Here's a little e-book we created based on our emails that go out to our mailing list. If you'd like to subscribe to our emails, send us a note at info@richter10point2.com and we'll add you.
Content Marketing Succes: Turn stakeholders into allies, not pitfallsKoen Verbrugge
A lot of content marketeers start on exiting projects only to encounter internal resistance, which slows down the momentum and leaves both the company and the marketeer with a fatigue. Avoid the bottlenecks pro-actively, overcome these pitfall by incorporating these 4 steps into your workflow & create a fertile environment for content marketing growth.
Impress in Excess: 10 Customer Service Tips Guaranteed to Delight (and Help Y...Ruby
These days customers are shopping for more than just a product or service. Customers want an experience. These 10 customer service tips will help you elevate your customer service game so that you can impress your clients while growing your business!
Customer acquisition playbook by greg twemlow july 2019Greg Twemlow & Co
The reality is that founders need to master customer acquisition. They need to live and breath the entire acquisition process. They need to personally hear the prospect who says, “No thanks” and understand why. Founders need to put the commercial proposition on the table and hear the objections.
Finally, founders need to acquire their customer.
Building true confidence is a gradual process. No one is going to turn into a positive, self-confident person overnight. Here is a powerful process to help guide you to take command of the life you deserve.
Content Marketing Succes: Turn stakeholders into allies, not pitfallsKoen Verbrugge
A lot of content marketeers start on exiting projects only to encounter internal resistance, which slows down the momentum and leaves both the company and the marketeer with a fatigue. Avoid the bottlenecks pro-actively, overcome these pitfall by incorporating these 4 steps into your workflow & create a fertile environment for content marketing growth.
Impress in Excess: 10 Customer Service Tips Guaranteed to Delight (and Help Y...Ruby
These days customers are shopping for more than just a product or service. Customers want an experience. These 10 customer service tips will help you elevate your customer service game so that you can impress your clients while growing your business!
Customer acquisition playbook by greg twemlow july 2019Greg Twemlow & Co
The reality is that founders need to master customer acquisition. They need to live and breath the entire acquisition process. They need to personally hear the prospect who says, “No thanks” and understand why. Founders need to put the commercial proposition on the table and hear the objections.
Finally, founders need to acquire their customer.
Building true confidence is a gradual process. No one is going to turn into a positive, self-confident person overnight. Here is a powerful process to help guide you to take command of the life you deserve.
Mel feller asks if you are in the wrong careerMel Feller
Mel Feller Asks if you are in the Wrong Career
” Passion for your work, a pervasive commitment to quality, and relentless attention to details are essential markers of excellence. Quality work and an appreciation for the importance of details benefit not just the clients a business serves; these attitudes and habits also bring joy and peace of mind to the person who delivers the work. To know how to do something exceptionally well is to enjoy it. “Everything Counts: 52 Remarkable Ways to Inspire Excellence and Drive Results by Gary Ryan Blair
Sales can be a tough career.
We face rejection daily, doing most of our presenting in unfamiliar territory. We know that we are only as good as our last order, meaning that if we don’t sell, we don’t eat. In addition, like every other ‘civilian’ we have bills to pay. On days without results most days for many, it can be extremely stressful.
Escaping Client Hell: 6 Practical Tips To Make Freelancing Fun AgainWordCamp Sydney
A tale from foetal position to full fledged fearless leader – through red flag clients, horror scope creep and crippling anxiety due to chronic people pleasing tendancies, Jen will share her journey from solo freelancer to agency director and her hard won learnings over the last 10 years.
Key Take-Away
============
You’ll learn techniques for managing clients and projects through real life stories and insights I’ve gathered over the last 10 years of growing a WordPress focused agency and team.
Presented by Jen Jeavons at WordCamp Sydney 2019
The Mental side of Sales - How to become a Sales JediSani Leino
Sales is in many ways a mental game instead of a product presentation. My thoughts on how one can view sales in a bit different perspective.
May the Sales Force be with you.
How to Boost Your Website Conversions - Triple PlayAntoine Dupont
Slides from my presentation at TriplePlay 2021 in Atlantic City, NJ on December 8, 2021. This was the 3:30 pm session. Enjoy!
You don’t need to spend more money to make your website a conversion machine. It’s all about the story you tell. If your website’s messaging is unclear, it’s costing you potential customers. In this presentation, marketing conversion expert Antoine Dupont shows you a proven communication formula utilized on thousands of websites. You’ll walk out understanding how to create a good marketing story and why it’s the most powerful tool to compel the human brain (and pocketbook).
Estamos encantados por Você ter escolhido a Jeunesse Global® como seu parceiro.
Se Você esta procurando assegurar o seu futuro financeiro, o nosso objetivo é fornecer todos os meios para tal, seja com produtos que ficarás orgulhoso em representar e partilhar com outras pessoas ou com a excelente oportunidade de distribuição global com rendimentos crescentes e altamente vantajosos que só a Jeunesse Global® tem condições para lhe oferecer.
Nossos produtos estão na vanguarda da ciência e tecnologia, e têm uma sólida posição no mercado, cada vez mais crescente, de antienvelhecimento.
Maiores detalhes e cadastramento acesse:
www.rejuvenatenow.wix.com/segredosdajuventude
ClickBank copywriting secrets part one. Inside this
eBook, you will discover the topics about why the top is the most
important aspect, writing a powerful headline, understanding the
psychology of headlines, headlines examples and headline swipes
you can use.
10 Survey Question You Should Ask Your CustomersRodrigo Fuentes
In support of this blog post: http://blog.listenloop.com/10-questions-for-your-customers
Your customers are a great source of information. They can help you improve your business and product, gain a better understanding of your market and even bring you referrals. But you're wondering, "what questions to ask in customer feedback session?"
Asking the right questions can be game-changing for your business. Here are 10 game-changing questions you should be asking your customers right now.
Customers mostly like the ideas that have origin in their believes, experience and habits. It is much more effective to convince the customer to some idea or solution if he/she articulates this idea/solution and then believes that we are actually following his/her concepts.
This presentation focuses on the Discovery and Elicitation tasks and techniques with special attention to methods that are related to coaching. Coaching being originally part of personal development can be also used sales and in managing customer expectation. It is often defined as “form of development in which a person called a coach supports a coachee (learner or client) in achieving a specific personal or professional goal by providing training and guidance.”. Let’s try to convience an Eskimo to buy a fridge!
Mel feller asks if you are in the wrong careerMel Feller
Mel Feller Asks if you are in the Wrong Career
” Passion for your work, a pervasive commitment to quality, and relentless attention to details are essential markers of excellence. Quality work and an appreciation for the importance of details benefit not just the clients a business serves; these attitudes and habits also bring joy and peace of mind to the person who delivers the work. To know how to do something exceptionally well is to enjoy it. “Everything Counts: 52 Remarkable Ways to Inspire Excellence and Drive Results by Gary Ryan Blair
Sales can be a tough career.
