothing
No question that post housing-crash our (the industry’s) biggest competition has been “Do Nothing.”
Customers have been frozen for years; hesitant to stray from what’s worked for them in the past, and hesitant to try new things. Too much risk, much safer to “Do Nothing,” specifically when it comes to a new product or service.
We won’t see any massive growth this year in the housing market, nor any time soon in my humble opinion. It is what is, today, and at best with possible incremental growth in the following years.
However, the “Do Nothing” competition is gone; and it’s an opportunity for all of us.
[Disclaimer: My macro understanding of the housing market isn’t the strongest, so please take my opinions with a serious grain of salt, if not a truckload. I focus on the micro – and in that regard, I see a wealth of opportunity to grow sales in partnership with our current customer base]
What’s in Your Sales Toolkit?
Miller Heiman recently released their excellent Annual Sales Best Practices Study, where they detail the best practices of world class selling organizations. It’s a GOOD READ.
You can find a link to the executive summary of the report here: http://www.millerheiman.com/2010research.
Some of the study’s key highlights include:
- 97 percent of World-Class Sales Organizations know why their customers buy from them.
- World-Class Sales Organizations are four times more likely to consistently utilize comprehensive prospecting plans.
- 97 percent of World-Class Sales Organizations have an organizational structure that allows them to adapt to customer’s changing needs.
- World-Class Sales Organizations are four times more likely to spend adequate time coaching their salespeople.
- 90 percent World-Class Sales Organizations agree that their salespeople have a solid understanding of our customer’s business needs.
- World-Class Sales Organizations are four times more likely to have a formal process for executive-to-executive selling.
As many of you are aware, we’re Miller Heiman clients, and they’ve served us VERY well over the years; I’m more than happy to speak with any of you regarding our experiences. craig@theemptybin.com
Another Terrible VBR…
Ah, the ‘ol VBR (Valid Business Reason)… well, certainly the below doesn’t work, on multiple fronts (received the e-mail this morning):
1) He starts with “I”
2) I’m never a good person to speak with
3) Doesn’t he know that we’re in the building industry, thereby… what’s compensation even mean?
4) “Love?”
“Hi Craig,
I was hoping to learn more about your incentive compensation process, would you be a good person to speak with? If not, can you possibly point me in the right direction?
Xactly provides a solution that helps companies streamline and automate their sales compensation process. Some benefits include:
-Increase visibility to sales and management -Reduce manual workload -Provide real time analytical reports for executive management -Easily change comp plans and run spiffs while maintaining accuracy and audit trail
I would love to know either way what your thoughts are.
Regards,
Matt”
This e-mail is all about “Matt.” And I don’t “love” him.
Don’t forget the most important rule: It’s not about “I,” it’s about the customer, and what’s in it for them to meet with you… or take your call, or answer your e-mail.
[NO, WindsorONE sales team, I’m still not gonna call the guy]
$150,000,000 in iPads in One Day?
You can’t deny Apple’s ability to crush it, regardless if their products work for you or not (don’t for me, do for wife).
Here’s an excellent post from Seth Godin on Apple:
[You’re getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin’s blog.]
Secrets of the biggest selling launch ever
Apple reports that on the first day they sold more than $150,000,000 worth of iPads. I can’t think of a product or movie or any other launch that has ever come close to generating that much direct revenue.
Are their tactics are reserved for giant consumer fads? I don’t think so. In fact, they work even better for smaller gigs and more focused markets.
- Earn a permission asset. Over 25 years, Apple has earned the privilege of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to their tribe. They can get the word out about a new product without a lot of money because one by one, they’ve signed people up. They didn’t sell 300,000 iPads in one day, they sold them over a few decades.
- Don’t try to please everyone. There are countless people who don’t want one, haven’t heard of one or actively hate it. So what? (Please don’t gloss over this one just because it’s short. In fact, it’s the biggest challenge on this list).
- Make a product worth talking about. Sounds obvious. If it’s so obvious, then why don’t the other big companies ship stuff like this? Most of them are paralyzed going to meetings where they sand off the rough edges.
- Make it easy for people to talk about you. Steve doesn’t have a blog. He doesn’t tweet and you can’t friend him on Facebook. That’s okay. The tribe loves to talk, and the iPad gave them something to talk about.
- Build a platform for others to play in. Not just your users, but for people who want to reach your users.
- Create a culture of wonder. Microsoft certainly has the engineers, the developers and the money to launch this. So why did they do the Zune instead? Because they never did the hard cultural work of creating the internal expectation that shipping products like this is possible and important.
- Be willing to fail. Bold bets succeed–and sometimes they don’t. Is that okay with you? Launching the iPad had to be even more frightening than launching a book…
- Give the tribe a badge. The cool thing about marketing the iPad is that it’s a visible symbol, a uniform. If you have one in the office on Monday, you were announcing your membership. And if it says, “sent from my iPad” on the bottom of your emails…
- Don’t give up so easy. Apple clearly a faced a technical dip in creating this product… they worked on it for more than a dozen years. Most people would have given up long ago.
- Don’t worry so much about conventional wisdom. The iPad is a closed system (not like the web) because so many Apple users like closed systems.
And the one thing I’d caution you about:
- Don’t worry so much about having a big launch day. It looks good in the newspaper, but almost every successful brand or product (Nike, JetBlue, Starbucks, IBM…) didn’t start that way.
A few things that will make it work even better going forward:
- Create a product that works better when your friends have one too. Some things (like a Costco membership or even email) fit into that category, because if more people join, the prices will go down or access will go up. Others (like the unlisted number to a great hot restaurant) don’t.
- Make it cheap enough or powerful enough that organizations buy a lot at a time. To give away. To use as a tool.
- Change the home screen so I can see more than twenty apps at a time (sorry, that was just me.)
As promised, the folks at Vook made their deadline and were ready on launch day. It’s early days, but it’s pretty clear to me that the way authors with ideas will share them is going to change pretty radically, just as the iPad demonstrates that the way people interact with the web is going to keep changing as well.
THE EMPTY BIN 