More Sales Less Marketing - Chapter 2 - What's Wrong with Marketing? Frances Pratt - AudioBook

Hello and welcome to More Sales, Less Marketing, Chapter 2: What's Wrong with Marketing? I think you're a very bad man, said Dorothy. Oh no, my dear, I'm really a very good man. But I'm a very bad wizard, I must admit. And that's another quote from the wonderful Wizard of Oz. Marketing is essential. I think the very first thing that I must tell you is that I love marketing. It is a wonderful discipline that is essential to building an awesome business. You know there must be a but. So here it is. Most business owners rely too heavily on marketing and have forgotten the key step of selling and connecting personally with their clients. Like the wizard trying to be a wizard, marketing has gone rogue. It has been touted as a universal panacea for all business ills. Want more clients? Just market more. Cash flow problems? Try marketing. It's not your fault, but you are involved. Those touting marketing have been successful because they play on some of your deepest fears, your fear of selling and being seen as salesy. The only way to put the marketing monster back in its box is to confront this fear. I remember when I was a kid in my bed at night, knowing that snakes were writhing on the floor, only to find that they magically disappeared when I turned the light on. Big people are not so different from little people. We just learn to hide our fears and insecurities better. We learn to push these fears deeper. Sometimes we are so good at this that we forget that they are even there. I encourage you to name your fears, put them on the table, turn the light on, and let's explore them together. Let's put the crocodile back in the zoo where it belongs. Marketing and selling are sisters. One of the key problems with marketing is that it seems to have lost its connection with selling. Marketing and selling are sisters. They go together. They complement one another. Selling without marketing is beating your drum and getting a few people to dance, but missing the noise and joy of a big fun party. Marketing without selling is thinking everyone will come to your party, but they either don't show or you are not ready to ask them to dance. It's time to get the family back together. It's time to reunite the sisters and watch how the simpatico between them works to augment your business and bring you more clients. Better than that, get you clients that genuinely match you and your business. It feels like magic when this happens, but really it's just good business. Why am I worried about the marketing problem? The problem I see is that businesses spend too much time and and money on marketing when they don't really understand what motivates their clients to buy from them. They market what they want to sell or think they are selling. They have worked so hard to make this product or service that they want to sell and get it out there. How do I know this? I've been working with business owners for a long time. I talk to people in business every single day. When people are starting, I listen to what they say. Here are some samples. Once I get my website done. I'm doing a brochure. I must finish my proposal template or insert another marketing item here. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It makes me want to cry. It's putting the cart before the horse and then wondering why you go nowhere. Yes, you need marketing materials in both digital and analog formats, but— and it's a massive but— you have to know what your clients want to hear first. When you know this, you will know what they will respond to and what they will say yes and no to. Marketing materials only make sense And have value when they speak to your clients. It is not about you. You have done what they need, want, and desire. And often these things are at odds with each other. What you think you are selling and why they buy can be very different. This knowledge is the golden ticket to your success. It is the yellow brick road. If you stop reading here or remember nothing else, remember this: you are not your client. You don't have to believe me. Here are ideas from some of the greatest thinkers in management over the last 50 years. Peter Drucker, known as the father of modern management. Wrote extensively about the importance of understanding clients. He is famous for this quote: The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer. From the father of modern management to the father of modern marketing, Philip Kotler. He was emphatic about business tuning into their clients' desires and needs. And lastly, one of my favorite thinkers and authors, Seth Godin. He says, don't find customers for your products, find products for your customers. I bet you're thinking, who is she to tell me this? How does she know? Let me tell you my story about making this exact mistake. In 2011, I was pregnant with my first baby. I had only recently started my own business, and I was convinced I had to put an online sales for normal people program on the internet so people could learn from me while I was growing a baby. I wrote the program, launched a website, blogged, recorded the videos, wrote the workbooks. Everyone told me it would be excellent, that my material was great. And so needed. I was convinced that all I needed to do was launch the program. I had spent a lot of money. I had to birth this idea to save the world. I launched my program the week my baby was born. And how many sales did I make in the first 6 months? None. A big fat zero. I learned this lesson the hard way. I am a great seller, but not good at marketing. I was too concerned about what I wanted to say and what I was doing, and I didn't stop to talk to my potential customers about how they wanted to buy and consume. I started exploring why once I got my brain back together post-baby. Baby, I spoke to people and went to my brain's trust at her business. Their response: Do some client avatar interviews. Talk to the people who are in your target market. Simple. The following week, I did seven interviews. They were wonderful and enlightening, and I even sold a couple of my programs. But the biggest aha moment came through in every. Single interview. My target client was convinced that they couldn't sell and could nothing— could do nothing about their fear. It was too deep, too dark, too much a part of them. They wouldn't sit there, watch the videos, and do the work. They didn't think it would work. They needed someone to coax them, guide them, to be their coach. They needed me. Based on these insights, I changed what I was doing. I changed what I was saying to speak to their fears. I gave them me, either one-on-one or in small group settings. The sales started. And the irony is, if I hadn't done that work, the work I now ask you to do, I wouldn't be able