Increase Sales Blog

Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

Both education based marketing and traditional product or sales based marketing engage in telling and selling. The difference is the approach and therein lies the confusion.

Over at social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or Focus.com, there is a lot of telling going on. However I am not sure how much of that translates into selling. Nowadays more people are telling (think self promoting) at every opportunity and forgetting the purpose of marketing is to attract attention and build positive relationships.  Telling by promoting your next event, your book or your blog will not increase sales.

Telling is selling happens when sales people educate others about their solutions (products or services). This “telling is selling” behavior is done more through a Socratic approach with the emphasis always on the potential customers (prospect). The salesperson intensely listens to what is being said and not being said. Emotional intelligence is highly engaged. Telling does take place from a place of authenticity meaning responses happen when asked. Selling is the result with increase sales.

With all the emphasis on asking the right questions, some sales people forget to listen and answer the questions from potential customers to centers of influence. Here you are indeed telling, but at the discretion of the prospect.

Smart and savvy sales people understand that even though they may not appear to be in control of the conversation, they know from their experience what path the conversation may take. Their responses can pull then closer to the prospect. They do not have to push (tell) their product, price or proposal onto the other person. Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Refrain from what others call “pump and dump;” “show up and through up;” or what I call in Be the Red Jacket spew the “3Ps virus” of product, price or proposal.

Yes telling is selling when done effectively because people still must talk to other people as mental telepathy is still hundreds if not thousands of years from happening.  By employing an education based marketing approach within the overall integrated marketing plan, may allow you to tell and sell more .

Simply speaking, social equity is a term to define the impact of social media actions (think return on investment) for an organization.  This impact is directly connected to the relevance of the postings through various metrics. However, there is something else than is being missed by some small business owners to C Suite executives and that is engagement as well as value as perceived by your ideal customer.

Credit www.sxc.hu

Engagement goes beyond the sweat equity of writing, posting, tweeting, liking or plusing. It links the human factor, the people factor to all social marketing efforts. Sales Training Coaching Tip:  The application of emotional intelligence is critical within all social media engagements.

People buy on value unique to them and this begins within your social media channels. If their value is to find relevant information, that is great. Sometimes their value is just simple thoughts that take only a moment to read because their time is limited. Maybe that is why Twitter is so popular because the thoughts are condensed to under 140 characters or why quotes and photographs are equally popular.

All of this returns to the purpose of marketing that being to attract attention and begin to build relationships. When individuals fail to be engaged in the various social media channels, their social equity is decreasing even if their content is good regardless of the social media channel.

For example, if you are on LinkedIn look through any discussion group. There are individuals who post numerous times and no one will comment.  These individuals continue to post believing they are doing the right thing. However if no one engages them in discussions, then they are losing social equity not to mention probably a lot of trust. Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Do not confuse sharing content with spamming people with your blogs or your thoughts.

Using social media as part of your integrated marketing plan is truly a “no-brainer.” With potential sales leads searching through LinkedIn to YouTube, not having a specific social media marketing plan will fail to provide your business with that “extra oomph”  (think sales leads, strategic partners or centers of influence) to give you that additional competitive advantage.  However if you believe and therein lies the key, that social media is your podium, your soapbox and is a one way marketing channel then you are indeed clueless and will soon be even more pocket poor.

Just as in any other type of equity, social equity does take time to grow, to evolve.  The results of this investment do not happen overnight.  Sweat equity is involved because you are truly engaged in relationship marketing. The goal here is to make friends and to have those friends either call you, send you an email or walk into your store if you have a store.

Small businesses will continue to hear more about social equity and probably in the future it will become as important as other business equities. Just remember social media is a two way street and engaging people (your potential target audience) is critical to building social equity otherwise your social real estate be it LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Facebook or YouTube will become expensive vacant buildings.

Relationship marketing through the various channels or rivers of social media continues to grow. What is so revealing is that people connect with you through a continuum of rivers.  The initial attraction may be through an actual face to face meeting, a comment on a blog or in a discussion group or through a mutual acquaintance.

Credit www.sxc.hu

The more channels you have both inbound (Social Media and the Internet) and outbound (more traditional marketing activities) the greater opportunity you have not only to attract attention, but to begin to build solid and positive relationships.

For the past six months I have been conducting my own private research specific to LinkedIn.  When I receive an invite (after thanking him or he for the outreach), I ask if he or she would not mind sharing with me what prompted the connection?  Amazing information one learns when one asks with thoughtfulness through emotional intelligence.

