Everybody makes mistakes! Even me! 🙂 But today, I’d like to tell you specifically about marketers’ mistakes. To some degree, we are all in marketing & sales. We all need people to hear us & to follow our call to action.
Marketers' Mistakes
This marketing person was badgering me, so I finally took her call.
She took the time out to call incessantly–there she gets a few points. On about the 5th call, I spoke briefly with her and said, “Here are my pain points; during our scheduled call, I want you to have the solution to my marketing pains.” I told her my pain points! She didn’t have to work to get it out of me!
I told her that I do this all day long with my clients (we go over their decks & role-play.) And that I didn’t want to hear all about her firm–I want to learn how you’re going to solve my problem.
I train my clients to say the right things while they’re presenting. If you talk too much about what you do & don’t relate to your prospect, your chances of hooking them decrease significantly.
Marketers, solve your clients' problems.
You’re the expert at what you do. Let’s say it’s marketing (but it can be any profession). You have a meeting with a prospect & you tell them all about your unique products & services. You tell them all about your Ivy League degrees.
Your prospective client is impressed, but you didn’t end up explaining to your prospect exactly what they can expect. What are the benefits that they will receive?
Look at it this way: If your client understood all of your lingo and your impressive marketing trickery, they wouldn’t need to hire you. What’s the result? You both walk away frustrated and without what you need.
Your prospects need you to help them.
Are you fantastic at what you do? Do you do your job to a fair thee well? Are you providing services & products for people in your wheelhouse?
Yes! You are!
You’re serious about it because you’ve gotten this far in this article!
Your prospects are not good at what you do. It doesn’t even make sense to them! I know that’s hard to believe because it comes so naturally to you, but they have their own wheelhouses.
In effect, we all need each other. We all can’t do everything.
This marketer's mistakes.
The scheduled call time comes, and guess what? She presents her deck for the entire call. Talks about what her firm does. She clearly didn’t take my advice & figure out my pain.
She didn’t do any research about me! I’m all over the internet! A quick skim & anyone can see my branding needs help. That my site is a bit slow. Fuhget about my mobile!
A good marketer should be able to look at my website & my social & tell me what they can do to help me. A good marketer should streamline their message so that the benefits for me are crystal clear.
She didn’t do any of this, which resulted in her loss of my business and possibly some excellent marketing help for me 🙁
Here’s someone (me) who probably could’ve benefited from your help, gave you a chance & you ended up just confusing me and wasting my time. Not explaining what I really needed & how what you offer could benefit me.
This 5-Minute Trick From the Navy SEALs Will Make You an Incredible Communicator
9 Secret Steps to Influencing Others
Want to be more influential? We all want to communicate our most important messages in a way that encourages others to take action. Whether that action is voting for our candidate or picking up milk from the store, the words we use and how we speak play a huge role in getting the job done.
What's the moral of this marketing story?
The only way to convince someone you can quickly solve their problem is to speak only to that prospect’s needs. Spend time asking them questions. Find out what’s in it for them, and then figure out what you can do to help them. People need your help. We all have our wheelhouses & we can’t do it all.
If you’re presenting your deck & you’re not getting the new clients you need, come to me & let’s go over it together. We’ll whip it right into shape! We can get it done in 1 or 2 fun sessions! 🙂
Marketing is communicating
Communicating is in everything you do. And it’s never taught in school. You have to go out of your way to learn to become an incredible communicator.
The bizarre thing is that most people don’t know that improving their communication skills will improve their lives. In our society people are taught to be ashamed of their communication skills.
Can you imagine if people shamed you for not knowing how to draw if you’ve never taken drawing lessons? Do you feel shame that you can’t play guitar if you’ve never taken lessons?
Yet people feel ashamed that they can’t sell, give a presentation swimmingly or persuade others. As a result of that shame, people avoid all thoughts of their communication skills. I ask on the socials if people like listening to themselves on the recorder and I always get a resounding NO!
But the folks who are measuring and improving their communication skills are quietly getting ahead. They’re more confident and persuasive. They have incredible relationships. Communication skills are everything.
Watch this awesome video of Ita Olsen: Why am I Not Automatically an Incredible Speaker
A marketing campaign can interface you with the correct prospects, as well as get everyone talking about your organization, your product or your service in any event if it’s legitimately developed and done right. Marketing mistakes can do the inverse and maybe result in disaster. Unfortunately Marketing Mistakes happen. You plan, you research, you launch and your campaign fails. What might you be able to have missed? What do you do now? The main thing you ought to do is venture back and breathe deeply. Yes, breathe. The worst thing you can do at this point is thinking you’re the only one who has ever experienced this. You’re definitely not. But you can avoid being one of those marketers who fail.
Marketers really should read this! Especially in this age of so many ads!
Very useful information! I’m trying to grow my own online business and I don’t want to make the mistake of talking too much about what I do. With these tips, I can restructure my conversations to talk more about what my business can do to help certain individuals.