You're trying to sell something to an entrepreneur. What's top of mind for him or her?
Himself or herself, of course. (No points for getting that one right.)
I was reminded of this when talking to a Western Canada business owner this week. "What can you do for me?" was his first question. "What else can you do for me?" was his second question. And his third.
This show the importance of the old adage, "Don't sell features, sell benefits." All your target market cares about is, "What can you do for me NOW?"
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Cynical and not listening
Business owners are among the most suspicious, cynical bunch of people you’ll ever market to. They have learned to tune you out. They're so busy heading off impending catastrophes that they rigorously filter out any inputs that don't directly address their problems of the day.
Here’s an embarrassing example. Just before presenting a workshop on personal communication to a group of business owners, I sent the group leader a one-page outline citing my seven strategies. He forwarded the document to the group. So on workshop day I compressed my introductory remarks and jumped right into things. Then one entrepreneur stopped me cold. He asked what I was there to talk about.
I explained, it’s about those seven strategies. And he said, “what strategies?” "It was in the memo you got last week," I said. “Well, I didn't read it,” he said indignantly. “Did anyone else read it?”
He looked around the room. Not one entrepreneur put up their hand. Even the leader said, “I just skimmed it.”
“We’re busy people,” said the first entrepreneur. He made it clear I had erred in assuming this group had read an email addressed to them about a meeting they’d be attending. And he was right. I had violated one of my own cardinal rules of communication. I had assumed my audience knew what I was talking about.
Many marketers make the same mistake. They assume their target market knows what business they're in. They assume their customers know what services they offer. They assume prospects understand the benefits of dealing with them.
Never take any of that for granted. You have to explain yourself, anew, every time. You have to explicitly describe the benefits you offer clients. Because they have no interest in knowing anything about you until you’ve proven you can help them. So they won't be listening until they need you - and when they do, you need to be speaking their language, not yours.
As they say in the shampoo business, "Lather. Rinse. Repeat."
Here’s an embarrassing example. Just before presenting a workshop on personal communication to a group of business owners, I sent the group leader a one-page outline citing my seven strategies. He forwarded the document to the group. So on workshop day I compressed my introductory remarks and jumped right into things. Then one entrepreneur stopped me cold. He asked what I was there to talk about.
I explained, it’s about those seven strategies. And he said, “what strategies?” "It was in the memo you got last week," I said. “Well, I didn't read it,” he said indignantly. “Did anyone else read it?”
He looked around the room. Not one entrepreneur put up their hand. Even the leader said, “I just skimmed it.”
“We’re busy people,” said the first entrepreneur. He made it clear I had erred in assuming this group had read an email addressed to them about a meeting they’d be attending. And he was right. I had violated one of my own cardinal rules of communication. I had assumed my audience knew what I was talking about.
Many marketers make the same mistake. They assume their target market knows what business they're in. They assume their customers know what services they offer. They assume prospects understand the benefits of dealing with them.
Never take any of that for granted. You have to explain yourself, anew, every time. You have to explicitly describe the benefits you offer clients. Because they have no interest in knowing anything about you until you’ve proven you can help them. So they won't be listening until they need you - and when they do, you need to be speaking their language, not yours.
As they say in the shampoo business, "Lather. Rinse. Repeat."
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Sleepless in Small Business
An executive who markets to small business asked me the other day what’s keeping entrepreneurs awake at night. (You have to know your prospects’ problems before you can start marketing effectively to them.)
Unfortunately, I didn't have any amazing insights to offer. Even in the face of recession in the eastern half of Canada, business owners are still grumbling to me about the same old problems:
* The agony of recruiting good help;
* The difficulty of holding on to good people when every other business is trying to lure them away;
* Rising energy costs;
* Trying to make sense of the Internet (before it changes their business forever);
* Finding ways to turn the Succession Boom to their advantage – either by preparing their business for sale, or by buying another business, for strategic or competitive reasons.
My marketer friend and I agreed that the slowing economy has not yet dented the confidence of most entrepreneurs. We decided the Canadian economy has gone through a huge restructuring in the past two decades, and that as a result, fewer businesses seem to be affected so badly by manufacturing’s decline and the slowdown in the U.S.
