Marketing Maestro

As a marketer I get requests from sales teams all the time.  We need more leads!  The only issue with this request is that the number of leads is only half of the equation.  The number to focus on is your conversion/close rate.  From that number you can work back and determine the optimal number of leads needed to hit sales goals. Of course, the quality of the leads is important and sales teams often use poor quality as an excuse to explain for their lack of sales.  Most of the time these sales people are in the wrong job and don't realize it.  Those folks just want to take orders and have the sales come to them.  We use the term 'sales leads’ for a reason.  A sales person needs to 'lead’ the prospect to buy.  

A friend of mine pointed out the movie/play Glen Gary Glen Ross and this one scene about “what it means to be a real estate salesman”.  This play was later turned into a film with this scene written specifically for Alec Baldwin. This scene is used in a lot of sales trainings along with Hard Ball Selling techniques.  Many companies are against this style of forced selling but it is still a great scene and makes you appreciate every lead you have.   It has some vulgarity so if that makes you uncomfortable don’t watch. It’s pretty intense.  If you haven’t seen it, enjoy.

So before you ask your marketing team for more leads take a second and ask yourself  - Have you done everything you can to sell to the leads you have?

I get sales calls daily for every media and marketing company imaginable.  I am always amazed at how ineffective many of the sales people are when leaving messages.  Most people ramble on as if I care or have time to listen to a full sales pitch on a voice message.  A few just leave a name and number as if that will interest me to call them back.  I know it is bad form not to return calls.

Selling over the phone and leaving someone a voice message is marketing your business.  Take the same  time and effort you would use to write a great direct response newspaper ad, direct mail letter or email marketing message to craft a great voice message.

Here are some points to think about if you are  going to leave a sales voice mail message.  Implementing some of these ideas might improve your response rate.

• Sound interested in helping me and catch my attention (think headline, subject line)
• Show some excitement about what you are offering
• Give me something of interest or a reason to call you back (think offer or hooks)
• Leave me a way to get back in touch - yes people either don't leave a number or read it off so fast that you can barely catch the number.  Would it be too much to ask for you to repeat the number if we never spoke before?
• Don't leave me a message about how great your company is and go on and on for more then a minute
• Assume I know about my brand and company - I always laugh when people tell me about my company or repeat info from our site or marketing material
• And if you don't get a call back it is not personal but that doesn't mean I want you to call me every week until you catch me at my desk

I don't mean to pick on sales people.  It is a difficult job but remember your target audience has a job they need to do too.  So before you leave your next voice mail message remember you are marketing yourself at the same time.

What else can sales people do to improve their sales and marketing messages when leaving a voice mail?

I get a lot of sales calls.  It always amazes me when the sales person forgets all their manners and just talks over you, ignores your time constraints and then drops the ball on the follow-up.  Just the other day a media sales rep had me on the phone (I couldn't get a word in so I could end the call...) finally he asked when he could follow up to get my decision.  I said 10 days.  Would you believe he then asked if he could call sooner?  To make matters worse he then called twice the next day to 'check in'.

Few things annoy me more then being asked a question just to have the answer ignored.  Think about how annoying those calls to your credit card company are when you type in your account number and then when you finally get someone on the phone, the first thing you are asked for is your account number.

If you are selling to someone (online, in person, over the phone) and ask them a question make sure you use that information. If you are not going to use information don't ask for it.  If you are able to use the information to customize your communication or create a relevant offer then ask away. If not, keep it simple.

When you are thinking about what data to collect keep in mind testing variations.  Do you get better results with less info or more? Can you ask the same question in two different ways and get different results?

Here are some questions to ask yourself before asking your customers alot of questions:

• Do you need that extra question or want it for the future? 
• How will I use this info to make my customer's experience better?
• Can I get this information from another source?
• Do we ask the same question in another way somewhere else in the sales cycle?
• Is the question clear?  Does it solve the problem we need to answer?
• Are your questions leading to the answers you want or do they get you the info you need?

What works for your business?  Let me know and please enter your account number so we can pull up your account...