So far there has not been one prominent factor in prompting the request but rather a series of at least two factors to three of the following factors:

1. Shared contact
2. Shared group
3. A comment made usually in a discussion group and sometimes somewhere else such as another social media site
4. A desire to speak about a specific issues (a qualified sales lead)
5. A visit to this blog
6. Read one of my articles online usually via EzineArticles or Sun Time Post Tribune column
7. Read one of my articles in a published business journal such as NBiz
8. Met in person at a business to business networking event
9. Direct referral from another LinkedIn member
10. Read a book review over at Amazon

The last five in the list have not been referenced as much as the first five.

Relationship marketing is the future and has been the past.  Unfortunately, many so called experts both in marketing and within the sales training coaching industries in their quest to sell their solutions failed to acknowledge this concept of relationship marketing even though we all know people buy from people. Sales Training Coaching Tip:  People do not buy from glossy brochures, fancy dancy websites or because the marketing firm won a plethora of awards.

If you want to increase sales, then invest the time to look at your own social media river and where people are entering that marketing channel.  By taking the time to understand what prompts people to connect with you, to follow you, to like you, (fill in the blank), will provide you the opportunity to further hone those actions. build a stronger relationship marketing following and ultimately increase sales.

P.S. If you have time, consider reading today’s (4/16/2012) business column on email marketing.

A long time ago I was entirely against computers.  I did not like them, I did not want to use them, I could care less to purchase one and communicate via telephone wire to people I couldn’t see face to face.  Something about the whole ordeal seemed sketchy to me and ate away at me.

Then in 1997, I was in the Navy and my commanding officer called me in to his office.  “Seaman Bondi,” he said, “I am assigning you to be in charge of our Automated Information Systems Department until further notice.”  Being a young Seaman, I replied “Sir, with all due respect, the Navy has invested a lot of money in me to repair electronics at component level.  I don’t think they would approve of me playing with computers instead of doing the work I was trained for.”  My CO looked at me in a very cross way and stated “As long as I am the CO and you are the Seaman, the Navy will see this assignment as a beneficial one to its service.  Or you could go chip paint on board a steam powered rust bucket.”  I got the message loud and clear that computers must be in my future.

I began training in all sorts of ways to help prevent virus attacks, keep data secure, and repair all sorts of computer issues in order to keep things up and running.  The thing that always bothered me though was that there were always some form of near scam to blatant con in the computer industry that was wide spread and cost many people a lot of money.  To this day, this trend has continued unabated and probably will never stop as long as we have con artists in the world and small business owners who fall for their ploys.  It isn’t that the ploys are believable on their own, but that they are marketed as a fix to a problem you didn’t have until they said you had the problem.

Let me first start with the “real nasties” first, the rogue or fake anti-virus guys.  These “programs” intentionally install themselves on the computer and scare the user into buying their own anti-virus program.  You will see messages like “You have been infected!  Now Performing Scan.”  and “Trojan found on hard disk O.  Would you like to remove?”  When you click yes it immediately brings you to a purchase website that looks honest and legitimate.

What it doesn’t tell you is that the software you are purchasing to remove the bug, actually put the bug on your machine.  In fact, if you purchased the software, you are providing capital to the software developers to come up with even better schemes in the future.  Plus the bug they put on your machine will never be removed.  It has been put on a timer to come back after your period of “subscription” you purchased.  That is for those who got off easy with this scam.  The others will actually see many more charges run up on their credit cards and will have to cancel their credit card accounts and go through unauthorized charge hassles.

The next on our computer world list for deceptive marketing are the as seen on TV “computer speeder uppers we make outrageous guarantees so you can believe us” companies.  Let me set the record straight on this.  No one can give you more RAM, hard drive capacity, speed up your internet, or protect you from every computer virus currently known to man by downloading their awesome software.

In fact, many times, these products will cause more harm than good.  Many of them disable necessary windows services to give people the illusions that they are running quicker.  They are running quicker, because necessary windows components haven’t loaded up.  Another great key to these company’s products is that they tell you that you need to purchase a year’s worth of support from them and that it will not be refunded.  Any product that treats its customer base so poorly and harshly should raise multiple red flags to the common sense of many to stay away.

