Increase Sales Blog

Posts Tagged ‘executive marketing summary’

The quest to increase sales is a monthly effort. Now with the second month of 2010 are quickly coming to an end this begs to ask the question:  Are your hitting your sales targets or not?

Possibly now is the time to start thinking differently.  When you are asked “What do you do?” How do you respond?  Do you begin your “elevator pitch” with either one of these words?  “I” of  “We”  Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Remember to respond with what you do, not how you do what you do.

What would happen if you were able to describe what you do by using an adjective ending with “ing” such as:

• Accelerating?
• Building?
• Growing?
• Helping?
• Partnering?
• Streamlining?
• Working?

Then finish your marketing message in another 6 words.  Would such a marketing statement get the attention of your potential customer better than what you are currently saying? Sales Training Coaching Tip: Having an executive  marketing summary helps you in this endeavor.

One of my coaches, David Herdlinger,  once said “If you are telling you ain’t selling!” When we provide long, detail rich answers to that first simple question we are not building a relationship.  The human brain can only remember about 7 to 10 bits of information at a time.  Just think about attempting to remember someone’s name.  Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Ask yourself this question:  Is my response memorable?

Your marketing challenge to increase sales begins at the very first moment to grab someone’s attention and start to build a relationship.  Excess verbiage only confuses the person standing opposite you.

As you construct your 7 word response consider these three communication tips.

Accuracy - Your response needs to be accurate. This means you need to answer the question. Now some may answer the question with a question.  Depending upon your communication style, this may work for you.

Brevity – Being brief in 7 words or less helps the other person to remember what you said. Again your goal is for the other person to speak so you learn more about her or him.

Creativity - Saying what others have said such as “we grow health and wealth” (a common financial advisor response) or “I turn potential into performance” (an often heard statement by business coaches, executive coaches or business consultants) only reaffirms that you are just another gray suit in the Sea of Sameness. You stand out, to be that Red Jacket, demands an investment of your time to construct a truly creative and compelling message.

By applying these communication tips  to your marketing message, you can become the Red Jacket where people remember you and truly want to become better acquainted with you.  Sales Training Coaching Tip:  The words you speak along with the behaviors you take are critical to your ability to increase sales.

A recent posting devoted to best practices for on-line marketing by Charisse Lewis migrated to a LinkedIn discussion.  Charisse asked this question (paraphrasing read the blog):  Would you allow your sales rep to go out looking messy to a business networking event, sales call, etc. if you truly want to increase sales?

Her remarks reminded me of another posting by Jonathan Farrington a while ago specific to the number of business professionals who have messy business cards. In six months, he wrote if I remember correctly that 90% of all business cards had cross outs, hand written new numbers, emails or addresses.

Marketing efforts from websites to blogs to business cards to even handwritten notes must be clear, sharp, professional and achieve your predetermined results. These actions should always be aligned to your marketing action plan and embracing an education based marketing approach would not hurt either. Sales Training Coaching Tip: Education based marketing focuses on educating your potential client not spewing price, product or proposal which happens when adopting Product or Sale based marketing approach.

As a good friend of mine Bill Napolitano has said: “There are a lot of Captain Wing Its.” The adoption of this role creates what I call  “spraying and praying” behaviors with the hope of something sticks.

Charisse makes a great point about seeking help.  In creating this blog, I sought the help of Matt Geier from The Sales Corner and he is now working on revamping the banner on my main web site.

Business people including professional sales persons sometimes fail to make the necessary outreach and then end up with less than the desired results. Even though I am not a marketing expert, my clients do ask my opinion about marketing copy and websites. Knowing some basics about writing copy and search engine optimization, I can educate (share my knowledge) and continue to build that relationship with my client.

Invest the time to make sure your business cards are professionally produced without any cross outs or handwritten numbers or email addresses. Revisit your website and blog (if you have one and you really should I may add) to ensure it is clean and not messy. Review all your marketing materials. Finally, return to your marketing action plan, your marketing executive summary and your core positioning statement to verify your marketing actions are all in alignment. By taking these actions, you should increase sales because you are working smarter not harder.

Marketing is probably more misunderstood than its sibling, Selling.  Both are children of the Sales Process.

The purpose of marketing is to:

1. Attract Attention
2. Begin to build a relationship

Now the goal is also two-fold:

1. Make a friend
2. Secure a first time appointment

I realized how misunderstood marketing truly is when viewing some of the Super Bowl Commercials.  Some were good, some Okay and some left me totally clueless.  Now being somewhat older, I realize to attract my attention and begin to build a relationship may be different than a 20 year old or even 40 year old. The reason people watch the ads is this medium of TV (video) is because TV can effectively engage these 3 senses:

1. Sight
2. Hearing
3. Feelings

One of the ads was from Career Builder.  This was targeted to 40 and 50 year olds I believe, but not sure. (I had to watch the ad several times to understand the message and this indicates it was not successful marketing.)  Yet, all the people dressed in underwear truly distracted me from their final message. What this showed me is there is a lot of poor marketing happening and this is an opportunity for any one who wishes to put a little effort into their marketing activities.