We face rejection daily, doing most of our presenting in unfamiliar territory. We know that we are only as good as our last order, meaning that if we don’t sell, we don’t eat. In addition, like every other ‘civilian’ we have bills to pay. On days without results most days for many, it can be extremely stressful.
Escaping Client Hell: 6 Practical Tips To Make Freelancing Fun AgainWordCamp Sydney
A tale from foetal position to full fledged fearless leader – through red flag clients, horror scope creep and crippling anxiety due to chronic people pleasing tendancies, Jen will share her journey from solo freelancer to agency director and her hard won learnings over the last 10 years.
Key Take-Away
============
You’ll learn techniques for managing clients and projects through real life stories and insights I’ve gathered over the last 10 years of growing a WordPress focused agency and team.
Presented by Jen Jeavons at WordCamp Sydney 2019
The Mental side of Sales - How to become a Sales JediSani Leino
Sales is in many ways a mental game instead of a product presentation. My thoughts on how one can view sales in a bit different perspective.
May the Sales Force be with you.
How to Boost Your Website Conversions - Triple PlayAntoine Dupont
Slides from my presentation at TriplePlay 2021 in Atlantic City, NJ on December 8, 2021. This was the 3:30 pm session. Enjoy!
You don’t need to spend more money to make your website a conversion machine. It’s all about the story you tell. If your website’s messaging is unclear, it’s costing you potential customers. In this presentation, marketing conversion expert Antoine Dupont shows you a proven communication formula utilized on thousands of websites. You’ll walk out understanding how to create a good marketing story and why it’s the most powerful tool to compel the human brain (and pocketbook).
Estamos encantados por Você ter escolhido a Jeunesse Global® como seu parceiro.
Se Você esta procurando assegurar o seu futuro financeiro, o nosso objetivo é fornecer todos os meios para tal, seja com produtos que ficarás orgulhoso em representar e partilhar com outras pessoas ou com a excelente oportunidade de distribuição global com rendimentos crescentes e altamente vantajosos que só a Jeunesse Global® tem condições para lhe oferecer.
Nossos produtos estão na vanguarda da ciência e tecnologia, e têm uma sólida posição no mercado, cada vez mais crescente, de antienvelhecimento.
Maiores detalhes e cadastramento acesse:
www.rejuvenatenow.wix.com/segredosdajuventude
ClickBank copywriting secrets part one. Inside this
eBook, you will discover the topics about why the top is the most
important aspect, writing a powerful headline, understanding the
psychology of headlines, headlines examples and headline swipes
you can use.
10 Survey Question You Should Ask Your CustomersRodrigo Fuentes
In support of this blog post: http://blog.listenloop.com/10-questions-for-your-customers
Your customers are a great source of information. They can help you improve your business and product, gain a better understanding of your market and even bring you referrals. But you're wondering, "what questions to ask in customer feedback session?"
Asking the right questions can be game-changing for your business. Here are 10 game-changing questions you should be asking your customers right now.
Customers mostly like the ideas that have origin in their believes, experience and habits. It is much more effective to convince the customer to some idea or solution if he/she articulates this idea/solution and then believes that we are actually following his/her concepts.
This presentation focuses on the Discovery and Elicitation tasks and techniques with special attention to methods that are related to coaching. Coaching being originally part of personal development can be also used sales and in managing customer expectation. It is often defined as “form of development in which a person called a coach supports a coachee (learner or client) in achieving a specific personal or professional goal by providing training and guidance.”. Let’s try to convience an Eskimo to buy a fridge!
Things Sales People Should Never Stop DoingAbhishek Shah
Selling for a living is tough… There are many highs and frequent lows. Constant pressure to reach sales targets, customer and prospects that are more demanding, and changes in the marketplace all make sales a tough career.
If you are serious about maintaining a long-term career in sales, here are 14 things you should never stop doing. If by chance, you haven’t started doing some of these, I suggest that you do start…the sooner, the better.
5 marketing breakthroughs to Amplify Your BusinessTom McLelland
5 critical marketing breakthroughs to drive more leads, sales and customers.
You'll discover how we generate $10 for every $1 we spend on Facebook. And exactly how to apply these breakthroughs to drive wallet out, ready to buy customers.
We explore the secret weapons of online marketing and how to translate them into success for your own business.
Over the years, it has been proven that Sales is not for the faint of heart. Whether it’s selling a bottle of water, cloths at a store, and a new car to a newly promoted manager or a company, selling a house to a family or pitching a startup to investors etc. making that sale depends on the skill, appearance, confidence knowledge and enthusiasm of the salesperson. Quite frankly, not all of us have those characteristics in us. There is a saying that “salesmen are born, not taught”. Well, not exactly. Undoubtedly, there are natural talents, but can you can learn these characteristics and be just as successful? Yes you can!
A true quintessential salesperson has the following characteristics that they use consistently to succeed in achieving target sales
If, after a year or two of having made the decision to set up in business, you’re still struggling to make ends meet, it’s not surprising that you end up questioning whether you can do it.
A collection of our favourite Weekly Business Tips from our weekly email series. Practical tips to inspire you to achieve more, and help you run your business better.
I wrote this a few years back and it's garnered over 350,000 views on Quora and thousands more on Linkedin so we created a slide to share here.
Hope you enjoy this one.
Chase greatness.
I love the topic of mental toughness and have always studied things related.
I caught wind of David Goggins from Jesse Itzler in his book Living with a SEAL (which is amazing, you should buy it here >> https://amzn.to/2D6V0Uf or to listen here >> https://adbl.co/2pIlLeJ)
Focus on the mental to take you through the physical
#mental #toughness #mind #discipline #entreprenuer #focus #inspiration #motivation #work #growth #resistance
In our business, over the years I've heard many many people talk about rebranding.
I definitely think there are situations that require a rebrand.
But I also think it's important to look at when the brand needs to be re-enforced.
The other day I was driving and saw a brand new 76 gas station and it looked fresh and iconic and one thing I realized was that they went back to their original orange and blue colors. At some point, they had rebranded to red and blue and it just didn't quite have the same feel. I think that's a great example of a company that needed to re-enforce. ⛽️
#rebrand #branding #nike #76 #marketing #pr #positioning #advertising #linkedin #influecer #richter #idea #insight #agency #b2b #tech #technology #video
Others inspire me. ✨
I tend to study successful patterns.
And I’ve seen a common theme that some of the greats have.
They’re always at the beginning.
I'm always fascinated by how incredible companies became that way. And, how great minds or mentors played a role in those companies. 易
Here's a little snippet about how Steve Jobs played a role in Nike's products.
A few years ago after reading book after book and building my agency, I wrote down what I considered to be “the greatest model”
There are six core parts that are vital to pull off a great company...
