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 her 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 & we role-play.) And that I didn’t want to hear all about her firm–I want to hear how you’re going to solve my problem. I literally train my clients to say the right things while they’re presenting. If you talk too much about what you do & don’t make it relate to your prospect your chances of hooking them decreases significantly.
Here’s Why
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 amazing products & programs. You tell them all about your Ivy League degrees. Your prospect 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 awesome marketing trickery they wouldn’t need to hire you. What’s the result? You both walk away frustrated and without what you need.
Related: How You Speak Is Not Your Identity
Your Prospects Need You
Are you awesome at what you do? Do you do your job to a fare-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 poorly written 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 easy to you, but they have their own wheelhouses. In effect we all need each other. We can’t do everything.
Back To My Story
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 site & my social & tell me what they can do to help me. A good marketer should be able to streamline their message so that the benefits for me are crystal clear. She didn’t do any of this which resulted in a loss of my business to her and possibly some great marketing help for me
Here’s someone (me) who probably could’ve benefited from your help, gave you the chance & you ended up just confusing me and wasting my time. Not explaining what I really needed & how what you offer could benefit me.
What’s The Moral?
The only way to convince someone that their problem can easily be solved by the skills in your wheelhouse is to speak only to that prospect’s needs. Spend time asking them questions. Find out whats in it for them and then figure out what you can do to help them. People need your help. We all have our own wheelhouses & we can’t do everything.