The next on the list of deceptive marketing is the telephone tech who calls the small business office, single office/home office or home.  This has been a latest scam run in our region (Northwest Indiana) where someone from out of the blue will call the small business and state they work for the Windows Service Center and that they have received reports that your computer is infected.  They then ask you to look at your cache files through the command prompt and tell you that those are viruses.  After this, the representative will ask you to allow them to log in to your machine and they will perform some “tests” and ask for your credit card during this evolution.

The last deceptive marketing practice is one of my major pet peeves. This is the shop that sells illegally downloaded copies of software on their computers for retail sale.  Here in Northwest Indiana, I have witnessed this growing towards epidemic proportions because the economy and times have become hard for many small businesses as well as the general population. I do sympathize with these problems, but in no way do I condone, turn a blind eye to, or ignore this deceptive marketing practice.

There are many ways to determine if software is legal or not.  The first way is to check for a license key on any windows computer, laptop, or netbook.  This key will be rectangular in shape and will state what version of windows is installed on the computer.  If the version advertised and version installed does not match, chances are it is pirated software and you should run away as fast as you can.  If the vendor states that it is a volume license key and that is why they do not have a license key, run.  If they are offering software such as Microsoft Office suite and the price of the system is below $500, run.  Not only have these shops cost my customers hundreds of dollars when their computer comes into the shop, but I have to help my customer understand that the person that they trusted sold them a computer that was damaged goods from the get go.

The computer world is full of these people.  It isn’t that the industry is predicated on deceit or lies.  It is that those of us who do the work right, have the integrity to continue to do quality work.  We want to be able to sleep at night and feel good about the relationships with our customers.  To those out there who say there is no customer service in computer service, I say to you, you haven’t found a reputable place to build a relationship with.  We may not always be the cheapest and quickest, but it is because we do our work the right way and insure there are no more problems when any computer leaves our shop.

If you take nothing away from this brief communication on deceptive marketing practices within the computer world, please remember these three key points:

1. Only your Internet service provider can increase your Internet speed
2. You can increase your hard drive capacity or memory inside your computer by adding or replacing parts in your computer
3. You cannot buy a new computer with Windows 7 Ultimate, Microsoft Office Professional, and Adobe CS5 for $500

The computer world is treacherous.  Don’t get taken, get help!

About the Guest Blogger

Anthony Bondi is the owner of Three Dog Net LLC located at 696 Lincoln Street, Hobart. IN 46342. Three Dog Net has been voted best computer repair company in Northwest Indiana for 2010 and 2011.  You can reach Anthony Bondi at:

• 219-947-3DOG(3364)
• Twitter – @ThreeDogNet
• Facebook -  http://www.facebook.com/anthony.bondi
• Website – http://www.threedognet.com
• Blog – http://www.threedognet.com/?page_id=15

The Captain Wing It sales behavior that begins the Monday malady is the sowing of business cards like grains of wheat with the expectations that business, new sales leads or increase sales will actually be the results of these efforts.

Credit www.sxc.hu

How many times do sales people attend a business to business networking event and there is at least one person there who passes out his or her business cards to every single person?  These crazy busy salespersons never truly stop to engage people.  In fact some are so audacious, they will give multiple cards in each passing and then tell, not ask, the recipients to share these cards with others.

This Captain Wing It sales behavior is just one example of what I have deemed “spraying and praying.”

“Business people from sales to the small business owners to the C Suite spray their actions all over the place and they pray something will stick.”

Now does this truly make sense? 

Maybe this does make sense if you believe in numbers such as pass out 100 business cards and get one to three responses. However, in this process of being in the role of Captain Wing It and demonstrating this questionable sales behavior the question to be asked is:

“How many people have I turned off by creating negative attention?”

The two-fold purpose of marketing within the sales process is to attract attention and begin to build a relationship.  Sowing of business cards to every Tom, Dick and Harry, every breathing business person, in the short term and long term is not in alignment with the purpose of marketing. Actually, the only results are lot of wasted paper (business cards) and you are a little more pocket poor from the costs of all those sown business cards.

How can you build a relationship when you demonstrate you do not want one?  Your sales behavior clearly showcases your business to business networking is all about you and not about the other people in the room. Sales Training Coaching: #1 sales buying rule: People buy from people they know and trust.

Imagine for a moment that you became very intentional about who you handed, note handed not shoved, your business card to. Your goal would be to learn a little more about that individual.  Determine if there was value in the actual exchange of contact information.  And possibly, the other person might ask for your business card first. Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Think quality not quantity of reaping new sales leads.