Skye Residences | Extended Stay Residences Near Toronto Airportmarketingjdass
Experience unparalleled EXTENDED STAY and comfort at Skye Residences located just minutes from Toronto Airport. Discover sophisticated accommodations tailored for discerning travelers.
Website Link :
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https://skyeresidences.com/near-by-attractions/
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#Skye Residences Etobicoke, #Skye Residences Near Toronto Airport, #Skye Residences Toronto, #Skye Hotel Toronto, #Skye Hotel Near Toronto Airport, #Hotel Near Toronto Airport, #Near Toronto Airport Accommodation, #Suites Near Toronto Airport, #Etobicoke Suites Near Airport, #Hotel Near Toronto Pearson International Airport, #Toronto Airport Suite Rentals, #Pearson Airport Hotel Suites
Remote sensing and monitoring are changing the mining industry for the better. These are providing innovative solutions to long-standing challenges. Those related to exploration, extraction, and overall environmental management by mining technology companies Odisha. These technologies make use of satellite imaging, aerial photography and sensors to collect data that might be inaccessible or from hazardous locations. With the use of this technology, mining operations are becoming increasingly efficient. Let us gain more insight into the key aspects associated with remote sensing and monitoring when it comes to mining.
Enterprise Excellence is Inclusive Excellence.pdfKaiNexus
Enterprise excellence and inclusive excellence are closely linked, and real-world challenges have shown that both are essential to the success of any organization. To achieve enterprise excellence, organizations must focus on improving their operations and processes while creating an inclusive environment that engages everyone. In this interactive session, the facilitator will highlight commonly established business practices and how they limit our ability to engage everyone every day. More importantly, though, participants will likely gain increased awareness of what we can do differently to maximize enterprise excellence through deliberate inclusion.
What is Enterprise Excellence?
Enterprise Excellence is a holistic approach that's aimed at achieving world-class performance across all aspects of the organization.
What might I learn?
A way to engage all in creating Inclusive Excellence. Lessons from the US military and their parallels to the story of Harry Potter. How belt systems and CI teams can destroy inclusive practices. How leadership language invites people to the party. There are three things leaders can do to engage everyone every day: maximizing psychological safety to create environments where folks learn, contribute, and challenge the status quo.
Who might benefit? Anyone and everyone leading folks from the shop floor to top floor.
Dr. William Harvey is a seasoned Operations Leader with extensive experience in chemical processing, manufacturing, and operations management. At Michelman, he currently oversees multiple sites, leading teams in strategic planning and coaching/practicing continuous improvement. William is set to start his eighth year of teaching at the University of Cincinnati where he teaches marketing, finance, and management. William holds various certifications in change management, quality, leadership, operational excellence, team building, and DiSC, among others.
RMD24 | Retail media: hoe zet je dit in als je geen AH of Unilever bent? Heid...BBPMedia1
Grote partijen zijn al een tijdje onderweg met retail media. Ondertussen worden in dit domein ook de kansen zichtbaar voor andere spelers in de markt. Maar met die kansen ontstaan ook vragen: Zelf retail media worden of erop adverteren? In welke fase van de funnel past het en hoe integreer je het in een mediaplan? Wat is nu precies het verschil met marketplaces en Programmatic ads? In dit half uur beslechten we de dilemma's en krijg je antwoorden op wanneer het voor jou tijd is om de volgende stap te zetten.
Improving profitability for small businessBen Wann
In this comprehensive presentation, we will explore strategies and practical tips for enhancing profitability in small businesses. Tailored to meet the unique challenges faced by small enterprises, this session covers various aspects that directly impact the bottom line. Attendees will learn how to optimize operational efficiency, manage expenses, and increase revenue through innovative marketing and customer engagement techniques.
Falcon stands out as a top-tier P2P Invoice Discounting platform in India, bridging esteemed blue-chip companies and eager investors. Our goal is to transform the investment landscape in India by establishing a comprehensive destination for borrowers and investors with diverse profiles and needs, all while minimizing risk. What sets Falcon apart is the elimination of intermediaries such as commercial banks and depository institutions, allowing investors to enjoy higher yields.
Personal Brand Statement:
As an Army veteran dedicated to lifelong learning, I bring a disciplined, strategic mindset to my pursuits. I am constantly expanding my knowledge to innovate and lead effectively. My journey is driven by a commitment to excellence, and to make a meaningful impact in the world.
The world of search engine optimization (SEO) is buzzing with discussions after Google confirmed that around 2,500 leaked internal documents related to its Search feature are indeed authentic. The revelation has sparked significant concerns within the SEO community. The leaked documents were initially reported by SEO experts Rand Fishkin and Mike King, igniting widespread analysis and discourse. For More Info:- https://news.arihantwebtech.com/search-disrupted-googles-leaked-documents-rock-the-seo-world/
Cracking the Workplace Discipline Code Main.pptxWorkforce Group
Cultivating and maintaining discipline within teams is a critical differentiator for successful organisations.
Forward-thinking leaders and business managers understand the impact that discipline has on organisational success. A disciplined workforce operates with clarity, focus, and a shared understanding of expectations, ultimately driving better results, optimising productivity, and facilitating seamless collaboration.
Although discipline is not a one-size-fits-all approach, it can help create a work environment that encourages personal growth and accountability rather than solely relying on punitive measures.
In this deck, you will learn the significance of workplace discipline for organisational success. You’ll also learn
• Four (4) workplace discipline methods you should consider
• The best and most practical approach to implementing workplace discipline.
• Three (3) key tips to maintain a disciplined workplace.
2. Introduction
This book is comprised of the tips and insights that have been sent out by
Robert Cornish, CEO of Richter, to our subscribers on our mailing list.
Because we receive consistent favorable feedback from these mailings, we
decided to put them all in one place for you to read or reread
as desired.
We hope you enjoy them.
Should you need anything, reach out to us:
info@richter10point2.com
7274473600
http://richter10point2.com
2
3. Table of Contents
Introduction
Preparation is your weapon
It’s a problem with the goal....
Last minute panic
Where is Your Marketing Budget Going?
Get In Control to Make Forward Progress
Movie Trailers Work
Know Your Target Public
Stay Engaged
A Senior Focus
Abundance Will Take Care of It
Alignment
Get Them Focused
Finish the Race No
Matter What
Making Informed Decisions
Know Your Target Public
Are You Irresistable?
Battling Noise...
Be The Prospect
Before You Do Anything...
BofA Uses Them...
Business Doesn’t Stop
Campaign Like It’s For an Election
Communicate… A Lot
Distraction is the Enemy of Growth
Doing the Basics
Don’t Chase Success… Chase Greatness
Effort Has Increased
Excitement Fuels Sales
Follow through…
3
4. Fresh business
Get Focused
Get In Their Head
Go To Them
Graphics Are Worthless
Here’s What We Know
How Does This Relate to Me?
I’m Busy...
