Online vs Offline?

Philip Rosenthal sent Vanessa an email asking:

‘How much effort should a consultant put into their online presence versus offline face to face networking?

It may be different for different consultants, but how do you decide how much time to put in or what mix of time to put into different areas? I am concerned that online marketing is a potentially endless sink of time and am not sure what the returns will be compared with traditional marketing.

Also, I have been on [a particular online networking facility] for less than a month and have about 30 connections – some of whom are people I don’t really know but are members of professional societies of which I am also a member and live in the same city as me – I hope to get to know them better this way. Any suggestions?’

Hello Philip,

Great question, and one which I’m sure many other Marketing Edge readers are wondering about. You raise three separate points, which I’ll address one by one:

Online vs offline networking

How much time you decide to spend in one area versus the other depends entirely on where your prospects are and you may have to do some research of your own to find out where that is. As a business owner with many commitments you simply cannot afford to waste your time, money and effort in activities that have minimal impact.

Are your prospects researching and making buying decisions from behind their PCs? If so, are they building relationships with potential suppliers through social networking, or are they using search engines to find information on specific services? (Two distinctly different approaches!) Or are they making those decisions on the golf course? Do they read specific trade journals or attend business to business shows and exhibitions? Find that out, then find a way to regularly get in front of them.

The returns compared with traditional marketing

Any marketing you do – whether online or otherwise must fit in with an overall strategy. They cannot be adhoc events or activities that get done on a whim and without proper forethought and planning. Remember too, that not all methods work for everyone. You have to test it and measure it. If it works, do more of the same. If it doesn’t work, or doesn’t work well enough, change tactics.

For example: Just because you’ve always had an advert in the Yellow Pages doesn’t mean you should just keep on renewing it. Do you know how much business you actually get because of that advert?

The same principle applies to your weekly networking breakfast; your brochures; your website; etc. Don’t blindly keep doing something just because you think you should, or because you think that ‘doing something is better than doing nothing.’

Getting to know your contacts better

Well done for creating an online profile and getting active in making connections! (For some top tips on creating and maintaining your profile, see my article Revamp Your Online Presence in Four Easy Steps.) It is important that your connections have substance and that you can add value to each others’ networks.

What is the point of hundreds of connections that are just there to boost your numbers, but you know nothing about each other and never interact? It would be just as ludicrous to collect hundreds of business cards at face-to-face events and stuff them into an overflowing business card folder that never gets opened again, other than to add more cards!

Your approach to connecting with fellow members of professional societies you belong to and people who live in the same town as you is a good place to start. May I suggest you take the initiative in arranging a meet-up to build those connections into REAL relationships. Perhaps something like meeting for a drink after work – invite all thirty connections and see who turns up. Not only will you benefit from getting to know them better, but they will benefit from meeting each other too. (By the way: This suggestion works equally well if applied to that over-stuffed business card holder too!)

Thank you for your question,

 

Other readers with questions are invited to submit them here and we’ll do our best to answer them in an upcoming issue.

Cancel your advertising and throw away your leaflets

“Cancel your advertising and throw away your leaflets”

By Karen Skidmore

When people decide to give up on their business and go back to corporate life it’s not because they prefer PAYE world. It’s usually because they have just run out money.  They aren’t able to make enough income to cover their day-to-day costs, let alone make a profit.

But these businesses don’t go out of business because of bad service or poor quality products.  These businesses are usually run by people who are passionate about what they do and genuinely care about their customers. 

So why is it that many home based businesses come and go? 

Listen and Learn: A Lesson for Marketers

I love my dad: it’s necessary to make that clear before I tell you this story. My dad is always wondering when I’m going to give up this lark and get a real job. That’s not the worst of it – the worst is that he’s not at all sure what ‘this lark’ is! Yes, I’ve told him – and told him, and told him … Those who are avid readers of The Marketing Edge will know that we here at Zee2A help our clients to craft a Verbal Signature – a brief statement which encapsulates who you work with, what problem you address and what the outcome is of addressing their problem. My dad has heard my Verbal Signature on many occasions – so why doesn’t he know what I do?

The answer (I’m sure you’ve already guessed) is that hearing doesn’t mean the same thing as listening. Perhaps you’re wondering what on earth this has to do with marketing, so let me rephrase that: Speaking, telling, talking – none of them mean the same thing as listening! And yet we as marketers are always focused on telling, not so? We just assume that the person we are talking to has listened.

I’d like you to participate in a short experiment in case you’re not convinced. Quickly write down the names of five people who are close to you but not people you do business with – family, friends, community members. Done? Right, now call them one by one and ask a simple question: ‘What do I do?’ If you got five accurate, congruent answers I’d like to hear from you – you’d be a world-first! You’ve told them (almost certainly) but how many listened?