Engaging in business to business networking does require the mindset of a farmer who understands where the richest land (think ideal customer) is, who recognizes the grain of wheat must be planted to truly take hold and then watered with continual contacts. Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Most sales are made between the fourth and 12th contacts.

Consider treating your business cards as precious grains of wheat and taking care to whom you present them will in both the short term and long term build strong relationships, yield valuable sales leads and increase sales.

P.S. Each Monday morning for the next few weeks, other Captain Wing It sales behaviors will be discussed.  Also remember to check out my weekly business column over at the Post Tribune.

Marketing strategy can begin very well such as great headline be it on a website, a printed advertisement, a 10 second elevator pitch or even an email subject line. Then what was initially a good marketing strategy can very quickly turn bad and ultimately can become very ugly.

The Good to Bad to Ugly happens every day of the week because the majority of sales people as well as marketing firms are 100% clueless about the purpose of marketing along with the goals. Robert Dempsey one of those in marketing who understands the purpose of marketing. He recently made an observation on Google+through these words:

The more I think about how marketing is done today the more I realize how broken and behind it is.

The cracks are starting to show.

The purpose of marketing has not essentially changed since mankind began engaging in commerce. Its purpose  is two-fold:

1. Attract positive attention
2. Begin to build a relationship based upon an emotional connection

Now the goal of marketing is a little different for business to business (B2B) compared to business to commercial (B2C or B2R).

For those engaged in B2B, the goal again is two fold:

1. To make a friend
2. To be asked back for that initial first face to face meeting

Within the B2C or B2R industries, the first goal remains the same. However the second goal is to have that potential customer actually visit your online or physical store.

Unfortunately, so many sales people think because I as the salesperson have your attention because you reacted to my headline, I can rush the sales process and start selling to you.

Big mistake and only reaffirms the Good to Bad to Ugly experiences

Yesterday I received a LinkedIn invitation with this question in the invitation message:

Leanne  – Do you want more coaching clients?

This question in my opinion was a good marketing strategy.  It attracted positive attention and also touched me emotionally since he was smart enough to include my name.

My initial reaction was “yes” of course I do.

Then I reviewed the person’s profile and sensed this was potentially a selling pitch in disguise, but decided what the heck and accepted the LinkedIn invitation just to see exactly how quickly this marketing strategy would go south, turn from good to bad and possibly even ugly.

I responded with as follows:

Person’s name – The answer to your question would be “it depends.” My executive coaching clients are forward thinking individuals with businesses from $1 million to $50 million in revenue or individual with net worth of over $1 million dollars.

A returned email was received within an hour with this message:

Perfect. I’ve been working with Entrepreneurs by making more time in their busy days to focus on marketing for new clients and I’m looking specifically for a Business Coach to work with. In order to get 5 or 6 new clients within a month, could you accommodate 4 Extra hours each day to focus primarily on marketing for new clients?

Also you seem to be in an exciting niche, so what is your established process for acquiring these types of clients?

My email response to him was:

Person’s name – My sense is probably we should schedule a time to talk. Given right now I already focus on 2 to 3 hours for marketing, most is done early in the am allowing me time to connect with sales leads, meet with potential clients as well as existing clients.

Most of my marketing is automated. I write extensively and that has been my primary way of gaining clients outside of my geographic area here just outside of Chicago, IL.

If you could, please provide some date and times, eastern and I will convert to Central., Next week is far more open than this week.

Leanne Hoagland-Smith
P.S. My blog is www.increase-sales-coach.com and attracts over 300 unique visitors each day.

By this time I want to believe this individual is seeking a strategic partner as he stated “I’m looking specifically for a Business Coach to work with.”   Then his marketing strategy turns to bad with this response:

Leanne first of all congratulations on your blog being able to attract over 300 unique visitors each day and also being able to focus 2-3 hours each day on marketing. Our goal is to see how we can help to increase that as well.

Since next week is open for you, can I call you next week Monday at 2pm EDT which is 1pm CDT your time? And also is 219-759-5601 the best number to reach you on?

We essentially we be discussing how you currently spend your time each workday, what you spend most of your time doing and what you much rather be doing.

Hmm, my mind is now thinking when did we start a discussion about his goal?  Also what does how I invest my time each day have to do with a strategic partnership?  I do attempt to give these clueless sales people the benefit of the doubt. Also I checked out his website and my website gets far more traffic than his does.

