Archive for the ‘B2B’ Category

So you’ve got a new offer

December 24, 2012

Your offer

One of the most common mistakes my clients make isn’t really about marketing at all. It’s about what comes before.

The Offer

Many entrepreneurs thrive on being all things to all people. This was certainly true for me in the beginning.  You need a custom CRM? A sparkly new brochure? Paperweights with your logo on them? Got it!

It’s perfectly awesome to customize your services to your clients’ needs, but if you want to achieve any kind of scale, eventually you’re going to need to define your offer.

What People Need

I define success in business as living at the intersection of what the world needs and what you do better than anybody else.

If that’s true, then you’ll probably get your best offer ideas from prospects.  Once enough people are asking you for the same things, or giving you the same objections, it might be time to develop a new offer.

What do I mean? Well, offers can do one of two things:

  • Satisfy an unsatisfied need – Lately a lot of my prospects have been telling me they aren’t sure what they need.  This makes it difficult for them to commit to a big project like a website overhaul. What if I created an affordable (but profitable) offer around some basic consulting so they could make those bigger decisions with confidence?
  • Counter an oft-heard objection – What are the most common objections you and your salespeople hear?  Make a list.  Maybe one or more of these will suggest a new or complimentary offer that will prepare clients for your main offer.

Components of Your Offer

Developing your offer is a little more complicated than dashing off a few quick paragraphs and calling it a day.  Here’s what you’ll need:

  • A gateway: How will people discover your offer?  Will you sell this offer in person? By email? Will you use a squeeze page? You’d do well to think about this in advance.
  • Collateral: Create compelling collateral that focuses on the benefits your client will realize by taking advantage of your offer. The format of your collateral will vary based on the gateway you choose.
  • Sign up: Give careful consideration to how your client will accept your offer.  Do you need to add a sign up form to your website? Should you get your attorney started on a new contract or terms and conditions? What’s the engagement process?
  • What’s next: Once the client says yes, what happens next? It’s always a good idea to strike while the iron is hot.  Can you automate some processes to deliver on your offer in real time?

Confused People Do Not Buy

Sometimes I feel like this is my mantra. If you find yourself answering the same questions and addressing the same confusion over and over again, you probably need to work on your offer.

Posted in B2B, Marketing, Running Your Business, Sales, Strategy | Leave a Comment »

On Making Customers Happy

January 11, 2011

We’re into making resolutions at the Collective.

For 2011, we’re focusing on making our customer experience better than ever.

Surprisingly, there are some pretty simple ways to improve the way your customers feel about working with you:

1. Be responsive.

When you’re busy, it’s so much easier to hide out and let emails and phone calls go unanswered.  I’m embarrassed to admit that, sometimes, I wait for my voicemail to reach critical mass of three or four messages before I’ll even check it.

Bad girl!

A client once told me, “Ann, people just want to be heard and acknowledged.  The most important thing you can do is answer that email.  Let them know you’re alive.

“Even if your answer is, ‘Got your message.  Can’t touch this til next Tuesday, but I’m here and thinking about it.’  That goes a long way toward building trust and loyalty.”

Best. Advice. Ever.

2. Meet your deadlines.

I’m a firm believer in allowing people to set their own deadlines, rather than imposing them from on high. I ask my colleagues in the Collective to invent their own deadlines whenever possible.

That said, if you’ve committed to something, that’s it.  You’re all in.  Make it happen.

Yeah, stuff comes up.  But make it your policy to under-promise and over-deliver.  This is the shortest path to a happy customer.

Corollary: If you have to miss a deadline…

If you have to miss a deadline, ask for permission first.

There are few circumstances in life that truly sneak up on us. If you have a sick child or you get in a fender bender and this will impact your deadline, let your customer know as soon as possible.

Also, remember that a missed deadline can have a cascading effect on other deadlines. The first order of business is to develop a recovery schedule that will get you back on track and to communicate that schedule to your client.  People will understand, if you let them.

One thing you cannot expect: sympathy after the fact.

3. Explain yourself.

Timing is critical to keeping your clients happy, but it’s also important that you do great work.

At the same time, great work isn’t always recognized or appreciated. If your client understood the ins and outs of what you do, he wouldn’t have you.  Sometimes you need to go above and beyond to explain your thought process.