I recently participated in a very interesting experiment under the direction of Maureen Scott of Mascott Training. Maureen wanted to graphically illustrate to a roomful of hard-nosed business people the challenges we face in accurate communication. She did so by splitting us into pairs and assigning one of the pair as the talker, the other as the listener. To the talker she gave an envelope containing a simple sketch, to the listener a pen and a blank piece of paper. Then, sitting back-to-back, the pair had to reproduce the sketch on the blank piece of paper. Get the idea? The talker cannot see what the listener is drawing, while the listener cannot see what the talker is seeing.

I was the listener in my pair but it wouldn’t be difficult to imagine the challenge faced by the talker: how do you even begin to describe what you are seeing? (You may be interested in seeing what I drew, which you can do by clicking here.) Do you describe the scene? Do you describe each line in detail and let the overall picture form as the process continues? What about colour? Positioning of the drawing on the page? Page orientation? (Our pair made the mistake of assuming that we were both holding the paper in the correct orientation, so the picture you see was inaccurate in that it should have been in portrait orientation.)

It is a deceptively simple experiment with so much meaning to be derived from it. Different people listen and visualise in different ways, so understanding whether the person you are talking to is a visual listener, an auditory listener or a kinesthetic (touchy-feely) listener is immensely useful in guiding how you present a proposition to them. Equally, as a talker you need to be a good listener too, because you should be sure to check regularly whether the person you are talking to is developing the correct image of what you are presenting. Maureen illustrated this concept by suggesting that the goal of communication is to create a shared vision, so we should imagine two ‘thought-bubbles’ emanating from the respective heads of the talker and the listener. If those two thought-bubbles are overlaid on one another, are they identical? If not, there is more (and perhaps also better) communicating to be done!

What can marketers take out of this? Here are three keys to effective communication:

• Never assume: Remember the mental exercise of overlaying your ‘thought-bubble’ with that of your prospect. Are they identical? Or does your communication need enhancement? If you don’t know what is in your prospect’s thought-bubble then you need to listen more!
• Be adaptable: Different people need the same information to be communicated in different ways. Are you talking to someone who seems to get frustrated when you try to talk detail? Chances are they are visualisers – start using verbal ‘broad brush’ strokes to paint an overall picture. (This type of person is vehemently opposed to presentations that rely on scores of Powerpoint slides – you have been warned!) Are you talking to a detail person (career engineers are a good example)? They are auditory listeners – break your proposition down to its key components and allow the prospect to build the picture as you supply the components. Touchy-feely listeners really struggle with a service proposition because they can’t run their hands over it! Make sure that you provide lots of references (the closest thing we in the service profession have to a tangible offering) and offer to set up calls with or visits to satisfied clients. Some kind of demonstration of how your service works is also powerful if you are selling to a kinesthetist.
• Listen more than you talk – Always! Yes, you are trying to communicate something to someone else, but never think that you don’t need to listen. Only by listening carefully and diligently can you understand how your message is coming across to the prospect. A ratio of ‘2x listen : 1x talk’ could be called the Divine Ratio – because we were given two ears and one mouth!

In conclusion we could perhaps say that rather than listening and learning, the goal of our decision to be good listeners as marketers is because listening leads to more profitable clients. Now that’s music to my ears …

Are you a Professional Services Executive struggling to close deals at the right price? Do you have to ‘give away the farm’ in discounts to clinch the deal? Would you like price to be a non-issue in your sales cycle? It is possible! We at Zee2A have not had to negotiate on price to close a deal in more than three years! Our methods work, and we know that because we use them on every deal. Find out more about our Marketing Edge Mentoring Programme here.

©David Deakin and Zee2A Limited

Would you like to reprint this article? You may do so as long as you include the copyright notice and the following paragraph:  David Deakin, CEO of Zee2A, is a marketing guru who works with Professional services Executives yearning to take their business to the next level of profitability and success.  Through one-on-one and group mentoring programmes he helps them to create sustainable marketing strategies that attract more clients at profitable rates. To learn more, sign up for his e-zine, or make an enquiry please visit http://www.zee2a.com

 

Resolving The Dilemma of Ethical Marketing

Many service professionals will tell you that the words ‘ethical’ and ‘marketing’ don’t belong in the same sentence. While you’d be opening another can of worms by asking for a precise definition of ‘ethics’, let’s just say for the moment that often marketing leaves us feeling a little dirty, or sleazy if you prefer. One marketing guru summed it up by saying that marketing and sales are the world’s second-oldest profession – and often are indistinguishable from the first! Is that how you feel? If so, you have a problem (and you didn’t need me to tell you that!) That’s because without marketing you’re on the fast-track to retiring from a dull middle-management job at a faceless, heartless corporation. Not much in the way of choice, I hear you say!

