If your organization can demonstrate the sort of managerial effectiveness discussed in Part 1 of this article, there’s a good chance you can actually benefit from your marketing efforts.

Part 2 of this article will concentrate on Marketing Effectiveness.

Even if one of your pitches in the race for capital ultimately results in funding, you’ll need to continuously implement effective marketing strategies and tactics to either a) attract more funding, or b) attract your ideal customers to deliver on investor expectations.

The “long haul” for funding and customers requires modern, “attraction marketing”. In accordance with my own hard knocks, observations, research and investment, here are my five standard requirements for attraction marketing:

1) Effective management is a pre-requisite for effective marketing.

If the management in your company is seriously flawed, even highly effective marketing will not reap results.  As obvious as this may seem, it is all too common for bad management to be compensated for by working-up a new marketing campaign.

Here in lies two problems: (1) Ineffective marketing isn’t the root cause for lack of organizational growth, and (2) Bad management is infamous for poor implementation of any sort, including marketing initiatives.

As I write this, thousands of businesses are ignorantly trying to cover for bad management through implementing a new marketing gig.  Is this your company?

Clean up your management first (hire, demote, terminate or develop in accordance with company culture); then try to get great things done!

2) Effective marketing embraces and implements modern technology.

Here are three of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard recently: (1) “A prominent web presence isn’t necessary; we are only interested in attracting local businesses and customers.” (2) “Internet marketing and social media don’t apply to our industry and type of business.” (3) “We believe the only way to truly connect with people is in person.”

Modern technology changes how things get done, and marketing is no exception to this rule!  The thing that amazes me most is how even tech-focused companies (of any size) are slow to recognize the impact modern technology has on how we market today, and thus fail to implement marketing effectively.

That said, let me first address ridiculous item #1: Even if you’re looking to do business locally within your state, for example, your local prospects and customers are online! This is true if they are online intentionally searching for a solution to their problems, or if they stumble upon your solution in their online networks and industry forums.  Look at it is mere coincidence that people around the globe can access your business.

If you have a website, ask yourself these questions: Do you want to be a brochure, or a presence? Do you want to be a brochure, or a sales and marketing machine?  Do you want to be a brochure, or do you want to be highly effective and attract your ideal customers with a strategic, online presence?

The way I see it, if you’re going to take the time to be online, forget branding your company as a “brochure”.  Be a presence – a force to be reckoned with!

As for ridiculous items #2 and #3: Modern technology now enables rapport building on web-based platforms. It is a gross misunderstanding the only way we can truly connect and develop rapport with another individual is in person.

Where there are words, pictures, sound and video, there is communication – and thus connection – with human beings (investors and customers included).  And where there is connection with human beings, there is the potential for growing familiarity, trust, inquiry and commerce with your company!

Furthermore, aren’t businesses of any industry interested in growing familiarity, trust, communication and sales?  Building rapport online is for ALL businesses.  Don’t take your web presence lightly – go modern.

3) Effective marketing needs to deliver a positive, “potential customer” experience.

Just like a quality product or service delivers a positive customer experience, so too should your marketing efforts.  After all, isn’t marketing a “touch-point” with your potential customers?

Here’s how to implement a positive, potential customer experience: Provide industry-related education.  That’s it!

How are you educating your market about solutions to their problems? Effectively implement edu-marketing always, and you will attract the market.  You will engage your potential customers in becoming familiar with you, trusting you, researching your solutions, and doing business with you – all via education.  Now isn’t that nice?

4) Effective marketing MUST be in synch with sales efforts.

Do you ask members of your sales team what they think about company positioning and branding? Do you align your sales department to properly sell via an education-based sales model?

Positioning your company’s brand in the market requires that you do so through the eyes of your customers so you can speak their language.  Implementing mechanisms for acquiring sales force feedback on your marketing language before you upload content to your website or disseminate sales materials is a highly effective practice.