The first two emails from this individual stayed true to the purpose of marketing, but the third was a 180 and revealed his true intentions of selling me his services, of infecting me with what I call the 3 Ps virus of price, product and proposal.  Had he taken the time to build a little stronger relationship, I would have shared with him I already have a client who provides his services if I was so inclined to contract out those daily actions. Actually my client and I have had this discussion and currently given I do so much writing, there is very little she can do for me.

So not to prolong the agony and waste any more time, I sent this follow up message:

Person’s name: Before we have this conversation, I truly do not need any discussion or coaching around my workday. My sense is this is not about a strategic partnership, but more an opportunity for you to share with me what you do.

Given that my time is as valuable as yours, if you wish to talk about a strategic partnership that I presumed you wanted to discuss (forgive me if I misunderstood your email of “I’m looking specifically for a Business Coach to work with”). then the time you mentioned. If your goal is to sell me your solutions, then I am not interested.

Please let me know as I have reserved the time on Monday from 1-1:30 CDT and the number 219.759.5601 works well.

By now one would think he might have had a clue that he blew a great opportunity, but alas he did not because his response was:

Talking about strategic partnerships, we have been offering  (insert his solutions) to entrepreneurs for the last couple of years and last month we decided to focus solely on Business Coaches and Executive Coaches. I did my research by conducting over 30 phone interviews to discover the frustrations coaches deal with and have come up with the necessary solutions that we can deliver.

That said, I will love to get referrals from you to other business and executive coaches who might need virtual assistant services, plus I am willing to pay you 30% affiliate fees for each new referral. Should I send more details to you about this?

So in several email messages he has spewed all of the  3Ps virus or some would say “show up and throw up.” Now the message strategy is ugly because he has emotionally turned me off.  Never once did he ask anything more about my business.  The marketing strategy was 100% ego driven and all about him.

There is a lot of good marketing strategy. The challenge still remains confusion over marketing and selling within the sales process as well as the execution.  For time is precious and to turn good marketing efforts into bad ones or worse yet ugly ones is time any busy crazy sales person, small business owners or C Suite executive cannot afford to waste.

P.S. Excuse the length of this post, however I believe sharing lessons learned may support you to market better and ultimately increase sales not to mention customer loyalty.

The AIDA marketing concept or AIDA model begins with the idea of Attraction through positive Attention. However through social media to business to business networking, this A of attraction has morphed into the A of Annoyance.

Each day sales starved businesses to sales people spew billions of emails into cyber space with the end result of annoying people.  Occasionally, some one may respond due to the sheer volume, but my sense is most people hit delete or actually may send back a terse, “remove my name from your mailing list, idiot” (insert some other not so pleasant description).

How is that AIDA marketing model working for you?

Even in social media, posts are made to discussion groups such as LinkedIn and the discussion is not a discussion but a landing page to sell another solution be it a product or service.  Again many of these discussions are ignored or some are actually marked Promotion and the sender may get his or her hands slapped from the group moderator. What is worse when the excuse is issued “Oh, I didn’t see that Promotions tab.”  Now you even annoyed me more.

Sales Professionalism (think Business Ethics) Is Demonstrated Through Your Behaviors as Observed by Others.

With all the information available on how to attract positive attention within the marketing phase of the sales process, I still cannot believe these so called professionals engage in this type of behavior that contradicts good business ethics.

Who gets customers or clients by being annoying?

How many times at business to business networking events do you encounter the guy or gal who could care less about you as a person, but just wants your business card, your time so he or she can spew what I call the 3Ps virus:  Price, Product or Proposal?

Through positive attraction as suggested by the AIDA marketing concept (leave the negative attraction for celebrities and the like), authentic and mutually beneficial relationships can be built.  This must happen before any salesperson worth his or her salt can proceed into the selling phase of the sales process. Remember, the first sales buying rule:

People buy from people they know and trust.

Yes, the AIDA marketing concept or AIDA marketing model is a proven process to ensure the marketing phase of the sales process is well executed and will lead to the goal to increase sales. Remember, negative press travels far faster than positive press. If your goal is to increase sales, be honest with yourself and ask yourself:

Am I being annoying in my marketing?

P.S. Listen for how many times you write or speak the word “I” and this may suggest where the focus currently is and it is not on your potential clients or current customers.

