Welcome back!
Today, I’d like to talk about how to create a sales and marketing strategy that will grow your customer base with a solid foundation. That’s right just like building a house, we need to have a solid foundation before we can build the rest of our strategy.
Most people think that its about a catchy slogan that is memorable and exciting. That is what will draw the customers in. The problem with this is that it takes time, a great deal of time to generate traction. Look at a few slogans that are known now, but when they were created.
Just Do It – Nike 1988,
America Runs On Dunkin – Dunkin Donuts 2006,
Breakfast of Champions – Wheaties 1973.
If we want to wait for our slogans to take off, we may be waiting for a while before they catch on. It’s not a bad idea to have one, but we need to focus on a foundation to build on. And yes, it all takes time. There is no instant success. All that believe in overnight success, should look at the data.
If a slogan will not cure all of our needs for marketing and sales, then what do we do?
We need to build on that foundation and the first thing we need to do is answer the three questions our customers are asking:
Do I like you?
Do I trust you?
How can you help me?
If we are not focusing on answering these three questions right away with our sales and marketing strategy, then we are going to fall into the commodity category. If that happens the only differentiating factor is price. No one wins in this category, especially the customer. Lower cost means less quality in 99% of cases.
We also have to understand that customers do not instantly like us. If we want to really have a mental picture to wrap our heads around, we should think of them like cats. Cats don’t just instantly love us. They are independent and take time to warm up to us. Once they have warmed up to us, they will finally allow us to pet them. That in itself does not mean they love us yet either. We need to cultivate the relationship.
To cultivate that relationship, we need to give things away. It is hard to receive anything with a closed fist. The only way to receive is with an open hand. We need to give things away for free. The easiest way to do that is by giving information. No, I am not saying giving away your secret sauce in totality, but I am saying you need to give pieces of the solution away. That is what I consistently do for all of you. I give you weekly blog posts, videos, etc to help you in your strategy creation.
This also take a while to generate, but if you do it in the correct order, you too can generate a great deal of interest in just a matter of months instead of years. Would you like to have customers coming to you in decades with a slogan, or in months with giving away content? How long do you have to wait?
The focus will need to be giving away as much as we can. Create content that will add value to the customers and they will appreciate us and look to us in the future for help. Heck they may even turn into sales people for us that we don’t even need to pay. Wouldn’t that be nice!?!
Focus on adding value every single day that we show up and how we can answer the three questions above. Make that the core to all of our sales and marketing strategies and we will gain traction.
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”