Of course, it also helps that entrepreneurs get to pick the markets they serve. In the past few years, many small businesses have changed focus and reduced their dependence on automotive companies, mass consumer markets, and other predictably vulnerable sectors. As the Canadian economy switches further to providing services, especially business and professional services to world markets, expect to see more and more entrepreneurs develop their own “Get out of Recession Free” card.
Unfortunately, I didn't have any amazing insights to offer. Even in the face of recession in the eastern half of Canada, business owners are still grumbling to me about the same old problems:
* The agony of recruiting good help;
* The difficulty of holding on to good people when every other business is trying to lure them away;
* Rising energy costs;
* Trying to make sense of the Internet (before it changes their business forever);
* Finding ways to turn the Succession Boom to their advantage – either by preparing their business for sale, or by buying another business, for strategic or competitive reasons.
My marketer friend and I agreed that the slowing economy has not yet dented the confidence of most entrepreneurs. We decided the Canadian economy has gone through a huge restructuring in the past two decades, and that as a result, fewer businesses seem to be affected so badly by manufacturing’s decline and the slowdown in the U.S.
Of course, it also helps that entrepreneurs get to pick the markets they serve. In the past few years, many small businesses have changed focus and reduced their dependence on automotive companies, mass consumer markets, and other predictably vulnerable sectors. As the Canadian economy switches further to providing services, especially business and professional services to world markets, expect to see more and more entrepreneurs develop their own “Get out of Recession Free” card.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Six More Tips for Selling More
Continuing from the previous post, here are another six tips for more powerful personal marketing to small business owners.
1. Emphasize specific benefits. How much money did you save Client A by finding them better equipment? What kind of yacht did Client B buy after you helped them land a big deal?
2. Be free with referrals. If you can't help a particular individual, try to recommend someone who can. They will not forget the favor.
3. Ask for referrals! Once you have established what you do, ask prospects if they know anyone else who might appreciate a call from you to help them with their problems.
4. Find a reason to follow up. Most sales are lost through a failure to follow up in a timely manner. You might want to arrange a meeting, send them a document or an article you’ve read, or arrange an introduction. Your goal is to stay top-of-mind.
5. Ask for the order! As your relationship progresses, suggest a low-risk way to start working together. Offer some incentives, such as a pending deadline or a time-limited discount.
6. Eliminate fears and doubt: Your costs must be clear. Entrepreneurs abhor open-ended contracts and fees. Most people are more motivated by the prospect of losing $5 than by the chance of gaining $20 – so play up the value, minimize the uncertainty and set their minds at ease.
1. Emphasize specific benefits. How much money did you save Client A by finding them better equipment? What kind of yacht did Client B buy after you helped them land a big deal?
2. Be free with referrals. If you can't help a particular individual, try to recommend someone who can. They will not forget the favor.
3. Ask for referrals! Once you have established what you do, ask prospects if they know anyone else who might appreciate a call from you to help them with their problems.
4. Find a reason to follow up. Most sales are lost through a failure to follow up in a timely manner. You might want to arrange a meeting, send them a document or an article you’ve read, or arrange an introduction. Your goal is to stay top-of-mind.
5. Ask for the order! As your relationship progresses, suggest a low-risk way to start working together. Offer some incentives, such as a pending deadline or a time-limited discount.
6. Eliminate fears and doubt: Your costs must be clear. Entrepreneurs abhor open-ended contracts and fees. Most people are more motivated by the prospect of losing $5 than by the chance of gaining $20 – so play up the value, minimize the uncertainty and set their minds at ease.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Five Tips for Personal Selling to SB
How do you as an individual sell to the elusive small-biz market? Get out there and meet them! With entrepreneurs, it's all about the relationship.
Five top tips:
1. Go where the entrepreneurs are. Be seen as part of their community (e.g., through involvement in associations such as CAFE, TEC, EO, CATA, the CofC, etc.) If you don't know what those terms stand for, you have a chunk of catching up to do.
2. At networking functions, know whom you want to meet. Study the membership or guest lists to know who's whom. Arrange an introduction if possible, from a trusted mutual friend. And bring lots of business cards.