I’ve tried it both ways.  I’ve emailed homepage designs without comment, and I’ve spent hours drafting detailed documents explaining my thinking.

I wish I could tell you that I got better results by doing less, but that’s not the way it works.

Why let your client see into your thought process?  The more they understand the choices you made, the more they’ll trust you.  People can sense when you’ve thought things through and when you pulled it out of you know where.

Where to start?

Keeping open lines of communication and delivering great work on time are the keys to a happy customer, but if you have some room for improvement, start with meeting your deadlines.

If I have a cardinal rule to share, it’s this.

Fast trumps awesome.

Just try it. Deliver something before it’s promised, even if it’s just a little thing.  Just see what happens. When you have happy customers, future mistakes are a lot easier to overcome.

Posted in B2B, Marketing, Strategy | 3 Comments »

Getting Perspective

May 10, 2010

I consider myself a level-headed person, but I confess I have one strange phobia.  I freak out when standing near big objects.  Think battleship big, or 12-foot-water-main-strapped-to-the-back-of-a-flat-bed-truck-that’s-hurtling-down-270-at-90-miles-an-hour big.

The other day, I got heart palpitations when I saw a man holding a traffic signal that was about to be installed on the corner of Viers Mill and Norbeck Roads in Rockville.  It’s hard to tell while driving, but those things are huge!

And that’s when I got the idea that my phobia isn’t really about things that are big.  It’s about the relationship between objects – one of which is usually me. I can look at photos of suspension bridges all day long, but driving on one is scary.  Why?  Because putting myself in relationship with the bridge forces me to recognize just how small I am.

I wonder if this is related to that thing that happens when I get around my competitors.

Ever notice how, when you show up at a networking luncheon, you always end up sitting next to the one other person in the room who does the same thing you do?

How does that go?

Annoyed? Defensive? Maybe a little intimidated?  Certainly thrown off when it’s time for that round-robin introduction.

Forcing yourself to see your business in relationship with your competitors is a valuable exercise.  What do you do better?  What do you do not quite as well?  Are your customers different? Is there a way to partner with them so you can both win?

After all, if you don’t know what makes you different from the rest of the field, how will your prospects know?

Posted in B2B, Marketing | Leave a Comment »

Should I market my business on facebook?

March 10, 2010

Many of my clients are starting to feel their way around the edges of social media. Should you use Facebook, blogging or other social media tools to promote your business? And more importantly, will it work?

It’s a big question, and the answer is different for every business. Here are three questions you should ask yourself before jumping into the facebook fray:

1. Can I commit?

A recent Forrester Research poll shows that 91% of B2B buyers use social media. You know you’re supposed to be where your customers are, so why not?

Here’s why not: content that is not regularly updated is worse than no content at all. Frequency is the first rule of social media marketing .

This is not a spectator sport. It’s not something you do once a month. It’s at least a three times a week commitment, and maybe more depending on the medium. (Twitter? Try three times a day). Any less and you’re wasting your time.

2. Am I willing to put myself out there?

Authenticity is the second rule of marketing with social media. If you create a facebook profile and use your status only to promote your product or service, you’re missing the point. Social media is about access. People want to see inside your world. It’s up to you to show them.

This is about the point in the discussion when the Time Waster Police show up. “You can’t afford to waste all that time posting pictures of your kids and your trip to Bora Bora! You’re getting paid to do work, not play!” But being authentic – being fully who you are – in the social media space is a requirement. Violate this rule at your peril.

3. Am I willing to wait for it?

The third rule of social media marketing is patience. There is considerable lag time between when you start playing with social media and when you’ll see results from it. And when results do show up, they may not be in the form you expect. You might discover an awesome new vendor who will save you tons of time and money. Or you might get introduced to your soon-to-be top-performing sales person. Maybe you’ll even land your next big client.

Above all, success in social media marketing requires that you make the effort with no expectation of return. If you really plug in, make some new friends, and let it be fun, the rewards will come. But you have to hang in there.

What do you think? What other questions should people be asking themselves before they take the plunge?

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Posted in B2B, Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, Web 2.0 | 2 Comments »

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