Lynnelle Wilson's BOLDVision Blog

If You Don't Have a Good Story - Don't Take the Meeting

Doing research on social networking for marketing clients I spend time on the TechCrunch blog. It's a technology blog, with a capital T, but if you want to stay on top of all things techie, TechCrunch is where to go.

After listening to 200 10-minute VC presentations by tech companies, Jason Calacanis wrote a piece,  "How to Demo Your Startup". While Calacanis' targeted audience are tech companies looking for Venture  Capital funding, his tips are good for all of us in situations where we need to communicate value succinctly and effectively. His article gives 10 tips to do that. As an entrepreneur, communicating your ideas and the value to prospects is key to your success. Here are my favorites

1. Show your product within the first 60 seconds. He says, "The longer it takes for you to show your product, the worse your product is. Folks who have a kick-ass product don’t spend five or ten minutes “setting the stage” or “giving the background.” 
   
   Statistics, our important and impressive backgrounds, and flashy Powerpoint slides sometime take our focus away from the purpose of presentations. It's about how can we make the prospect's life better. If we don't have a good story about that then don't take the meeting.
   
2. The best products take less than five minutes to demo. "The better the product the LESS time it takes to demo. If your product demo takes more than five minutes to demo, it probably sucks. All the tiny little features that matter to you are of course important–God is in the details–however, when presenting your company, you don’t have to show them."
   
   A great many of us have what I call "the curse of knowledge". We know too much and get way into details with prospects we shouldn't. They don't care about anything but how it helps them. Unless you're in a minutia-type business talking to an expert in the minutia, the nitty-gritty details will come out in training or the service manual, not a networking meeting or even sales presentation. I love this...
   
   "Steve Jobs does take the demo details to a fairly detailed level, but you and I are not Steve Jobs. There is only one Steve Jobs and there is only one Apple. You’re never going to build something as cool as Steve, and as such there is no need for you to talk about your product for five or ten minutes."
   
3. Leave people wanting more. "..folks should be either blown away or intrigued by your core product. If they are not somewhere in that spectrum, you need to rebuild your core product." This goes more to my point in #1 above. If you don't have a good story about how you can make their life better, go back to the drawing board. Get the story down or rebuild the product/service until you have a story.
   
4. Short answers are best. When you're in the position of meeting with or presenting to an interested prospect our minds are firing on all cylinders. We're thinking about what we are saying, where we are in the discussion, what the prospect is likely to say / ask based on where we are in the discussion, where we are going, etc. It's mental gymnastics or "monkey brain". Thoughts are bouncing all over the place.
   
   Calacanis' point is spot-on. "...all that inner thinking is chaos when you try to explain it to another person. It’s pure madness after 60 seconds of talking. The best thing to do is answer the question with the most concise answer". Answer the question, then move on.
   
5. How to handle questions you don’t know the answer to. Back to #4 above, if you don't know the answer COLD, don't try to BS your way through. That's the worst thing you can do. No one has all the answers but a BS'er. Calacanis suggests these alternatives:
   a) take a moment to think about the question. You can even say “Hmmm… that’s a good question. Let me think about that for a second.” Folks appreciate a little consideration when someone takes a
   question.

   b) if you don’t have an answer be honest and say you don’t. There are many ways to say this including: “I’m not really sure, I’m going to have to think about that for a bit and get back to you,” or “I’m not sure to be honest. What do you think?”

   c) feel free to think out loud and brainstorm with the person. You can do this by saying “I’ve never really considered that. Perhaps you can expand the question a little and we can explore it right now.”

   d) if you’re not sure of the answer you can always say you’ll cross that bridge when you come to it. “I’m not sure how we would deal with a sudden spike in the cost of bandwidth, we would have to collect more information and answer that question down the road. It is a manageable risk factor I suppose. ”

6. Understand your competitive landscape–current and historical. To this one, I'll add understand who your prospect is and their background. This one is a huge pet peeve of mine. Why would you want to waste your time or your prospect's time if you don't know this? You could find yourself positioning yourself "for safety" and the prospect is only concerned about "cost".
   
   Knowing your competition is equally as important. It not only helps you understand how to better position yourself against them but it shows you are knowledgeable about the industry as well as your own business, and therefore a real 'resource' to your prospect.

What are your best tips for presenting your service or product?

What is the worst mistake you've made during a presentation?  Let's learn from each other.

SALES - everyone's challenge in a down economy

On LinkedIn, David Torres asked:

In our current economic condition, most people are cost (cash) conscious and hesitant to purchase a product or service, regardless of the value it may provide to their business. This makes it difficult on a lot of companies to survive this proverbial "bump" in the road.

What tactic do you use to maintain positive sales growth and avoid a downturn in your business?

My reply:

Only rarely do sales people feel they are not in some kind of "condition" that makes it tough to close the deal. Today’s economic condition adds another challenge to an already challenging job. None-the-less, if the prospect trusts the product / service and person / company and perceives enough value over cost, they will make the purchase. In difficult economic times perhaps prospects are demanding more value than normal.

Therefore, I would suggest tactics like brainstorming sessions around product/service value and role playing using real prospect objections. This is assuming the sales team has done their work in developing a relationship with the prospect and truly understands their needs.

What do you think?

Morally Right but Legally Challenged...

I know this is a small business marketing blog, but going through a divorce messes your whole life around. Either I'm completely delusional or I've got one, dispassionate lawyer with no vision, much less Bold. The world isn't black & white. I don't need to pay him $250 an hour to read the law book to me, fill out forms or to tell me what is or isn't pre-marital property. I need him to fight for me!!  If I had a totally in-the-box, nice, clean, black & white situation I wouldn't NEED him! 

