by Tim Hughes | @Timothy_Hughes | LinkedIn
I have laugh about some of the blogs I see by some of the “sales gurus” out there. I do understand that when you work for yourself you will want to appeal to as many people as you can, I guess. You have to put food on the family table. But does this mean that the customer gets the best advice?
Your job is to give your customer the best advice surely? If you just agree with a customer, it does not help the client.
I recall one sales guru who wrote about one sales methodology and then all of a sudden switched to the opposite sales Methodology. Like a Manchester United fan, switching to Liverpool or a Democrat becoming Republican. Now it’s possible but, unlikely.
Now what would you have done? Agreed with them and taken the money or challenged them and given them the best advice?
This constant position change by “Gurus” can sometimes be a predictable occurrence. There is one guru who has a weekly flipflop. One week they write that cold calling is the best prospecting method in the world. The next week it’s social selling. Then the week after, cold calling. Then the week after, social selling. Then, maybe a week it’s both cold calling and social selling, in some sort of Frankinstien monster. I guess this must be part of some sort of master plan, but their customers must be confused as hell. Well, I am.
This person has just written an article but there being a need for every demand generation process to be used. Cold calling, emailing, advertising, the whole lot. Really?
We know that advertising no longer works. As Jay Baer says “Advertising is a tax paid by the unremarkable”. None of us have time to look at Ads which is why Google just posted a reduction in adverting purchases and adblocker use is growing by 30% year-on-year!
Email marketing, research by this pro email marketing research company, concluded “We Analyzed 12 Million Outreach Emails – And The Vast Majority of Outreach Messages Were Ignored” (via Passle) by @Timothy_Hughes http://digital-leadership-associates.passle.net/post/102fioc/we-analyzed-12-million-outreach-emails-and-the-vast-majority-of-outreach-messag
We also have technology and legislation to help us stop the deluge of unwanted interruptions. I was reading a Sales book recently and there was a chapter on prospecting. The conclusion was that you call, email and bully your prospects into submission. There was a time when you could get away with it. Now, anybody who cold calls me gets blocked using standard iPhone functionality. Takes me all of two seconds. Anybody who sends unsolicited emails, I set up a rule so any future ones go straight into trash. These are just two examples of how technology helps us stop interruptions.
In terms of legislation, we have GDPR, which as a citizen of Europe you have to comply with, regardless where you are. Even in the US.
The thing is we all know that these demand generation processes just don’t work anymore. I’m sure somebody will say that they read about a “hack”, sure, but how long before we find a way to stop that hack?
I was shown a robot that would hand write letters for you. Yes, I was told that the answer to Marketing was the hand written letter, but this time robots would do it. No seriously, this argument was to stop me in my tracks and concede that Marketing wasn’t broken anymore. I asked, so what happens when everybody starts writing letters? Your door mat will look like it did 20 years ago. All I will need to is scoop them up and put them in the recycling bin.
It’s time to implement the Permission Marketing Techniques that Seth Godin talked about in his book some 20 years ago.
What is Permission Marketing, here’s a great example
- Knock, knock.
- Who’s there?
- Adore.
- Adore who?
- Adore is between us. Open up!
This is a conversation, where the person is giving you permission to engage.
The difference of course is standing at a door and shouting, let me in and I’ll give you 30% off. Of course, we don’t open the door, in some cases, call the Police.
We are all different. We are the accumulation of all our experiences, everything we have done in life means we are good at something and bad at others. We were the fastest swimming Sperm. We are unique. We all have a special power. There are too many fakers and “want to be’s” It’s time that we stood for something.
People who read this article also read these:
https://dlaignite.com/can-social-media-be-the-oasis-you-seek-in-a-competitive-market/
https://dlaignite.com/is-linkedin-really-working-for-youor-not/
https://dlaignite.com/how-not-to-run-social-media-transformation-strategy/