Intention Drives Sales
A Drop in the Ocean
It’s a Process
Waiting Solves Nothing
Know The Public
Know What Wins
Lack of Follow Through
Let It Do Some of the Heavy Lifting...
Make the Communication Count
Making Stories
The Homework Prior to Sales
Creating Motivated Buyers
Massive Assault
More Isn’t More
More...
Mountains, Not Budgets
Muscle your growth
Not Enough Effort, Work or Action
Last Two Days
The Window is Small
Next Week Becomes Next Week
The Answer is “Yes”
One Video? Pfff...
Having One Video
Perseverance
4
5. Play Like the Scouts are Watching
Play to Them
Products Need Evangelists
Revenue IS your Venture Capital
Run, Don’t Walk
Sales Controls Budgets
See it Through
Conclude Your Cycles
Sell Better Than They Can Object
Sell From High Ground
Apple’s New iPhone Video
Developing New Business
Speak to Someone
Spotlight the Products
Stars Never Align...But They Don’t Need To
Strategic Growth
Subtle Selling
Survey Them
Promo Email The
Way It Helps
There’s a Stat
They Need an Excuse
Three Key Points
Three Sales In Selling
Thunderous Forward Motion
Time to Hustle
Two Phases of Sales
Urgency Dictates Budget
Viewer’s Choice
Demo it for the prospect
What does it really take?
You Create Urgency
Your Story
Case Study Videos
5
6. It’s an Equation
Considerations Bog Sales
What You're Trying to Avoid
Why Multiple Videos
It’s in the writing
A Different Origination Point
Change Is Constant
Cows Meander
Don’t Run Out of Fuel
Focus on Outflow
Turn a Spark Into a Bonfire
More of Everything at the End of the Year
While Your Competition Procrastinates
Keep the Team Energized
Attention Works
Piggy Banks Can’t Work
Power of Focus
Apple and Google Take Products to Market with Video
Who Are You Communicating To?
You Want the Right Relationships
What Your “About Us” Should Be
It’s Not About Price It’s
About Value.... Always.
Why Isn’t It Closed?
Business Doesn’t Stop in Summer
Follow through
The Time is Now
It’s Always More
Run, Don’t Walk
Why So Urgent?
6
7. Preparation is your weapon
In any given week or day, the thing that you can depend on to ensure
success is preparation. Back in the day when I played competitive hockey,
our 5AM practices each morning were the thing that led to a successful
game. The game is won before it ever started.
Being prepared is a core part of success. If you plan for each day and each
week and get completely ready for it, the odds will turn in your favor. I see
people on a daily basis under prepared if prepared at all and it shows in their
performance. They scratch their head and act bewildered when things don’t
work out for the day or the week but it only comes down to their lack of
preparation for the task at hand.
So prior to any day or week, prepare yourself fully for what needs to be
executed the next day or throughout the week. This includes things like:
● Having a daily list of targets that need to be executed in a detailed,
doable manner that will align your actions and keep you organized.
● Preparing any calls, appointments or details you need for the week to
make a definite agenda that you can focus on and simply execute.
● Studying any training material or reading relevant books that will help
you be mentally prepared and trained for what you need to do. Few
people put enough time and energy into studying and training on
relevant material that will allow you to excel in your position.
● Drilling any processes or in sales, patterns and objection handlings
that will help you smoothly execute your tasks. Drilling can be
enormously effective because it makes you perfect. It fully prepares
you and makes your work and actions become second nature. So drill
until you know your position cold. Actors do it. Top athletes do it and
you need to do it.
The bottom line is be
ready. In sports, training and being prepared is
everything. When you’re fully trained and prepared, you're competent when
the game comes and playing at your best is a natural course of action since
the training and preparation has been done. I can’t stress this enough! Be
prepared.
7
8. In an interview with Usain Bolt when asked where his self confidence came
from, he replied,
"I trust my trainer, myself, and the hours and hours of sweat that I put in."
Bolt's trainer Glen Mills added, "I see too many athletes having to try too hard
on the day, because they've not done the work. The result is their muscles
are too tense and they can't flow. If you put in enough of the right practice, the
execution becomes automatic, and the result will take care of itself."
So train and be prepared and your goals will be realized and your work life will
become easier.
Robert
8
9. Thank you!
First and foremost, Happy New Year! I genuinely hope that you have the most
productive, exciting and adventurous 2013 imaginable.
Next, I want to truly thank you for your support. If you’re reading this it means
that you are a client, contact, partner or friend and we are very thankful to
have you as part of our group. Richter has grown by 60% in 2012 over the
previous year and we know that we only attain that by partnering with our
clients to help their companies grow which in turn allows ours to grow. So
thank you!
We’re genuinely excited about 2013 and have been working on some
services that will help drive your business into the stratosphere. It’s why we
exist. Our basic purpose here at Richter is as follows: “to apply our ideas,
strategies, knowledge and care to our clients' companies as if they were our
own to help them attain their goals which can be directly measured to our
efforts.”
So in simple terms, our purpose is to help our clients strategically grow their
revenue and their companies through our efforts. Whether that be with really
well crafted and written video trailers or with our strategic relations programs
that
is what we do.
9
10. It’s a Problem With the Goal
When dissecting a video to gauge its effectiveness, the way we see it here, it
comes down to the goal of where you start. In other words, what are you
trying to solve and what is the key goal of the video?
We see a lot of videos out there and we tend to feel that an ineffective video
or one that lacks punch is a problem with the goal itself. See, a lot of videos
are starting with a goal of trying to explain a product or service and in doing
so, they do indeed explain it and leave the viewer no motivation to “reach”.
The failure is in where they begin with the video. The mission is not to explain
but must be geared toward who the target public is and how to create the
urge to reach. This means that the urge to explain or define everything needs
to held back and the focus needs to be on who the target public is (who’s
clicking play), what their motivations or needs or problems are and how to
communicate in such a way that the end result is the viewer saying... “we
need to call them asap!” that
is reach.
So what we tackle here is how to create reach and it starts with asking the
right questions and starting with the right goal.
10
11. Last minute panic
Let me walk you through a familiar scenario.... you're very busy with what
you're doing right this minute, you have deadlines and tasks to get done and
anything off in the future is a bit of a distraction at this moment. You then
push off any planning needed for the coming months and then are faced with
a time lets say in mid to late November where you urgently need to get some
promo or marketing material out and are now in a squeeze because you
neglected to prepare for it and have nothing to send out to help bolster and
improve the sales numbers when you need it most.
I'd like to help circumvent this entire scenario. Plan now and get a few wheels
in motion that will arm you with items needed for the future because the
future quickly because the present and the need goes from "then" to
"now.....urgently"
11
12. Where is Your Marketing Budget Going?
Unfortunately, the field of Marketing, PR and Advertising have become games
of sales to push products and services onto their clients that appear to be
bright ideas or the latest fad for promoting a company but few have any
workability comparative to the costs.