to sit here and write this for you, showing you that great selling involves humility, And service. Great selling is a product of letting go of your preconceived ideas and getting in touch with the people you dream of helping so that you can help them. In doing so, you help yourself release your expertise and feel the wonder of helping others and changing people's lives. I know I'm gushing a bit there, but it's true. It is my story. I have helped people birth businesses that are thriving. Why does this matter in great selling? Talking about yourself and what you are selling is a part of being the crocodile of bad selling. Taking the same message to the mass market is simply a waste of your time and money. Clients want to hear about themselves, not you. That's when people tune in. Clients don't want to hear about what you are selling, they want to know 3 things. One, that you see them and deeply understand their pain. 2, that you have a solution that might be able to help them, so they want to learn more about you and your solution. And 3, that you have a process that makes sense to them and shows them the big picture steps to a better result Or a solution to their problem. When you don't deeply understand the value proposition from the client's perspective, you are literally wasting your time and money. Your marketing is ineffective because it doesn't speak to anyone, let alone your clients and what they need and want. You are screaming into the void, hoping that anyone might hear you and respond. It's not going to happen. Some of my best friends are marketers, and after they finish choking at the title of this book, they agree with the premise. The premise is this: your first job in business is to get to know your best clients deeply. You don't have to believe me. Some of the greatest business minds of our time agree with me. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits them and sells itself. That's from Peter Drucker again. The problem with some modern marketing is that for the last 10 years, small to medium businesses have been told that if they market well, they won't have to sell. Some marketing companies have sold the idea that you will win in business if you get enough visitors to your website or Facebook page or clicks on a lead magnet. This just isn't true. Great marketing is great, but the truth is that great marketing is based on deep client insights, and as businesses grow, their ability to sell diminishes Because they build walls to keep themselves away from their clients. The insights diminish, and so do the sales. You can't do sales or marketing. You must do both. The problem has been created because business owners hate selling. This has been played on. Putting the cart before the horse is easy when you are told what you want to hear. The cart that promises clients but can't move because the horse is on the wrong end. But there comes a time when the emperor realizes he has been sold something that doesn't exist. In the face of reality, he sees that he is wearing no clothes and there is nowhere to hide. This book is about putting the horse back in front of the cart. It's about the steps we must take to reacquaint ourselves with our most loved clients. To understand their motives and what they value deeply, and then deliver that. Sales is an imperative at all stages of business. If you are just starting, your time and money are finite resources. You know the reality of having to face the client every day. Relish this time and use it to collect data and information on how your clients feel, and react. Immerse yourself in this gold, which will pay dividends as you grow, as your business grows. Listen and learn and feel your way. As your business grows, it gets easier to think, we've got this, we don't need to sell anymore, we know our clients and how they think and feel. Well, maybe you do, And maybe you don't. Clients change and grow too, and more than that, they forget what value you are delivering if you are not there to remind them. Selling never stops. More on this in chapter 16. Maybe you hate selling. Maybe you don't. Maybe you love marketing, and maybe you don't. Either way, one thing we can hopefully all agree on is that business is about customers, clients, seeing, buying, consuming, and getting what they bargained for, and much more. This is— this book is for business owners who love their clients. It is for the entrepreneurial thinkers. It is for those who want to know, give more, and yearn to keep ahead of the wave. Most of all, this book is for doers and those in business who want to know more about their clients and their business. They don't just want to know more, they want to put things in place and take the actions that improve their business for their people and clients. This book will help you take action. I must be honest. Sales really does get a bad rap. In the last ten years, I have turned people from hating to loving selling. Let me share with you what I've learned: why people don't talk to their clients. I'm about to talk to you. I'm about to talk about what you should do. But before I do that, I must explain why people don't talk to their clients. I know there's some of you are reading this and think, of course you have to talk to your clients. But after working with businesses, here are the top 8 reasons you forget to talk to your clients. 1, you think we don't have anything to say. 2, you aren't sure who the right person to approach is. 3, you think that you might be annoying or bugging them. 4, you are scared that they will think you're trying to sell them something. 5, you are shy. 6, you think you should know this and don't want to ask dumb questions. 7, you don't want to be criticized or discover something you don't want to hear. And 8, you have a new product or service, but you're really unsure if it fits your market or who will like it. I have heard all of these things from business people just like you. You may relate to one or more or none of these, but here is the real question. When did you last walk a mile in your client's shoes? When was the last time you understood from your client's perspective exactly what value they received from their interactions with you, your business, your product and service? Getting to deeply understand what motivates your clients and what they value about you, your products, services, and your business should always be the number one thing you do in business. I am asking you to join me in reopening the sales door, not the crocodile trap, but the door marked great selling. Keep reading because next I will challenge you to take it personally and work with me so you can move into a sales rhythm that delivers you clients, that love to say yes to you and that you love to work with. I am going to ask you to be your own sales champion. And that's the end of chapter 2.