For example, small business owners to C Level executives to entrepreneurs to professional sales people can create their own successful marketing commercials and post them to YouTube. By remembering the purpose and the goals of marketing for zero cash outlay to a nominal amount around $300 to $500, videos can quickly demonstrate a return on investment.

I just received this YouTube video Any Dummy Can Do LinkedIn Using some creativity, leveraging an existing client, building a strategic alliance all worked together to produce an engaging 6 minutes of attracting attention and building a relationship. Sales Training Coaching Tip: If you are not into social media or believe social media is a bunch of “hooey” then you might believe this video has zero value.

The potential buyer (a.k.a. prospect or viewer) comes away with the following:

1. Knowing the service (or product) being offered
2. Affirmation by a current client of the quality of the service
3. Understanding the level of expertise or quality specific to seller
4. Sense of the personality of the seller (psychographics in reverse)
5. An emotional reaction ranging from outstanding to “you have got to be kidding”

When the marketing message is memorable and is directly connected to the product or service (minus the strong arm sales pitch), then the potential customer will be more inclined to share her or his experience with others such as “Did you say that dummy on JD’s YouTube Video?”  “Pretty creative!” instead of a reaction like “What was that commercial about?  Underwear in the office or casual Fridays?”

One final observation specific to misunderstood  marketing is the approach. Many businesses are still engaged in the traditional product based marketing.  These are the folks that show up and then spew price, product or proposal.  (Sales Training Coaching Tip:  I call this the 3 Ps Virus.) Now smarter individuals adopt a different approach by educating their potential customers.  Education based marketing  reaps far greater rewards and in many cases is far less expensive.

Successful marketing is probably the greatest challenge for any business from micro to macro.  However when time is invested in creating a written sales action plan, a written marketing action plan along with a written executive marketing summary and then all actions are plotted out in a calendar to coincide with marketplace trends, then marketing no longer becomes the misunderstood child within the sales process.

Yesterday’s posting discussed how talk radio gets education based marketing. Today, this posts explores “What does a compelling marketing message sound like?”

Would you like to be in the 30% who realize 8 hours of pay for 8 hours of work specific to your employees productivity or the 70% where you employees are draniing your profit coffers? Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Cite your sources such as: These statistics are from a fairly recent  Gallup Poll

To be able to educate does demand your know your:

• Products or Services
• Industry
• Industry of your target market
• Target markets or markets
• Current potential qualified customers (prospects)
• General market place trends – Local, regional, state, national and international)

Sales Training Coaching Tip: Make sure you have a written marketing action plan along with a written executive marketing summary. This will help you work smarter not harder.
The other implicit demand is to focus not on your or your products or services, but your potential customers and his or her needs.

This shifting may result in you being uncomfortable especially if you have engaged in Product Based Marketing. Yet this traditional approach is beginning to die on the vine even for multi-billion dollar organizations.  For example, Pespi has announced it it stepping away from its past marketing activities during the Super Bowl game and now is pledging $20 million in a social media education based marketing campaign.

One reason for this change from product based marketing to education based marketing is because people are literally and figuratively overwhelmed with data, information and knowledge. Potential customers do not have time to scour the Internet, read the lastest journals or attend local economic seminars.  They are looking to others to help them and if you can provide viable, succinct information without misleading them using a compelling message then you have their attention.  In other words, you are now the Red Jacket in the sea of gray suits.

Maybe you are thinking “I don’t have time to educate!”? Let me ask you one question: Do you waste at a minimum of 12 minutes a day between 8am and 5pm? Given that research about productivity and time management suggests the majority of people waste at least 1 hour a day, then you probably have the time. This is not a case of time management, but rather self management. And that is the subject of the next post – your ability to stay on task, to out sell, to be the top sales performer.

Talk radio especially conservative talk radio gets education based marketing probably better than any industry. Regardless of your beliefs or political leanings, you need to get out of your own way to truly understand and appreciate how this industry secures loyal customers (listeners) and consequently stuffs their piggy banks.

By providing education and then actually inviting their listeners to “check it (facts) out” these loyal fans keep coming back for more and more. Bottom line the more people who listen the greater advertising revenue generated and the goal to increase sales is realized.  Now if your target marketing fits the demographics this becomes a win-win for everyone. Sales  Training Coaching Tip: Without a written marketing action plan including an executive marketing summary, you will be working harder not smarter.

I realized the impact of education based marketing when channel surfing and hearing comments from the listeners (loyal customers some who patiently waited a couple of hours to speak with the host) like this:

• “You have educated me.”
• “Your show is the only one I listen to because of all the facts you share.”
• “Your provide the best details to complex issues.”

Again step away from your own beliefs and re-read these comments. People listen to talk radio because they want to be educated, they want to learn. This approach within the overall sales process has an added benefit – loyal customers who engage in repetitive behaviors.  Maybe this is why Rush Limbaugh can charge as what he calls “confiscatory rates.”

So if you wish to increase sales, construct a compelling message that educates. Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Remember your facts can be checked out (thanks to the Internet) so be careful in exactly what you say. Come back tomorrow to read the rest of this post.