It's been said that companies lose 50% of their advertising and marketing
budgets but they don't know which 50%.
We saw this as a problem when we started our agency and set out to
change it. Whether we're doing a video trailer that communicates our clients
products or services in a crystal clear fashion that impinges to get a reaction
causing an email or phone call or developing a strategy using our Strategic
Relations methods to zero in on the exact right target public for our client to
help chalk up new relationships that have the highest probability of being sold
and closed.... we've cut through the fluff and created the most workable
method to develop new business.
I just returned from an international business conference and found that the
number one thing companies are looking to accomplish is how to get their
company to the next level. How to expand and drive new business that will
fuel growth. Many companies are excellent at what they do. They have
incredible products and services but they are not driving consistent business
that will result in quarterly growth. They throw money at marketing and
advertising methods that work to some degree but are clearly not doing the
trick.
12
13. Get In Control to Make Forward Progress
I think these days with the pace that things run and the amount of things to
do…. it’s quite easy to become overwhelmed. It sometimes, at least to me,
feels like a tsunami of work or things to do when I review my emails, task
lists, phone calls and on and on…
It’s also amazing how often I hear a client or prospect use the word busy. To
me, it’s a clear indication that we live in a busy, sometimes frantic and on
occasion overwhelming environment.
So the challenge then, is getting in control of it all to make forward progress.
You can write down all the key objectives and then how to handle them and
knock them out one by one methodically or you can look for what will help
unburden you. In other words, where are you spending more time than you
need to? What can be delegated? What’s repetitive as a process that you
can find a better process for? Start looking for any areas of waste or
inefficiencies and work to get those areas handled so you can focus on
what’s important.
This then, happens to be one of the key reasons we created the video
campaign product we now offer. We’ve found that sales is a methodical
process that goes through specific steps bit by bit. There are many elements
of this process that are repetitive or repeatable. The sales and marketing
team of most companies are already up to their eyeballs in work so why add
to the workload with things that could be taken off their plate to unburden
them.
The campaign does that. By building these 12 videos that follows the exact
sales sequence, we have essentially taken that part of the sales process off
the sales teams plate and made it into a model that can be sent to the
prospect to nurture them bit by bit and ensure follow up and follow through is
occurring which helps bring in more business overall and leverages the sales
and marketing teams time allowing them to do more.
13
14. Movie Trailers Work
Think about this for a second. Movie trailers are the number one form of
getting you to go see a movie. They run between 1 minute and 2 minutes on
average. They show a glimpse for what the movie will be and use very
effective copy, great visuals and follow a flow that entices you to reach (“I’m
going to see that movie!”)
Business is no different. You have an audience. You have a message that
needs to be artfully composed to create a video that will have an emotional
impact on that audience to cause them to reach (I’m going to call/email this
company.... we need this!”) When done correctly, a video trailer is one the
best tools to drive a response/reach for your company, product or service.
Here’s a question though: how many trailers are created for one movie?
Many! Don’t think for one second that one is enough. You need to be firing on
all cylinders. Present your company, products and services in smart video
trailer pitches from many angles that will inspire interest and reach.
If something works, use it! The fact is that movie trailers work and so do
business trailers. This should be the leading strategy for your business
development efforts not an afterthought. You need to be heavily invested in
trailers for your company and have many of them that pitch the company,
products and services from all angles which are being used all over the
internet.
14
15. Know Your Target Public
If you know your target public, you can know how to control and drive sales.
It's a critical element that most companies completely neglect. While they
may know the broad strokes of their demographic that
won't cut it. You need
to know who's buying from you, who you're speaking to and how to
communicate with them.
Your target public will go right into communication with you with interest when
you communicate the right things while ones who aren't, really couldn't care
less. Yet many companies spend hoards of time and money communicating
to the wrong public simply because they have no idea who their target public
really is.
Here's an example:
If I walked up to someone who loves golf and is a Titleist fan who uses Titleist
clubs and golf balls and I said, "did you see that new Titleist putter?...." that
person would immediately go into communication with me with interest and I
could then control the dialogue and direct it as needed. On the other hand, if I
walked up to a Microsoft fan and said, "that new iPhone 5 is gorgeous!..."
they would most likely make some critical remark and that would be the end
of it.
So when developing new business, it comes down to knowing the target
public as a critical element to reducing effort and increasing results. Knowing
your exact target public for your company is a game changer. When you
don't, it's an uphill crawl to try to grow new sales and revenue due to the hit
and miss nature of it. I’m always amazed at how many marketing, PR and
advertising strategies or campaigns occur that never truly take the time to
understand who their communicating to. It’s the equivalent of walking down
the street on a megaphone telling people about your product or service with
the hopes that the right person hears it and comes flocking in.
Focus on the people out there that are already most likely to buy from you.
Every company in the entire world has a target public this
I assure you.
15
16. Stay Engaged
This week I’m on vacation with my family and it reminds me of how easy it is
to have people, tasks and cycles fall of your radar or agenda when you’re not
actively in the game. :) I always tell that to our prospects because people
forget how easy it actually is for a prospect to forget about you or just get
distracted by other things in life. They certainly don’t intend to and are not
actively trying to evade you but more often than not, they’re simply distracted
by work or life and you have fallen out of sight for them.
So you need to remind them and ensure that you stay connected with them
in some way. Does this mean you have annoy them and push them? No. It
means that you need to creatively stay on their agenda. Rather than just
calling or emailing saying you’re “following up…” you can send them a video
from your company in a link in an email and say, “I realize you're tied up this
week so I’m sending this short video that you can share with the key people
you mentioned and I will send a calendar invite for a call the following
week…”
The key here is to remind them and ensure your company and products are
firmly insight for them so it gives you a much better chance to conclude the
cycle with them. Remember that you forget about things all the time. Just
think about any time you went to a mall and had an initial interest to buy
something and then decided to walk around the mall to “think about it” and
then became distracted by other things and forgot about the item altogether.
The same happens with your prospects by work and life everyday.
The recommendation is to have a campaign of videos that go over things like
about us, your value propositions, a case study style video, a testimonial
video, a product video, company story or culture video, your basic purpose,
our people etc. It sounds big but it’s very effective. If you have a campaign of
810
videos, your sales team will have a whole set of tools to use to keep the
prospect engaged and will have a reason to follow up.
A Senior Focus
16
17. Over the weekend my dad came in town to visit for my son’s birthday and we
discussed business as we typically do and while discussing I was asking him
questions about how their company was doing and he mentioned that they
had revenues around $200M so far for what is still a relatively new company.
His previous business built to $2B and then they sold it. This lead me to the
question of how they did it and what he felt was key. His reply was
unequivocally sales and driving new accounts to grow revenues which then
allows you to do all the other things you want to do but nothing is senior to
that.
