The LeadGen.com Blog

Missed the Bus

Today's question comes from a Website developer who met a small business owner at a networking event. Evidently the owner was unhappy with his Website, and expressed interest in talking about it.

According to the developer, the owner did have some real problems with his Website. But the guy got busy, and forgot to call him back. And so he was asking the group if it was okay to text the owner and try to re-kindle the lead.

Not surprisingly, almost everyone in the group recommended calling him, not texting, figuring, what have you got to lose?

And there were a couple of good answers. For example: Most people said he should apologize for dropping the ball. And re-establish some rapport.

And there were some stupid answers. For example, some said the developer should drip on him with email, and see if he responds. And a few said the developer should just send a quote, to show that he had done some work.

OK.

What I don't get was that no one said the guy should check the Website to see if the owner had already fixed his problem before calling. What would it have taken? Five seconds?

Go Birds!

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Appearing on Whiskey WinsDay!

Mark your calendars!

I'll be participating in the "Whiskey WInsDay with Jessie Lizak" panel discussion tonight, August 28, 2024, along with Alisa Manjarrez, Managing Director of Stories Bureau.

Tonight's topics are:
1. Podcast for B2B: Advocacy and Content
2. Making Marketing Accountable: Aligning with Sales
3. B2B Marketing: Storytelling, Team Building, and Podcasts
4. Platforms Wire the Game: Connecting Systems

If you're looking for the "Secrets to Success in B2B", tune in at 9:00 pm ET, 8:00 pm CT, 7:00 pm MT, 6:00 pm PT at:

https://streamyard.com/hgz3tsmm2u

Prizes WILL be given away...

Tonight's discussion is for anyone in B2B who wants to grow their sales, their market share and their profitability.

And as an added bonus, tonight's giveaways include:
- Swag Pack from HighLevel
- 10 hours with a Virtual Assistant from Cherry Assistant
- Wireless headset from Headset Advisor
- Free year of Lavender Pro from Lavender
- One Month Free Taking Up Space Program from Jessie Lizak
- Cold Calling Seminar from Jeff Josephson

Location:
https://streamyard.com/hgz3tsmm2u

Date/Time: August 28, 2024, 9:00 pm ET, 6:00 pm PT.

What’s an effective approach when doing cold messages?

Responding to a forum post that says: For context, we have sent thousands of cold messages before (LinkedIn, FB, IG) but open rate is low and conversion rate is lower. In fact, I think the conversion for those thousands of messages sent is actually zero.

So one person answered: Find a way to connect and be human.

Another one said: Identify your target audience and make sure you are targeting the right audience according to your niche.

And someone else said: The messages we usually send are personalized. Address them by their name, send something from their profile, and ask them how they are. We don’t usually hard sell and just want to connect first.

Look, no one cares that you’re human. And if you’re not targeting the right audience, why are you even in the job? And do you think they can’t tell it’s spam if it starts with their name?

Here’s our answer:

Anytime you’re going in cold, whether it’s by email, telephone or smoke signal, the most important thing is to first identify a real need, and then pitch to it.

To be clear, this doesn't mean guessing what they need (e.g. like assuming everyone needs a widget), or assuming the prospect can infer a need based on your product's description.

Rather, let's say you're selling IT services to mid-sized businesses. Call into the companies at a relatively low level and just survey the employees for actual complaints and problems.

Then, when you call the CIO or CEO, say "I was talking to so-and-so about your problem with X. Do you have a moment to speak?"

How hard is that?

Good Reasons for Not Advertising?

So the question for today comes from a user who sells digital advertising, who asks:

What’s the best excuse you’ve heard for NOT advertising?

And I have to admit to being a bit confused by the answers he got.

One person said, for example: Everyone in this town already knows who I am.

Another one said: My customers aren't on the internet.

And another one said that the best reason they've heard is that the company they were talking to says that they already have too much business. And if they start advertising, they won't be able to keep up with demand.

I guess what’s confusing is that, to me, these aren’t GOOD reasons not to advertise. They’re BAD ones.

I mean, if you can’t keep up with demand, hire more people.

If you’re customers aren’t on the internet, find out where they are and advertise to them there.

And if everyone already knows who you are, does that mean you’re now just printing money?

I don’t know, it seems to me that the only good reason not to advertise is if it doesn’t work.