For example, invite a few of your respected sales leaders to your market strategy meetings and ask them, “What are the top 3 pains our customers are experiencing?”
Although marketing folks prefer to believe they know “customer speak” best, they will never know it like the company’s direct line of communication a.k.a. sales force.  Never.

Once you have the proper language to create effective sales tools, you need to align behaviors in the field.  Attracting the market is different from days of old.  Conversion isn’t going to be so hard anymore. I’ll elaborate on this concept in Part 3 of this article.

5) Effective marketing of today requires a significant amount of personal time.

I hear this from CEOs and business owners quite often: “ I’m really busy running my business.  There’s just not enough time in my day for marketing stuff.”

Because people are interested in connecting, trusting, and doing business with other people, they want to connect with a person, not a company.  Therefore, understand that attraction marketing demands time from the executive/business owner him/herself.  And if not the business owner, someone needs to be assigned the role of “Face of the Company”.

Due to modern marketing technology, today’s market presents a great opportunity for CEOs to attract investors and customers via modern marketing efforts.  Never before has the business owner/CEO been able to so directly connect with so many like-minded customers at once and impact sales.

As a CEO or business owner, if you take time to execute attraction marketing you will surely delineate from your competition.  The market will be attracted to you and your company, and you will grow faster.  Let me say that again, you will grow faster.  First and foremost for your own right – growing faster than your competition is an added bonus.

That said, here are some basic questions to ask of you and your company’s marketing effectiveness:

• Do we regularly utilize market research and/or internal company knowledge to assess our market and our customers’ needs before positioning and branding our     organization?
• Do we have a well-crafted value proposition that guides all of our positioning and branding?
• Are our logo, tagline, business cards, key profiles, proprietary processes, hubsite, product/service packages, leads-generating whitepaper, core case studies, and ancillary branding tools in alignment?  Do we have any of these things?
• Do we have a concise message as to how we help?  Can everyone in our organization communicate this same message? Do we provide training for our staff so they know how to effectively communicate a clear and consistent message?
• Do we market with educational media (blog articles, white papers, case studies, resource guides, reports, telesiminars, etc.) versus traditional “company-focused” brochures which no-once gives a rat’s tail?
• Do we have an online hub (hubsite) where we drive traffic and leads versus an Internet brochure (traditional website)?
• Am I the face of the company?  Who is?
• Are we out on the Internet connecting and earning trust with our future customers?
• Do we have an Internet marketing strategy in alignment with our brand to effectively connect and earn the trust of our ideal customers so we can drive sales through the roof?
• Do we “represent” offline like we do online?

Whether your market is attracted to your organization or not is up to you! We must embrace the change modern technology has on our marketing effectiveness.

What is one thing you and your organization are doing right now that is in concert with attraction marketing?  What are three new things you can start implementing this quarter?
Which concepts from this article would you like me to provide more tips and solutions?

Part 3 of this article will focus on Sales Effectiveness!

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“Most Salespeople try to take the horse to water and make him drink.  It’s your job to make the horse thirsty.”  ~ Gabriel Siegel

1.    Define success according to you!

Five years from now, what does success look like for you?  What are you doing in your free time?  How are you living?  Where have you taken your organization?  Where are you working and what is your position?  What value are you providing at work that causes you to smile when you think about it?

Your answers to these and similar questions will be your personal vision for success.  Envision your success daily to drive your sales goals and behaviors.  Working off of someone else’s vision of success will not maximize your potential.  Success is personal!

2.    Set transcendent goals!

Consider the following sales goals:  “We will increase sales by 20% this year”… “I will be the top sales rep on my team and in my region in Q4”…

How do those sound to you?  I’ve come across many goals like this as a sales manager.  In fact, I’ve set a few similar-sounding goals myself as a sales professional.  This is how I know they don’t help aspire to transcendent greatness and success.  They can motivate us in the moment but they lack in longevity and passion.