Well, perhaps there is a third way. Let me say that a little more positively: I KNOW there is a way to be as successful as you choose to be at marketing without feeling like you need a hot shower and a scrub. Let’s take a few moments to explore the marketing dilemma and see if we can unravel it.

First, let’s acknowledge that not all of us would do anything for a quick buck. Most of us (certainly the professionals I work with) went into professional services because we really believed that we could do things better if we weren’t hamstrung by corporate red-tape, and that by doing things better we could better serve the customers whose dollar we were on. Has that changed? Not for me – and I doubt it has for you either. So at its heart our business exists because we believe it helps those we do business with as much as – if not more so than – it does ourselves. Many professionals remember this simple fact by carrying a Vision or Mission Statement which says so. (Without intending to get off track, I cannot recommend highly enough that you regularly reconnect with the reasons you went into business in the first place. Our Marketing Mindset process helps our clients to do just that.)

Second, let’s agree that sometimes we really need to close a deal in order to survive. We’ve all had months when the taxman was calling, the bank manager was refusing to extend the overdraft and the kids were expecting to be equipped for university like Shackleton was for the Antarctic! Some of us have had more of those months than we care to remember! At times like that it doesn’t help to hear some smart aleck say that if you really need the money, you shouldn’t do the deal. They may be right – and if so we’ll have our nose rubbed in it later when we’re trying to untangle from a customer whose expectations were way too high but whose commitment was close to non-existent. But in the heat of the moment it’s human nature to do what we have to do in order to survive, so we do and say whatever it takes to get the signature on the proposal.

Clearly then, there are times when our commitment to a customer doesn’t closely mirror our overall vision for our business. And if we have too many of those, we start to question our vocation. You may not realise this, but you should: Getting to feeling like that is a GOOD THING! It means that your profession still means something to you; that you still want to be better. You want to be better for your own sake, and you want to be better for your customers’ sake. If you ever lose that desire, you’re in deep trouble and I’m not sure who can help you!

However, that scenario should not be the norm for service professionals. All too often, though, it is. Why? Because we neglect the necessary chore of regularly prospecting for customers until the urgency is great enough to force us out of our comfort-zone. Or, to put it another way, we don’t do any marketing until we’re having ‘one of those months’ – the type that make us unethical marketers! Are you sensing the pattern here?

Finally, then, lets discuss how to break the cycle that leads to ethical misdemeanours. It seems too obvious to say, but plainly it’s not: Do more marketing more regularly, and you won’t have many of ‘those months’. Of course it’s one thing to say it and quite another to do it. How do we market regularly? What does that involve? How do we get the most bang for the buck? We are busy people, so only the most effective marketing activities should be in our portfolio or else we’re wasting time and money, right?

Many years of testing and sifting have demonstrated to me that there is nothing that even comes close to Relationship Marketing in terms of effectiveness for service professionals. As I define it, Relationship Marketing is about building trust with and demonstrating credibility to prospective clients before initiating the crucial sales conversation – letting them get acclimitised to you and plying them with information about your services so that when you ask for their business they have little hesitation because they already know they’re going to get value-for-money. And for it to work successfully on a consistent basis, you have to have a game-plan for it.

Put in a nutshell then, a good Relationship Marketing game plan well-executed is the cure for the ethical marketing nightmare. So what are you waiting for? Make sure NOW that your marketing strategy is focused on building relationships – not just when you’re desperate for new business but every week and every month. Your conscience will thank you later!

©David Deakin and Zee2A Limited

Would you like to reprint this article? You may do so as long as you include the copyright notice and the following paragraph:  David Deakin, CEO of Zee2A, is a marketing guru who works with Professional services Executives yearning to take their business to the next level of profitability and success.  Through one-on-one and group mentoring programmes he helps them to create sustainable marketing strategies that attract more clients at profitable rates. To learn more, sign up for his e-zine, or make an enquiry please visit http://www.zee2a.com

 

NEVER COLD-CALL AGAIN!

And Get More Clients
Into the Bargain …

Okay, so that title sounds like a load of phoo-ey, right? (And yes, phoo-ey IS a technical term we marketing gurus use!) Everybody knows that the only way to get new clients is to cold-call, or cold-mail – how else do you find prospects that you might end up doing business with? That is at least how the accepted wisdom goes – and judging by the number of organisations in the UK currently selling lists of prospects carefully segmented by any number of weird and wonderful demographics, the accepted wisdom is still very much accepted. So how can I tell you that you’ll get more clients by NOT cold-calling?

