Marketing | Business | Life
Once again, Mitch Joel
If you do a quick survey of the most successful people you know, it’s clear how direct and in-touch they are with their own thing. It’s no different for brands. You can have all of the values and brand expressions in the world, but if you can’t sum it up into one, unique, thing, it’s going to be hard to truly do groundbreaking things.
I really need to do some serious thinking about this. That’s the challenging part…finding the one thing.
If you’ve seen Glengarry Glenross, you know the importance of closing a sale. You don’t want to be left with that set of steak knives…or worse.
The problem is, there’s been such a backlash against sales (and, by extension, marketing) that it’s often a little nerve-wracking to ask for the sale. Be it lack of belief in their offering, a lack of understanding of the prospect’s true need, or just simply a fear of the person sitting across the desk, too many people are uneasy asking for the sale.
So, when it comes time to get down to business, to bring all the work they’ve put in on the front-end to a culmination, many salespeople (or websites acting as sales people) offer up some vague call to action hoping to fall over backwards into a sale.
That’s what today’s #BlogSomething2012 picture says to me (in hieroglyphs, no less) – be clear when closing.
Don’t put some call to action out there that doesn’t really ask for the sale because you’re nervous about offending the person in front of you – either in person or virtually. If what you are offering them is truly of value, you should feel like you can’t imagine them not buying because what you are offering is exactly what they need. (If not, that’s a different discussion)
But, if they truly have a need, and if your product or service truly meets that need, be clear in asking for the sale. Don’t beat around the bush. Tell them you believe they will benefit from doing business with you and outline why.
Then ask for the sale. If you’ve done your homework on the front end, they’ll be happy you did.
Any market where unnecessary middlemen stand between customers and their successful use of a solution is about to be disrupted. Any service putting the burden on end users to string together multiple applications to produce the final working solution should consider its days numbered. Any product with an interface that slows people down is ripe for extinction. And any category where a disproportionate number of customers are subsidizing their vendor’s inefficiency is on the verge of revolution.
Ultimately, any market that doesn’t have a leader in simplicity soon will. And if your company doesn’t play that role, another will lead the charge.
The days of unnecessary (and in many cases necessary) complexity are over. Prepare accordingly.
Everyone has felt the frustration of sitting down in the morning, checking their email and starting the process of deciding what is necessary and what has slipped past the spam filters. The minutes (hopefully not hours) of digging through emails to find the two or three messages you actually want to read before deleting the rest can feel like some of the most annoying of the day.
As a marketer, I’m disappointed that so many of my “marketing bretheren” are responsible for adding to the time I spend in Gmail every day. (In reality, I kind of doubt we’re really bretheren though. Maybe distant cousins…by marriage…who we only see on holidays.)
More than ever, we need to make absolutely sure that communications with customers and potential customers are a) desired and b) expected. This concept isn’t new. Hasn’t been since Seth Godin wrote Permission Marketing. Sadly, many marketers seem to have forgotten this cardinal rule.
As the “playing field” of business communications has been leveled, it’s become easier (and in many cases too easy) to, on a whim, send out an email to customers to help fill some perceived busness need. There’s the rub, though. The email goes out in response to a business need when there’s no defined customer need.
Communications with customers need to fill their needs. They must provide value for them that far exceeds the sting of the lost time of interacting with them. This can often mean the company needs to forego their needs or, better yet, align their needs with the desires of their customers. That’s the sweet spot. Finding ways to align your business goals with the desires of the customer.
If we want to have any hope of a positive reception by the customer or a desired outcome, we need to turn our marketing on its head and view it through the eyes of the customer. Rather than viewing the business relationship as one where the customer is there to serve us, we need to see that we are here to serve them and if we don’t do so up to their standards, there are plenty of other businesses willing to take our place.
In this environment, the power of the specific, measurable and useful promise made and kept is difficult to overstate. And if you can do it regularly, on time and without a fuss, we will notice.
I think the more we can outline exactly what we’ll do for our customers, the more their trust and delight in us will grow.
Think about it. If a company says you’ll receive a product within 7-10 days, and you get it in 10, you’ll probably not notice and, if you do, won’t be all that excited about it.
But, if they tell you you’ll get your product in two days at three p.m. and you do, how much more are you going to be impressed?
I agree with Seth. The more we can set specific standards and live up to them (or exceed them!) the better for all of us.
The things we fear are probably feared by others, and when we avoid them, we’re doing what others are doing as well.
Which is why there’s a scarcity of whatever work it is we’re avoiding.
Said another way – fear often will show an area of opportunity.
Jobs was able to use his own personal magnetism to direct your attention at the lovely gadget he held in his hands. Without a personality like that to focus on, Apple fans will have nothing to react to but the product.
So, the success of Apple so far was due solely Steve’s charisma? That’s a little shortsighted.
If that’s what Lance is saying, it’s irresponsible.
If that’s not what he was saying, that’s a poor choice of words.
Sure, Steve Jobs was the face of Apple. Apple’s success was largely due to his vision, but to make a statement like that, seemingly implying that even bad products would be seen as success simply because Steve Jobs was presenting them is irresponsible.
Does anyone think that Apple’s success is owed to anything other than making amazing products?
There is danger for any business if they tie themselves to any one person to closely. Certainly, Apple was tied to Steve Jobs – that’s undeniable. But to say that their success is so tied to that one man that he could enchant people enough to buy Apple products even if they didn’t stand up to critique is ridiculous.
In fairness, Ulanoff does say that he “directed your attention at the lovely gadget that he held in his hands.” But saying that Apple fans will now be forced to react to the product alone (in my mind) implies that people didn’t focus on the product before because they were hypnotized by the show that Steve put on.
Did people love the polish of a Steve Jobs keynote? Absolutely.
Was Steve the biggest champion and evangelist for Apple products? You bet.
Were Apple products widely adopted because of Steve’s chrisma? Doubtful.
There are many extremely intelligent people using Apple products and I struggle to think that they were duped into using them. If the products didn’t hold up to Steve’s hype, there’s no doubt that they wouldn’t have been as successful as they are.
The lesson here is that a charismatic leader can provide a jump start for a company, but the product they are promoting must stand on its own if it is going to be successful.
I think that we can confidently say that the iPad 3 and many Apple products to come will do just that.
But, with all this change I firmly believe that we still need journalism. We need long form, highly researched and fact checked stories on all sorts of topics. We need photo journalists capturing the moments of our time and shining a light on things people don’t want us to see. Audio and video reports from all corners of the globe and close to home need to continue to be produced and shared.
Agreed, but the delivery mechanisms of those stories will vary drastically from what we see today.
Kip Tindell:
Take care of employees better than anyone else and they will take care of customers better than anyone else.
So true.
via: John Moore