It definitely got my gears turning even though I push that item very heavily
here, I realized that I don’t push it near enough and neither does 99% of the
companies I come in contact with. It’s so incredibly easy to get distracted by
all the other areas of a company but if you don’t have a strong sales effort
which includes prospects, sales material, videos, outreach strategies,
websites, sales team, training etc then
your growth will be slow if any at all.
It’s time to look at your current sales operating basis and write down what the
existing scene looks like. Then write down what it should ideally look like or
how it would look if you did 10 or 20 times what you’re doing now. Do you
have a large accounts strategy? Do you have introduction products to entice
new buyers? Do you have a strong position and defined target public? What’s
your outreach strategy like? Does your sales team have sufficient prospects
to flood their pipeline? If you acted as a prospect and walked through the
sales process, is everything covered and is the sales team armed with
material to handle your every concern?
If not, it’s time to seriously ramp up your sales efforts. That’s what we do
here. We help augment our clients current sales strategy to drive new
business, revenue and growth through what we do so we make their sales
teams lives a lot easier which impacts the overall company growth.
17
18. Abundance Will Take Care of It
If you're not focused on abundance in all areas of your company, you're going
to be caught off guard by adversity. Things happen everyday that companies
don't plan for and the result is a hiccup or contraction on some level which no
one enjoys. While you're busy focused on day to day tasks, you need to peer
into the future to view possible problem areas and then overcome them
regardless of whether they occur or not.
Things like losing a key salesperson, holiday seasons that cause dips in
revenue, unplanned events etc can all be avoided by simply focusing on
abundance. In other words, think in abundances not in normal and usual
levels. There's safety in numbers.
We always push our company and people to operate in abundance. We
focus on doing and having more than we need when it comes to prospects,
proposals out, videos, sales reps etc and then we drive all of our numbers
forward with intention to ensure we don't miss targets. The truth is, most
people are pretty terrible at correctly estimating the amount of effort
something will take to accomplish a specific target so always ask yourself,
"Is this enough?"
I hear people say things like, "Well, we have a video and it's on our site..." to
which I reply “
you need a new video every single month that promotes your
company from many different angles and arms your sales team with an
excuse to follow up with active prospects to get them consistently closed!”
The expense is nothing compared with the income earned from this sort of
action. So think and operate in abundance. When it comes to sales, never let
off the throttle.
Abundance is the very makeup of our Prime Strategy. Things like videos,
elevator pitches, defining the target public, reaches (sales prospects),
copywriting, pitch pages, etc are all included components of the Prime
Strategy. So my suggestion is that we jump on the phone to discuss what
we can do and how we can help drive your fourth quarter results.
Here's a recent quote from a client:
“The Richter10.2 Media Group reach strategy drives 80% of our sales in the
door. There were many other services and processes we tried and would
result in some sales, but nothing like this.
18
19. We have used this to get in touch with the exact target public we are reaching
for and it has 4X our sales in the past 9 months. We continue to drive in new
business and are expanding as a direct result.
Thanks Richter!
RP”
19
20. Alignment
An aligned company is a successful one. By aligned I mean having everyone
on the same page with the same goals and a clear picture or vision of where
you are going, what you stand for and what your message or position is.
Every person in the company should be able to clearly state who you are,
what you do and where you are going as a company. If you can accomplish
this and everyone is articulating the same picture and future vision, you have
alignment and with alignment, things flow well and the company will flourish.
We recently had a meeting with our executive team to coordinate our vision,
position and products further and it truly works magic once everyone’s
aligned. Once the key execs are aligned you can then get everyone else in
the company aligned through a meeting or brief or even better.... a video!
So here’s an idea for you... take your goals or vision or what you stand for as
a company and where you’re headed and create a video that’s meant
specifically for your own people to watch to get them focused, fired up and
motivated and …. aligned.
20
21. Get Them Focused
You know, there's the external benefit of having outward facing material that
promotes your products, services and company to your audience to drive
fresh business and revenue but there's also an X factor that most don't really
consider. Think about this for a second; what's it worth to have your people
fired up? Your sales team reinvigorated and enthusiastic about your company
and it's products or services. We all know that the first step in selling
anything is to be sold yourself so it would lend to the idea that the first thing to
do to drive revenue is to sell your people. Get them energized and excited for
the new year.
Let's face it, most come back with a Christmas hangover after January 1 and
the remedy is to get them focused. Get them excited about 2014 and their
future. That enthusiasm is contagious.
So keep in mind that when you create a new video that communicates your
message to your audience making your company and it's products
irresistible, it also reinvigorates your people. The very first thing to do with the
video is to show your people and specifically your marketing and sales team
to give them a shot in the arm that reminds them why your company is great
and remind them why they need to go hard to sell to your prospects and
clients.
This is one of the quickest ways to drive new sales revenue from a video
project before any email is ever sent to promote the video to your audience.
Just showing it to your people will drive morale and boost action which in turn
will expand revenues. Works like magic.
21
22. Finish the Race - No Matter What
When I was a kid, I was a fast runner and loved to race. I raced my dad one
day and he was beating me …. so I stopped. He crossed the finish line…
won the race, and then came back to tell that I must never ever ever stop
running. Anything can happen. The other runner could trip and fall or take a
misstep or get winded and I could catch up …. etc, but never to stop running.
Finish the race no matter what. I never forgot that.
To this day I still apply that lesson. Even if we’re behind target, I keep running
and keep the integrity of our goals in sight and pursue them. The important
thing isn’t hitting the target or winning the race it’s
that you went all out for it.
That’s what matters. Sometimes you’ll hit it, sometimes you won’t but the key
is to go for it.
I’m still a runner today and have a monthly target to hit 100 miles for June. I’m
a touch off pace and three times had the thought cross my mind that ... “if I
hit 90 miles, that’s pretty good…” or “I don’t really need to hit 100 miles…”
and each time I’ve corrected my thoughts on it and refocused
on the target
to go for 100 miles. It’s incredible how easy it is to mentally give up on a
target.
So my message is this, it’s the end of the month and quarter stay
focused
on all targets and push them through. Then, make new ones for Q3 and go
after those. Hopefully this helps inspire action toward your goals and targets
for this ending quarter and for the new one coming.
22
23. Making Informed Decisions
A big part of selling is helping your prospect make an informed decision. It's
pointless to spin your wheels and spend hours trying to convince a prospect
through emails and calls if you haven't taken the time to send them material
that will help give them enough knowledge to make a decision.
Think about any decision you ever made. Did you have the knowledge prior to
making it? I'm assuming the answer is yes. And now, think about any
decision you were going to make but didn't have enough knowledge. It made
you stall and delay the decision right?
So, to help expedite the process and get your prospects to make a decision,
arm them with knowledge. This can be in the form of a PDF, case study,
video that clearly explains the product or service etc.
23
24. Know Your Target Public
A big part of sales has to do with knowing your target public. A lot of people
get this confused with demographics or think that it’s the same thing it’s
not.