“Go Google Me” probably should be the mantra of Fred McMurray with three daughters and no sons.  Beyond his 23,000 Twitter followers, his thousands of LinkedIn first degree connections, this gentleman truly demonstrates how to effectively integrate social media into any marketing plan.

Last week I had the pleasure of sitting down and experiencing a massive brain dump or what some may call “drinking from the fire hydrant.” Here are a few of the many gems I picked up from Fred McMurray who is Chief Technical Office for Mediavine Marketing:

• Need 10,000 to 13,000 Twitter follows to truly have a significant impact (think increase sales)
• One online leader has 10 advocates (those who spread the word) and 100 lurkers (those who listen and take no action)
• Klout is good for researching key words
• Using ISP analytics is probably better than Google analytics
• Alexa.com is a great trending tool and should not be ignored
• Every 4 hours on Twitter there is a change in on-line population

Fred shared the number one challenge facing small businesses to even mid size ones is “time” specific to the distribution of social media content. He recommends automating content marketing as much as possible and provided this website: If This Then That

Additionally, Fred reaffirmed that a blog (check out his company’s blog Simplifying Social Media)  is the best way to secure traffic. Relevant keywords and quality writing are necessary for blogs to be shared in the social media world.

Part of Fred’s winning social media marketing strategy is the creation of LinkedIn Local network through Blog Talk Radio. He truly is an expert for creating influence by establishing local communities not only here in the Chicagoland area, but worldwide.

When speaking with subject matter experts, part of my goal is to confirm what I am doing is correct and learn where I need to make those insightful course corrections. Also validating best sales practices and overall business philosophy such as social media marketing strategy are additional outcomes from such engagements. These goals allow me the opportunity to share my newly found knowledge with others. Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Reach out to at least one LinkedIn connection each day and schedule an appointment to speak with him or her.

Both of Fred and I share a passion about sales results and find those firms that provide social media coaching, social media marketing strategy, small business coaching, sales coaching to business consulting that fail to deliver results are annoying at best. Their unethical behaviors create more sales objections for reputable firms.  There does appear to be a lot of “snake oil salesmen” still in the marketplace because the customers are so unaware.

Fred has agreed to provide a future guest blogger post and I am looking forward to receiving that content.

What I also learned is Fred is a great believer in giving back through his efforts in working with Veteran groups such as Veterans in Transition to Wounded Warriors.

Again to reiterate this sales training coaching tip, reach out and touch someone in your social media network that you only interact with through the stroking of the keyboard.  You just may be surprised by the results of such a personal encounter. Remember, sales buying rule #1, people buy (think refer) from people they know and trust.

How can you increase sales if people do not know you or your firm?

Does $38,900 shock and awe you specific to business to business networking costs? What would you say if I said that was probably more on target than you may care to believe?

Business to business networking is a significant business building activity.  Yet, the majority of small business owners to salespersons to C Suite executives fail to analyze the effectiveness of this frequently utilized marketing action to increase sales.

If you disbelieve this $38,900 or more annual investment, let me share how I arrived at this significant and often overlooked investment.

Chamber Investment: A typical small business owner joins a local chamber for $200 annual fee and then attends 10 – 1.5 hour monthly luncheon meetings at $20 each.  She then spends 3 hours each month on two chamber committees (12×3 = 36 hours). Given each event is an hour drive she racks up another 34 hours of time or two weeks of work each year.  Total dollars invested is $8,800.  Sales Coaching Tip: If you do not believe your time is worth $100 an hour, then this may be one reason why you are not reaching your goal to increase sales.

Results:  The small business owner average client value is $1,000. She secures one new client per quarter for total new annual sales of $4,000 and is one happy camper.

The Marketing ROI Gap:  The small business owner thinks the $400 is a great investment and relishes getting 4 clients per year from the chamber along with additional sales leads. She is getting far more back than being paid.  Oh, really? To recover the investment requires a minimum of securing 8.8 new clients or 1.4 new clients per month.

Professional Industry Association:  The small business owner joins a professional industry association to secure new sales leads where food costs are optional and the meetings are for 1.5 hours during the evening 10 times per year.   Drive time is still 1 hour round trip.  Total time invested is 25 hours or $2,500.

Results:  The small business owner secures 2 clients and six new sales leads during the year.

The Marketing ROI Gap: The individual believes again she is receiving a good return on investment as securing the two new clients didn’t cost her a darn cent not to mention those six new sales leads.