3. STOP SELLING! Ask good questions and listen: “Tell me about your business.” “What kinds of problems have you run into?” "What got you through that?"
4. Practice using the phrase, “How can I help you?”
5. When it’s your turn to talk, don’t brag about your expertise and experience. Tell stories that illustrate your experience and demonstrate the results you have achieved for your clients. (Make sure they’re pertinent!) Include vivid images and a happy ending.
Practice these stories in advance to make them as powerful (and as brief) as possible.
Simple as that!
Five top tips:
1. Go where the entrepreneurs are. Be seen as part of their community (e.g., through involvement in associations such as CAFE, TEC, EO, CATA, the CofC, etc.) If you don't know what those terms stand for, you have a chunk of catching up to do.
2. At networking functions, know whom you want to meet. Study the membership or guest lists to know who's whom. Arrange an introduction if possible, from a trusted mutual friend. And bring lots of business cards.
3. STOP SELLING! Ask good questions and listen: “Tell me about your business.” “What kinds of problems have you run into?” "What got you through that?"
4. Practice using the phrase, “How can I help you?”
5. When it’s your turn to talk, don’t brag about your expertise and experience. Tell stories that illustrate your experience and demonstrate the results you have achieved for your clients. (Make sure they’re pertinent!) Include vivid images and a happy ending.
Practice these stories in advance to make them as powerful (and as brief) as possible.
Simple as that!
Sunday, March 30, 2008
What constitutes "value"?
Are business owners cheap? Or do they just value “value”?
My customary joke is that entrepreneur is a French word meaning, “I don't have a budget for that.” Which means that while they don't specifically budget money for most purposes, they will still invest in new products, projects or services if they can see the value in it.
In a recent column for Tech Data’s quarterly publication, Tech Times, I wrote about attending a Toronto Raptors game with a friend who runs his own highly successful exporting company. His seats are in the third row.
“Harry” told me that he’d had a chance to move up a row, (where you can see and smell the players better), but he turned it down: “I couldn't justify paying an extra $300 per seat per game.”
I found that remark very telling. In my experience, entrepreneurs don't mind spending money to solve their problems and indulge their wants – they just like to receive value. Harry could afford the better tickets, but he can’t justify the cost. He can't see the value in it.
The good news about selling to business owners is that they rarely need to justify their spending to anyone. There’s no boss to oversee their activity or set spending limits. So the key to selling to business owners is to help them justify the purchase to themselves.
How do you do that? By understanding both the personal and financial issues involved in making these decisions.
For instance, business owners are looking for ways to improve their business – as long as these solutions don't make business more complicated. They adore fast returns on investment, but that’s usually less important than not rocking the boat. New LCD monitors that free up desk space are easy to justify. But a CRM system that will upset employees’ routines and take months to master will look more like a problem than a tool for growth.
Another example: the best entrepreneurs aren't risk-takers, they're risk-minimizers. If you can reduce the risk of their purchase, they’re more likely to buy. You can reverse the risk by offering money-back guarantees, rebates, installation assistance, or free service calls for 30 days. Entrepreneurs tend to be skeptical by nature, so demonstrate your faith in your products by assuming some of the purchase risk.
Finally, business owners are looking for respect. They want to be treated as individuals and as peers. So they like custom solutions, special deals, and being able to negotiate terms. Talk down to them and they’ll squawk. And walk.
My customary joke is that entrepreneur is a French word meaning, “I don't have a budget for that.” Which means that while they don't specifically budget money for most purposes, they will still invest in new products, projects or services if they can see the value in it.
In a recent column for Tech Data’s quarterly publication, Tech Times, I wrote about attending a Toronto Raptors game with a friend who runs his own highly successful exporting company. His seats are in the third row.
“Harry” told me that he’d had a chance to move up a row, (where you can see and smell the players better), but he turned it down: “I couldn't justify paying an extra $300 per seat per game.”
I found that remark very telling. In my experience, entrepreneurs don't mind spending money to solve their problems and indulge their wants – they just like to receive value. Harry could afford the better tickets, but he can’t justify the cost. He can't see the value in it.