It's the same with you and your clients. I'll bet your clients' needs rarely fit inside your neat little box of tricks. They want it in 1 day rather than 1 week, they want it delivered there rather than here, they want it vertical rather than horizontal, etc., etc., etc.

Are you an order taker or are you a service provider? 

If you come across a client with a need you don't want to deal with don't take their money!  The worst thing you can do is to take on a client that doesn't meet your "ideal client" criteria.  You know you can't do your best work with them. (or work for them at all, in this case.) You end up ticking them off (bad word-of-mouth) and spending your time and energy on something you don't find pleasant which takes away from the clients you can help (not sure who those would be in my lawyer's case). 

Be clear about who you do your best work with. Say no if it's not right. You'll both be happier.

Don't Worry about Being Proper - Do Your Job

The prospect finally returns your call!  What do you say to get the appointment?  Probably something along the lines of,

"We have some interesting services / products that I think can help reduce your turnaround time / increase your sales results / improve your profitability…"

Great; appointment set; so far, so good.  Now from here on out is where most of us get off course.  Here is how it plays out for many of us:

Ms. Prospect invites us into her office and we share a few minutes of small talk – bonding and relating. The next few minutes we spend gathering a bit of information about the business, the operation and Ms. Prospect’s challenges. Then Ms. Prospect asks us about our “exciting service/product”. 

“Yippee!”, we think. Ms. Prospect is anxious to hear about it! We spring into action. Our printed presentation / brochure / pamphlet comes out and we’re off and running. We introduce, describe and explain; Ms. Prospect asks and we answer; ask – answer; ask – answer, answer, answer. 

The next thing we know an hour has gone by and we’re in our car heading back to the office. The best thing to come out of the meeting is Ms. Prospect invites us to “stay in touch”. 

We intended to focus on Ms. Prospect’s needs, on how our services / products can help her, on the benefits we / our product brings.  So then what’s wrong with this sales call?  Were we Ms. Prospect-focused? We had a friendly meeting and answered all Ms. Prospect’s questions telling her just what she wanted to know. …But did we, really?

Think about it. Were we really showing concern for her operation or her challenges?  Did we come into the meeting already understanding something about Ms. Prospect’s business? Let’s face it, our main concern was being perceived as a nice, knowledgeable person with answers.

If you want to help your clients more, and therefore sell more, don’t focus on your service / product and don’t be so agreeable.  Yes, you should be courteous and polite, but it’s your job to figure out how to help Ms. Prospect find a solution to her challenges and improve her business. To do this you need to understand Ms. Prospect’s business almost as well as she does (perhaps better). 

Don’t be shy, be BOLD!  Do your homework so you understand Ms. Prospect’s goals, her critical business objectives, and key success targets; know her industry.

Armed with this knowledge it will be relatively simple to determine how your service / product fits into their operation. Learn about the problems that currently exist and then examine the value your service / product will bring. Equally important, examine and make known the consequences and costs of leaving things as they are.

Yeah, yeah, yeah; you don’t have the time to do this kind of prep work.  I suggest you can’t afford to NOT do this type of prep work.   Unless, and until you do, you may be able to present your service or product but you won’t understand your client's business. And until you understand your client’s business you can't speak to the value you bring to them. Having an intelligent discussion about the difference (value) your service or product can make (bring) to her business is what Ms. Prospect needs from you. Otherwise, you’re wasting her time.

I'm putting the finishing touches on a Sales Call Planning Guide which will be available for free on the Bold Vision Consulting Website. If you're interested in having one make sure you are on the BOLD Bulletin email list.

If you're located in the Waltham - Boston area, an Ocular Forum membership is being formed. The first meeting is scheduled for October 2. Applications for membership are due September 14. If interested send an email or call 207-221-3492 for more information. The application will be available for download on July 31.

WHO BUZZES BEST?

FACTS: More than 75% of us believe that companies don't tell the truth in advertising; more than half of us resist paying attention to marketing and advertising; and as much as 60 percent of us have a more negative view of advertising than we did only a few years ago. No wonder it's so hard to build a business! It's also one reason why word-of-mouth is so important and why so many big corporations spend millions on generating "buzz". If you've ever thought about building buzz for your business, here are a few interesting statistics from a 2006 study by Lucid Marketing:

--Women are more likely than men to share a positive experience with a business or recommend an enjoyable product;
--Full-time employees made substantially more daily contacts than those not in the workforce; and
--People with household earnings of more than $100,000 were more likely to make recommendations than those earning less.

So buzz marketers should not only direct efforts to these three "chatty" groups, Be BOLD and make sure your customers are happy campers! You know these stats, too: happy customers tell one person - unhappy customers blab to everyone! Download the Lucid Marketing study for free "U.S. Adults: Word of Mouth Communications"

If you're interested in learning about marketing your professional services business join me for a 90 minute lunch and learn on April 10 in South Portland. You'll leave with an outline of steps you can implement immediately to generate business and increase your reputation as the "go-to" person in your area of expertise. Marketing for Professional Services Businesses 90 Minute Lunch & Learn - 12:00 noon - 1:30 p.m. $49. Call 207-221-3492 or email info@boldvisionconsulting.com for more information.

8-week BOLD Business Boot Camp, Quick Start for Small Business Growth. Begins April 25. www.boldvisionconsulting.com/events/BBBootcamp.php

Posted by Lynnelle Bianco at 11:40 AM