Target public is who ideally aligns for your company based on past
successful clients. Demographics tells you who has been doing business
with you and it’s a broad scope range such as women from age 20 to 40 etc.
Target public is who’s right for you.
So for the purpose of really building your sales and company, demographics
are useless. Not all clients are good for your company and truthfully, the ones
that are not right and cause problems or are a abrasive within your company
you
want to get rid of as fast as possible.
When you identify and focus on the target public, good things happen. Your
products and services will get better by catering to the needs and wants of
the exact right clients. Your company and people will flourish because you’re
taking on the clients that work and mesh well for your company. Your sales
and revenue will soar because when you only focus on your target public it
becomes effortless.
When crafting a video or working with our clients on our strategic relations
program, we obsess about target public. We get our clients focused on
identifying who their target public is and how to communicate with them
because we know that by doing this, our services become a heck of alot
more effective and we tend to look like magicians in the process.
24
25. Are You Irresistable?
When looking at your company, message and products or services, the
question to ask is; are you irresistible? In other words, is the overall message
and position of your company and products so strong that it creates a
gravitational pull with your target public that they can’t seem to resist?
That’s the bar. That’s where you need to go. Sales can become a natural
course of action and a sales team can essentially become order takers if
your company and products are irresistible. So the mission then becomes,
how do we make our products, marketing and our message so good that it’s
at that level?
Work with and from that goal and you can’t lose.
Think about other companies or products that are absolutely irresistible to
you. When you think of them you’ll probably find that you want to either buy
their products or work with them or partner with them or be associated with
them in some way because you feel drawn to them.
A lot of this starts with a great product or service but also keep in mind that a
lot of it has to do with incredible communication, position, marketing and
message. You want to invest a lot in becoming irresistible because it will fuel
sales and revenue that allow you to make your company, products and
services better and better so you can reinforce that position.
Here, we work to make our clients irresistible through the copywriting, video
trailers, case studies, message, elevator pitches, positioning etc. We always
work with this goal in mind. We want the clients company to be irresistible so
sales becomes effortless and most of that irresistibility is derived from
communication in some form which we happen to specialize in.
25
26. Battling Noise...
I had a call the other day with one of our new strategic relations clients and
we we’re discussing their existing sales and marketing strategy and it was
apparent how much confusion there was as it related to their strategy. Just
hearing the client talk about their clients, audience, approach and all of the
details related to their existing scene, it was amazing how fragmented and
disjointed it all felt. They’ve been around for many years and are well into the
double digit millions in revenue but the amount of effort that needed to go into
landing new business and the level of confusion related to their strategy was
significant.
It reminded me how much noise and confusion there is these days with
things like social media, constant pounding of ads, email traffic, sales teams
trying to hunt for prospect and deals, lack of strategy, new websites needed,
marketing approaches and on and on. The average company has to try to
make sense of all this noise and develop a clear and workable sales strategy
that uses the least amount of effort and creates the biggest impact to drive
strategic revenue. But that’s a nearly impossible task with all the ideas and
noise surrounding marketing and sales these days.
So while it can feel like a sea of confusion, I assure you, there's a calm,
focused and sane approach to developing new business that strategically
grows revenue. We help clients every day implement and apply these
methods with what we refer to as our strategic relations program. We’ve
created what’s arguably the most focused, workable method to develop new
business that’s ideally suited for your company. We’ve combined all the
ingredients like research, creative assets, communication strategy and
relations work to develop strategic business for our clients companies so
they can spend time catering to the right clients and focus on growing their
company strategically.
We just completed what we refer to as a “process flow” video for our
strategic relations program so if you’d like to learn a little more about what we
do and how we bring a drop of sanity in the storm of confusion to your
strategic growth efforts, shoot me an email and I will send the video link
along.
26
27. Be The Prospect
Communicating your message in a way that really impinges with a prospect
can be challenging.
It so easy to communicate from the origination point of your company. In
other words, because you’re excited about your company, it’s products or
services, you end up wanting to communicate all about it along with benefits
and anything else you can fit in that will make you sound better. It’s really hard
to hold back from doing this.
Everyone is trying to talk about why they’re great and why they’re better than
the competition and so on…. but this approach often loses sight of the most
important aspect, the prospect.
So you need to “be the prospect”. By that I mean, really work to take on their
viewpoint and work to be them, to see from their eyes. What would they need
if you were them? What will communicate to them?
We tend to obsess over this viewpoint here for our clients with every
communication we craft. It’s not always easy but the results are far superior
to what’s typically crafted by most.
Communication should be tailor made to a specific audience or target public.
27
28. Before You Do Anything...
We have hundreds of phone calls with clients and prospects alike that come
to us for communication related work such as our videos and frequently the
prospect or client has ideas about what they want to have the topic be for the
video. In other words, they’ve been talking to their sales team and have
concluded that because of some of the barriers the sales team is running
into… they’re going to do a video that talks about benefits and explains the
product or service. Now… this sounds logical for sure…. only…. it’s
addressing the problems the sales team is having handling the prospect
which certainly may be a training issue but who does the video then become
for? The sales team. But who is it supposed to be for? The prospect
(viewer).
So with that, you end up with a video that is decent but not one that
communicates the exact message to the prospect that will get them to reach
or help close the sale. Instead, you have a video that handles the objections
or questions or misunderstandings and the prospect goes on their way.
What’s truly needed is to obsess over who is actually watching the video.
Who is clicking play. Why are they watching it? What are they trying to
handle or what do they need or want. Lets not waste their time. We need a
concise message that resonates with them in simple terms and causes an
urge for them to reach out (call or email) while being mindful to not address
and handle everything so they have no reason to.
So while crafting a video seems simple enough, keep in mind that the
copywriting can change the effectiveness from something that is pretty good
to something that works like magic and it all revolves around who you’re
communicating to and how well it’s done.
So with that, we would love to obsess over crafting a really impactful
communication for you that will truly work to help handle what your sales
team is trying to handle making everyone’s (including the prospects) lives
better.
28
29. BofA Uses Them...
I logged on to the Bank of America site the other day and noticed a button at
the bottom that said “Better Money Habits” with a video play icon and so I
clicked it. It lead to a site that was filled with whiteboard style animated videos
that educated people about money.
We’ve found that using the whiteboard style animated video is a winner for
explaining a concept which either educates or sells or both.
Visuals help sell a concept and many people tend to need help visualizing
what you’re describing in sales. It’s fine to talk to people over the phone or
send them an email to read but there comes a time when you need to show
them in some way so they can get the idea visually which helps sell them.
Most people are quite visual which is why this works.
29
30. Business Doesn’t Stop
Although many vacation through summer… the fact is that business doesn’t
stop moving. It can’t and won’t wait for anyone.
Your company and it’s message needs to be in front, top of mind, working to
sell your company and its products or services…. even while you’re not
there.