Go big! Transcend yourself beyond simple motivation into the realm of lasting inspiration: “Our company will expand on our core innovations to exceed revenue by 50% in the next six months”… “I will be promoted to sales manager this year due to consistent sales effectiveness quarter over quarter”…

Don’t be afraid to exceed your own expectations!

3.    Educate your market with empowering information.

Customer demands aren’t the only driver for sales and business growth.  More important is your ability to effectively sell your solutions where there is a need.  Often our target market is naive to the cause of their problem for which they have a need for our solution.  It is our job to help educate them on four key things: their industry, their problems, the implications of their problems, all available solutions, and the best solutions (aka our products/services as applicable).

You will often hear me say that educating is the new marketing.  There is nothing salesy about education.  Dive deep into your market’s problems and help them regardless of directly providing a related product or service.  When your prospects and customers can apply the knowledge you’ve empowered them with via a white paper, case study, etc., you will earn their trust and they will follow your lead in the marketplace.  Thought leadership is an invaluable sales tool!

4.    Educate yourself on the selling skills of today.

Old school selling involves brochures, internet brochures (aka your ‘traditional’ website), cold calls, hard closes, staged conversations, bill-board advertising, radio advertising, face-to-face meetings, driving around town all day long, dry sales letters, and press releases.

Contemporary school selling involves communicating on the customer’s terms, with information products, long sales copy, webinar meetings, white papers, case studies, blogging, podcasting, video, as well as  attracting and converting prospects online via various social media outlets.

Old school strategies are best implemented with a new media twist, and new school strategies can be severely screwed up if not taken seriously and carried out with integrity and a plan.  It is a whole new era in which sales and marketing have become a hybrid strategy.  Invest in self-educating yourself so you do not get left behind!  The selling skills of today are always changing!

5.    Sell on emotion always!

Day-to-day business is riddled with emotion.  There are many problems to solve and risky decisions to make!  Never forget, we all buy out of happiness or fear. It’s that simple!  Don’t shy away from communicating the value of your solution based on your prospect’s fears out of concern for appearing negative.  Many of their fears are very real AND justified – your prospect wants them alleviated!  Can you help them?  Tapping into happiness and fear will earn your prospects attention for communicating your value.

6.    Roll with the punches as you strive towards life-long excellence.

When we make mistakes during selling situations, we can beat ourselves up pretty badly.  We didn’t advance the sale to the next step like we visualized, for instance, or we couldn’t recall a pertinent piece of data to help us close the sale.  What’s worse, perhaps we define ourselves through the recent month’s sales numbers and worry ourselves sick about our value to the organization (I’ve seen this a lot in my big pharma days).

Excellent sales people excel because they forgive themselves for inevitable selling mistakes and they commit to life-long excellence. They know that spending their time in anxiety will blunt their performance and make things worse.  As long as you come from a place of integrity and value, not only will you be able to forgive yourself, but your prospects/customers will too.  With trying new and amazing things come mistakes!

7.    Think!

Selling today is hard work!  You can’t just roll into a meeting or give an unemotional presentation and walk away with a sale.  You need to prove yourself first, and then sell your product/service.  You need to understand your prospect simply to show them you understand.  You need to communicate according to their communication style.

In addition to skills, what about your products and services?  What opportunities are you missing?  Does all your revenue come from one product?  How can you better use the internet to acquire business nationally?  What info products can you sell on-line in addition to your services?  Are you connecting with your prospects before you try to convert them?  Are you pushing your research, product, or services on the market, or are you attracting the market with your education-based marketing practices and establishing thought leadership?  Can you trace the sales flow from attraction to conversion in your organization?  What is your strategy?

Like a solid business plan, a sales plan needs to be created, implemented and measured.

I chose these 7 keys as a result of comments I often hear myself saying when I coach my clients about sales and selling skills.  Be they business owners or sales professionals, I believe these “keys” serve as excellent reminders for what success in sales is all about.  

Based on your sales experiences and wisdom, what would you add?

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