John Nelson, The Sales Expert
| |
I take a little different approach to marketing. In my world I come accross businesses that bleed money on marketing that doesn't work. Why doesn't it work? Sometimes it's because it is bad marketing but often times it's good marketing but the problem lies in the selling process. The sales people and their selling process aren't capable of closing the deal Often times I find they have confused marketing and selling. My definition of marketing is: any and all acitivities that are designed to create a voice to voice or face to face contact between the prospect and the company. Selling is about turning those contacts into business. In essence, marketing is about getting more and better pitches for the sales person to swing at and hopefully get a sale. These businesses that are wasting money on marketing often times don't have their sales processes and marketing processes lined up. The result is disaster. I often am called in too late to save a company because they kept on trying to market their way to success and have used up all of their funds.
In some businesses--usually small ticket item retail--there is little or no selling process required and it's all about marketing. When I sit down with owners of companies and have them take apart their marketing and selling processes the response is usually one of horror and shock as they recognize much of their marketing budget has been completely wasted. It may be wasted even if the marketing is bringing semi-qualified prospects into the pipeline becasuse their salespeople aren't closing the deal. Another challenge is that their sales people may not really be selling, they may continue to "market" to their prospects and attempt to educate them. Another contributing factor is that after the boom time of the 90's we've got an entire generation of sales people that can't sell. They had great sales numbers during a great economy but often times they weren't selling for a at all--they were just taking orders!) These factors make for a disasterous selling process because they will drive the prospect intellectual and counter human nature. Selling, unless you want it to only be a numbers game, is about finding the compelling emotional reason to do business.
I'm a huge fan of effective marketing. To me it is like magic beacause it can raise the batting average of a good sales person to great and a great sales person to fantastic and I really have very little idea how that's done. As good as the marketing may be though, I haven't seen much success in it turning a poor sales person a good one.
Happy selling!
John Nelson...the Sales Expert.
> Leslie Wolff wrote:
> One of the best descriptions I've ever read was in a book published in the late 60's by Theodore Levitt, the Marketing Guru of the Harvard Business School. It described Marketing as
>
>"All the exhilarating big things and all the troublesome little things that must be done in every nook and cranny of the entire corporate organization in order to achieve the purpose of attracting and holding a customer."
>
>It's been a major stone in the solid foundations I've built for clients over the last 4 decades.
>
>What's your idea of Marketing?
>
>Have a great holiday.
>
>Les WolffPrivate Reply to John Nelson, The Sales Expert (new win) |
