The layoffs of 2008 will soon give way to a manic new year’s scramble for new business in 2009. Marketers, agencies and consultants of all sizes, shapes and specialties will madly chase a shrinking pool of new assignments and do their darnedest to seduce customers away from their current providers.
What’s new is that business is “out there for the taking” because half of all buyers will be open to switching according to “How Clients Buy” :the 2009 Benchmark Report onProfessional Services Marketing produced by RainToday.com with survey help from the Wellesley Hills Group. The full detailed report is for sale on their site.
Evidently professional relationships aren’t what they used to be. High and changing expectations, a financial crunch and the ready availability of alternatives makes the business development landscape much more fluid that’s it has been before. Add the continuing need for service and reduced ranks of internal marketers and there are more potential openings than most of us might realize. The real question is are new business seekers willing or able to do what it takes to snag the newly available switchers?
So what’s a sales guy to do?
Make it Personal. The top tier methods for getting access to potential switchers are referrals from colleagues or other professionals and providers and/or personal recognition by your prospective client of you or your brand. You have to be out there, visible and know to get your foot in the door. The second tier of access is through presentations or in-person seminars. Again the direction is clear. You have to have something new or different to say and you have to get physically in front of potential customers to say it. The benchmarking data validates the old adage – “people buy people first; then goods and services are transacted.”
You are Your Website. If you are real you have a website explaining who you are and what you uniquely do. Your website is the embodiment of your brand in the customer’s eye. Eighty percent of potential clients look at your website before they decide to contact you. Customers search for you or look at your site to verify your claims, assess your bona fides and/or do the background research on you and your competitors. If your site sucks, so does the perception of you and your offering.
Proactively Reach Out. Too many marketers are afraid of the phone. The digital world is antiseptic and unintrusive. But the response rates and the engagement rates reflect this. The bench mark data suggests that potential switchers are much more open (almost 2 times as open as they were when surveyed in 2005) to phone and webinar contact than ever before. This means you need a good list and have to have something of genuine value to say or offer to entice further conversation.
Blogs and social media are just coming online as sales tools. They are worthy of experimentation but aren’t yet proven vehicles to engage potential new clients. You might get a few ideas by looking at the 14 agency blogs cited by Michael Gass on his Fuel Lines blog.
Focus on Buying Criteria. Way too many marketers get caught up in the features and never sell the benefits. And even more get way too caught up in chest beating and never listen closely enough to prospects to properly tailor the pitch. The reality is --- clients want you to service them, solve their problems and make them look good. Your entire mission is to convince them that you and your guys can do this faster and better than anyone else.
For eight out of ten buyers, the critical information for sustaining this claim is your brand and personal reputation, your category or vertical industry experience, your task or functional experience and the price you quote. Every other piece of data, every other claim, all those awards, all that other blab is extraneous.
Focus on and clearly demonstrate what you know about their business, which tasks they need that you’ve done successfully a hundred times and be sure to logically show what they will win, in terms of business results – cash, profits, new customers, market share, market penetration – by picking you.
Listen Closely. If you can check you ego at the4 door and discipline yourself to let the prospects speak four words for each one you utter, most clients will sooner or later really tell you what they want. In the bench mark survey almost 4 in 10 complained that potential service partners didn’t listen to them, didn’t understand them or didn’t respond in a timely manner. If you can’t do these basic things, don’t bother to suit up for the sales game because you’ll never win.
Good Luck and Happy New Year.
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