The good news about selling to business owners is that they rarely need to justify their spending to anyone. There’s no boss to oversee their activity or set spending limits. So the key to selling to business owners is to help them justify the purchase to themselves.
How do you do that? By understanding both the personal and financial issues involved in making these decisions.
For instance, business owners are looking for ways to improve their business – as long as these solutions don't make business more complicated. They adore fast returns on investment, but that’s usually less important than not rocking the boat. New LCD monitors that free up desk space are easy to justify. But a CRM system that will upset employees’ routines and take months to master will look more like a problem than a tool for growth.
Another example: the best entrepreneurs aren't risk-takers, they're risk-minimizers. If you can reduce the risk of their purchase, they’re more likely to buy. You can reverse the risk by offering money-back guarantees, rebates, installation assistance, or free service calls for 30 days. Entrepreneurs tend to be skeptical by nature, so demonstrate your faith in your products by assuming some of the purchase risk.
Finally, business owners are looking for respect. They want to be treated as individuals and as peers. So they like custom solutions, special deals, and being able to negotiate terms. Talk down to them and they’ll squawk. And walk.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Memo to Big Business
Selling to small business is not just about finding a mailing list and hiring a call centre. It’s about knowing your market.
Case in point: I just got off the phone with Wells Fargo. A cheerful representative with a strong mid-west U.S. accent called to tell me that because of my business’s outstanding “profile” (i.e., they rented a list), I was eligible for a line of credit of up to $100,000. At prime plus 1.5%, which is pretty generous.
But of course they made the usual mistakes. They pretended that I had earned this privilege, when I clearly had not (my business is unincorporated, has no assets and has virtually no capital requirements). Please: if you want to earn my trust, don't start by lying to me.
Plus, they let someone call me who has a grating foreign accent. It was a mild one, to be sure, but why not use a Canadian call centre? We're a proud nation here: why not make it sound more like you actually have a presence in (and thus a commitment to) Canada?
They did some things right, though. When I said that I already have a credit line (from a Canadian bank) and didn't need hers, she was very cool about it. She asked if I would like to note down a web address and an invitation code that would let me take advantage of their offer some other time.
Why don't more people do this? It’s a marketing win-win – it lets the uninterested consumer off the hook quickly, yet it gives them a second chance to think about the offer. So I said, sure.
She then read out five numbers. I wrote them down thinking, "Good for them – they kept this simple." They were respecting my time. But then she read out four more numbers. Then three more. Then three letters. Why? With 15 digits, they have enough codes for everyone on earth, along with everyone who has ever lived on the planet. Plus everyone who ever will.
Moral: Making things easy for business owners is crucial. But you have to do in all ways, not just some.
Case in point: I just got off the phone with Wells Fargo. A cheerful representative with a strong mid-west U.S. accent called to tell me that because of my business’s outstanding “profile” (i.e., they rented a list), I was eligible for a line of credit of up to $100,000. At prime plus 1.5%, which is pretty generous.
But of course they made the usual mistakes. They pretended that I had earned this privilege, when I clearly had not (my business is unincorporated, has no assets and has virtually no capital requirements). Please: if you want to earn my trust, don't start by lying to me.
Plus, they let someone call me who has a grating foreign accent. It was a mild one, to be sure, but why not use a Canadian call centre? We're a proud nation here: why not make it sound more like you actually have a presence in (and thus a commitment to) Canada?
They did some things right, though. When I said that I already have a credit line (from a Canadian bank) and didn't need hers, she was very cool about it. She asked if I would like to note down a web address and an invitation code that would let me take advantage of their offer some other time.
Why don't more people do this? It’s a marketing win-win – it lets the uninterested consumer off the hook quickly, yet it gives them a second chance to think about the offer. So I said, sure.
She then read out five numbers. I wrote them down thinking, "Good for them – they kept this simple." They were respecting my time. But then she read out four more numbers. Then three more. Then three letters. Why? With 15 digits, they have enough codes for everyone on earth, along with everyone who has ever lived on the planet. Plus everyone who ever will.
Moral: Making things easy for business owners is crucial. But you have to do in all ways, not just some.
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