Formal Networking Group:  Believing in building local relationships, the small business owner joins a formal business to business networking group connected with a national franchise.  The annual dues are $600′  the weekly 1.5 hour meetings require $8 dollar breakfast tab and another 30 minutes in tracking referrals.  Drive time is 30 minutes round trip. Total investment is $1,016 out of pocket costs plus 130 hours of time at $100 an hour or a total of $13,000.

Results:  The first six months a few sales leads are exchanged, but not until month eight are any new sales earned.  Then 4 new clients are billed at the average $1,000 value and an additional six sales leads have been received.

The Marketing ROI Gap:  There exists a gap of 9 clients. However, the small business person is happy because the investment was just $600 and breakfast is a write off anyway.

Professional Association:  Believing in professional development and the value of business to business networking to secure new sales leads, the small business owner joins a professional association at an annual membership fee of $200.  Again, there are 10 monthly luncheon meetings at a cost of $20, the usual 1.5 hour of meeting time along with 1 hour of drive time. Direct hard costs are $400 with time costs of 25 hours at $100 per hour or $2,900.

Results: She receives two clients from being a member and is delighted.

The Marketing ROI Gap:  For this investment to generate a positive return on investment requires securing a minimum of 3 clients.

Miscellaneous Networking Events:  During the year, this crazy busy small business owner attends one weekly business to business networking event such as a ribbon cutting or an open house.  Time invested is one hour along with on average 30 minutes of round trip drive time for a total time investment of 78 hours at $100 per hour or $7,800. Additionally, she plans one out of the area networking luncheon or dinner each month taking a total of 3 hours of time along with $25 in food costs. Total hard costs are $300 with indirect cost of time at 36 hours or $3,600 for a total investment of $3,900.

Results:  From these networking efforts, she secures one new client per month at the standard client value of $1,000.  She looks at the time invested and thinks this is really too much effort for such meager results.

The Marketing ROI Gap:  Given the total expenditures for these business to business networking activities is $11,700 and she has earned $12,000 in new sales, these activities are generating the most positive return on investment.

When all the numbers in red are added, the total investment is $38,900.  This figure does not include participation in any tradeshows, purchase of business cards, development of website, costs associated with printing of brochures or giving any promotional items such as pencils or pens.

With an average client annual value of $1,000, a minimum of 38.9 or 39 new clients in round numbers must be secured.

Just imagine what would happen if that small business owner re-purposed her marketing budget and directed it to activities than generated better results?  Yes business to business networking is essential. However this does not mean the small business owner or salesperson should ignore analyzing his or her out of pocket expenses (direct costs) and time (indirect costs).

Business to business networking is not cheap, it is expensive.

Take a shock and awe lesson and consider putting in place a way to measure the effectiveness (marketing ROI) for all those memberships, lunches and hours invested.

How does one define business to business networking success? 

Credit www.sxc.hu

This week I attended 3 different business to business networking  events and upon reflection I began to further evaluate each event specific to my own marketing goals as well as to the bigger picture.

In working through this reflective and critical thinking skill process, I realized there existed before, during and after criterion in all events.

Before Criterion

Notice:  Was the event properly advertised with date, time, location, purpose of the event along with any cost to attend?

Interest:  Did the marketing of the event encourage additional interest as a “must attend event?”

Followup:  Was there a follow-up process to ensure registration was received and processed?

During Criterion

Edibles:  If food was present, was it tasty, appetizing, etc.?

Engagement:  Were those in attendance engaging with others?

Energy: Was the energy level high, medium and low?

Environment: Was the environment enjoyable specific to temperature, seating, place to hang coats if necessary, etc.?

After Criterion

Event Impression:  How would you evaluate the overall event specific to your goals?

Event Response:  For those you met, did they respond to your follow-up calls?

Not all business to business networking success can be evaluated by how many new sales leads (think business cards) were collected.  In some cases, attending these events can be for new knowledge, exploration of a new industry to even just supporting a business colleague or friend.

Yet having some evaluating process in place beyond the new sales leads I believe is necessary so that you can determine in the future if you wish to attend this business to business networking event or that one?

Now upon further reflection I realized business to business networking success can be evaluated using additional criterion. What I now have s a quick assessment for each event I attend.  In the past my only criterion was how many new sales leads I wished to secure usually from zero if the event was one of support to five new business contacts. As the old expression goes, if you cannot measure it you cannot manage it.