Here’s something you might not have thought of before: Did you know that organisations like Sainsburys and Barclays Bank cannot cold-call? Now I’m not saying that there’s some kind of law that prevents them. Rather, I’m pointing out that it’s impossible for them to do so. How’s that? Because pretty much anyone who might appear on one of their marketing lists (and that includes virtually everyone over the age of sixteen in the British Isles) has not only heard of them, but also quite likely knows where their nearest branch or store is. The point is that we’re not cold prospects – we know them, we’re familiar with their logo and their place of business, and we have possibly even had some experience of them. We’ve already been warmed to them by our previous dealings with them, to the extent that we likely view them as part of our community. And that can make the world of difference to our reception when being marketed to.

Of course, part of the reason for that is the immense marketing and operating budgets at the disposal of these commercial giants. They buy this exposure by running TV commercials and radio slots ad nauseum (or at least it can feel like it!) and by having a physical presence on nearly every High Street in the country. Very few of the professional service organisations we work with have anything more than a fraction of a percent of that financial muscle – but there is still a vital lesson we can learn from their success. The lesson is this: Never market to strangers!

You may notice that the lesson sounds very like our title, and with good reason – cold-calling and cold-mailing are first-rate examples of marketing to strangers. Why not market to strangers? Three reasons (well, four if you count the conclusion): They don’t know you, they don’t like you, they don’t trust you – so they are not going to buy from you! You may want to remember this as the ‘know, like and trust threshold’ and test every marketing initiative against it. If a marketing initiative hasn’t already scaled the ‘know, like and trust threshold’, keep your money in your pocket.

You’re probably thinking ‘I’ve worked every lead I already know, so without marketing to strangers I’m not going to get even one more customer!’ We might debate just how effectively you’ve worked every lead you already know, but let’s agree for the purposes of this article that what you say is true. Really, if you want to grow your business you have no alternative but to market to strangers, right?

Ah well, having told you what not to do perhaps I should now share with you what you must do to turn strangers into profitable customers. The answer lies in identifying connections which link you with the strangers you wish to market to. What’s a connection? Think of it as an affiliation, a commonality you share with the individual you wish to engage in a marketing conversation. It really doesn’t matter that much what the nature of the connection is – are you part of the same church-group? Do you share a hobby? Did you grow up in the same town or attend the same school? Are you subscribed to the same Chamber of Commerce? A connection may even be established by subscribing to the same periodical!

It’s a fact that the single greatest human need is acceptance – a need to belong, to feel connected. In this twenty-first century world where the community values of our grandparents no longer have any kind of currency, we fulfil our need for acceptance through a bewildering range of virtual communities – some of them so virtual that they only exist in cyberspace! You would be making a dangerous mistake concluding that the connections we hold have little value – they are actually the most powerful marketing tools we have.

Don’t believe me? Then consider this – if you can identify a connection to your prospects, they are no longer strangers! If you’re still struggling to see this, perhaps you might want to tell me which of the following is a more persuasive marketing pitch:

• 20% Discount on our services during December!
• Produce a Basingstoke and Deane Council Tax bill to receive a 20% ‘community’ discount during December!

Of course if you’re thinking ‘Who wants to live in a dump like Basingstoke?’ you’ve just proved my point! We Basingstokers suspect how others feel about us (especially since that ‘Crap Towns’ book hit the shelves) but we know that we are part of a wonderful warm community and we look after each other. Which may or may not be true – but it’s our perception, so nothing could be truer for us. We’re connected, see? And we can’t be connected to strangers – that’s another impossibility.

I strongly urge you to do something right now that will have an immediate impact on your marketing success rates. Take a few minutes to consider where you might find communities with a high percentage of your prospects. Then consider how you might connect with those communities on the basis of joint participation, and frame a marketing campaign that emphasizes your connection.

Before long you’ll have added another connection to some of those community members – they’ll be profitable clients.

Are you a Professional Services Executive yearning to grow your business without sacrificing your quality of life, but not sure how to take the next step? You may be ready for The Marketing Edge programme. Contact us now at info@zee2a.com to discuss how the programme can help you to fill up your fee-book with profitable clients.

©David Deakin and Zee2A Limited

Would you like to reprint this article? You may do so as long as you include the copyright notice and the following paragraph:  David Deakin, CEO of Zee2A, is a marketing guru who works with Professional services Executives yearning to take their business to the next level of profitability and success.  Through one-on-one and group mentoring programmes he helps them to create sustainable marketing strategies that attract more clients at profitable rates. To learn more, sign up for his e-zine, or make an enquiry please visit http://www.zee2a.com