And if it doesn’t work, you probably ought to figure out how to make it work.

But what do I know?

In the case of a limited budget, which marketing actions yield the greatest returns?

So someone posted this question to a forum I participate in over the weekend:

And it got several answers, most of which I think were kind-of wrong.

I mean, is there ever a case where the Marketing budget isn’t limited?

I’ve never seen it, so an answer can't carve this case out as an exception. And any answer that does should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

In general, marketing budgets should be tiered. You know, what do I do if I have $100? What do I do if I have $1000, etc.), and percentages (which can change by tier) within each tier deployed for specific purposes (creating awareness, creating desire, triggering actions, etc.)

Again, this formula holds whether you have $0 or $100,000,000.

With that in mind, you can now ask the right question:

What should I do if I only have $X to work with, and I'm selling such-and-such a product to this particular market, and I want to achieve so-and-so objective, against a competitive environment that looks like this, and with these available channels to reach my prospects.

Without those parameters, any answer you get is likely to be pretty meaningless.

This Job Market Sucks

So I was doing a little research to try and get a sense of what’s happening in the job market for salespeople lately, because everyone talks about how low unemployment is, and how tech is booming. But all I hear about is how people are struggling.

For example, this one guy wrote: “I have a good amount of sales experience. Pretty diverse background. Also have experience working for a top tier tech company. Yet I’m applying to countless SDR/BDR roles and can’t get a bite. At this point I’m almost willing to take anything with a decent base. Is there any company out there that’s actually looking for salespeople?

Some of the responses would seem to suggest that someone’s lying:

• One guy says: Everyone is struggling right now. As of now, SDR positions are going to desperate AEs willing to get demoted to put food on the table.
  
• Another says: Yeah. It seems like every industry is going through a low season right now (It takes an average of around 100-200 applications to land a role)
  
• And another says: Our sales team was laid off this month. Even after I was hitting 70% to yearly target at end of Q2. Been applying where I can with sales. 300 applications, 1 interview, only to be told they are going internal.
  

You know, here’s a funny statistic. According to the Harvard Business Review, annual turnover among salespeople is around 27% - which is, in itself, twice the rate in the overall labor force.

But you know what it is for salespeople at the 2-year point? 65%.

Yeah, things are just peachy in tech.

The Digital Marketing Life Cycle

Digital Marketing is a powerful tool for any business that wants to fail as slowly and as painfully as possible.

Digital Marketing says "Build a Web site that's going to stand out from the 11 billion other Web sites. Optimize around terms that either no one will ever use, or ones that all your competitors already own. Do a bunch of other stuff that sounds good, but doesn't actually work. And then wait until you run out of money before you actually think about lead generation."

After all, if you build it, they will come, right?

Do you really think your content is going to break through the clutter?

Do you really think your prospects are just waiting around for your solution to show up?

Seriously. Is it any wonder that the business failure rate is over 70%?

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For decades, Marketers have struggled to show their impact on sales.

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Our Best Revolving Door

Here at the LeadGen.com Digital Marketing Academy, we know Marketing!

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Who cares about uncovering needs? That's just Boomer narcissism.

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It's the promise of a waiting for the phone to ring.

It's the hope of that first traffic after going live.

It's the smile of making that LinkedIn connection.

In fact, it's whatever you want it to be.

For the business you love, it's always Inbound Marketing.

Who cares if there's no ROI?

Because it's the thought that counts.

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Decisions, decisions

As a business owner you're faced with a virtual tsunami of marketing options. Everyone is selling the next big thing, the newest way to generate leads, or the one tool you absolutely need to grow your business.

Email marketing! Data mining! Pay-per-lead! AI! Content marketing! SEO!

"Just use our solution and the world will beat a path to your door", they scream.

Well, here's the reality: It's all nonsense, because none of it works - at least not for you.

When it comes to marketing, if you think that you need to be doing "X", you've already lost the battle.

And there are lots of names for it: Grasping at straws. Throwing a bunch of you-know-what against the wall and seeing what sticks. And "hope as a strategy" are just a few.

If you want to win the game, you have to start with the fundamentals. You have to work through your value proposition and your positioning, your targeting, and how to actually create awareness and stimulate interest with potential buyers.

Only then should you consider what tools you need.