That’s where we come in. We’re here to ensure that our clients have their
company in front of their audience at all times. And during the summer
months, it’s truly not the time to ease off the pedal it’s
a time to triple the
efforts so there’s no lull.
Here, we don’t agree with the concept of “peaks and valleys”. It tries to make
reasonable sense or excuses for why the numbers go down. We don’t. We
remind our clients to push ahead, triple their efforts and stay ahead
because…. we care about their growth and are unrelenting about keeping
their numbers up. Factually, the better they do, the better we do. So we’re all
in it together.
So let’s push your growth through summer. Yes, you may be on vacation.
Yes, they may be on vacation. But business doesn’t stop. Sales still need to
happen and efforts need to increase through summer.
30
31. Campaign Like It’s For an Election
With the elections coming up I’ve been driving around lately and noticing all of
the signs and promo for candidates in the running which made me think
about the level of promotion that’s really needed to get attention.
From what I observe on a day to day basis with various companies, it’s clear
to me that most companies do not put enough emphasis on their promotional
strategy. Think about a political campaign for a second and imagine if you
took your strategy to that level. Constant outflow and constant attention that
gets you noticed, talked about and drives your sales and revenue. The
political campaigns use signs, billboards, online ads, videos, emails, TV
commercials, TV interviews, magazine interviews, 3rd party interviews,
social media, blogs, etc
So when creating a strategy for your company, you should think of it in large
magnitudes like this that will really get traction. Sure it costs money but it
makes money too.... more than it costs if done correctly.
Keep hammering your promotional strategy to get the word out about your
company and it will pay back tenfold in the form of sales and revenue.
We would love to help so get in touch to discuss our Prime Strategy or
Videos.
Here’s a recent client commment about our Prime Strategy:
“The Richter10.2 Media Group reach strategy drives 80% of our sales in the
door. There were many other services and processes we tried and would
result in some sales, but nothing like this.
We have used this to get in touch with the exact target public we are reaching
for and it has 4X our sales in the past 9 months. We continue to drive in new
business and are expanding as a direct result.
Thanks Richter!
RP”
31
32. Communicate… A Lot
It takes a lot of communication being sent out to result in communication sent
in to your company. Nature of the beast I suppose. So with that in mind and
being that this is the beginning of a brand new month, you need to ensure you
have a communication strategy that has sufficient floods of communication
going out to your target public this month to result in new interest, sales and
ultimately revenue. Hitting all time highs in terms of sales and revenue
doesn’t just happen it’s
caused.
A large communication strategy will help drive new business and current
business and will help ensure that May is a successful month. So be thinking
in terms of:
● Sending effective email communications to your mailing list and
schedule them out for the month
● Having your sales team send email follow ups and ideally a video or
several videos that communicate your message and value
proposition
● Sending active communication to your social networks to post videos,
updates, news, messages, client successes etc
● Reaching out to brand new potential clients to make introductions
● Sending out PDF’s or case studies to current prospects in your
pipeline that help move their interest forward
● Send a press release out for May to update the public on recent news
● Ensuring new blogs are created weekly or daily and posting them on
social networks as well. You can also post your videos to your blogs.
This is just to get your gears turning here. Mass communication going out to
your target public will absolutely help drive new sales and revenue so ensure
for the month of May that you’re team has a communication strategy and is
doing it daily.
As always, I’d recommend having several well crafted videos that
communicate your message that you can put in the hands of your sales and
marketing team to get out broadly and keep posting to grab the attention of
32
34. Distraction is the Enemy of Growth
Distraction is the enemy of growth. In other words, when you can’t focus, it
hurts your ability to grow at the pace you want or need. This infects all areas
of the company. We chant the beat of “focus” here in everything we do and
look to snuff out distractions when we find them.
While this can be applied as an overall management rule throughout the
company, this also seeps into your messaging and sales strategy. When
creating a sales pitch or messaging for something like a video, you need to
be able to stay focused. Know and select one target public with a specific
goal of the message to that audience. Don’t attempt to add in everything you
do in one pitch or try to communicate to many audience in one message. Get
focused.
The more focused you are, the more effective the message or pitch. You
need the audience to feel as though you’re speaking to them.
So I’d advise that you stay aware of distractions in your messaging and sales
strategy and if found, work to cut out anything that distracts until you’ve
accomplished something that is focused and by doing so, you will see the
effectiveness increase.
34
35. Doing the Basics
It's quite astonishing to me to see how often the basics are dropped out and it
tends to crash the stats. In other words, basic actions that are known to be
successful and that lead to new business consistently tend to be forgotten
and simply neglected.
In sales, basics include things like:
● Making a detailed lineup of active prospects for the week
● Setting up and having discovery calls
● Sending proposals
● Sending follow up emails
● Following a process and executing next steps
● Using effective material to sell the prospect such as videos, PDFs,
websites, articles etc
We know these to be successful and yet, they get dropped out or forgotten.
So, it's key as one who's in sales or one who manages sales to have a
checklist or system to remind you of the basics and ensure everyone sticks
to it... religiously.
Success in driving revenue involves pushing all successful actions at all
times and consistently. Being that we're in the business of driving sales and
revenue for our clients, we tend to study and obsess over what works, what
does and how to maintain and expand successes.
One thing we know for sure is that a steady flow of fresh content needs to be
going out and being put in front of your prospects if you really want to drive
sales consistently. Video is arguable the best way to do this these days. The
truth is, prospects have become a little lazy or impatient or perhaps they're
just overwhelmingly busy so it results in them being antsy and not wanting to
read content on your site or anywhere else but they will watch a video. In fact,
it's one of the most likely things they'll do.
With a really well done communication and aesthetic delivery, your chance of
getting their attention and interest is very good.
So I say all this for two reasons, 1. keep the basics in and 2. create smartly
crafted video pitches, demos, overviews, case studies, testimonials etc that
you can get in front of your prospects consistently.
35
36. Don’t Chase Success… Chase Greatness
I read a quote about Mark Parker, the CEO of Nike, that he had a phone call
with Steve Jobs and asked advice for how to improve Nike and Steve's reply
was this, “Well, just one thing,” said Jobs. “Nike makes some of the best
products in the world. Products that you lust after. But you also make a lot
of crap. Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff.” Mark
waited for a chuckle from steve but he didn't laugh. He was serious. And he
was right.
I think this is true for any company or any position. People lose sight of it
along the way but the level of your craft and caliber of the products you
produce is everything. I see a lot of people and companies chasing
"success" which I feel is misguided. If you chase success, as in just revenue
growth, profit etc, you end up with a revenue hungry, passionless mediocre
company. Focus on chasing great. Start with great products and work
through to attain great talent, great marketing, great sales and a great
organization.
It's easy to market or sell a great product. In fact, they nearly sell themselves.
It's hard to market and sell a crappy product. Very hard. It's tough to get your
heart in it and your people behind it. Focus and work to only accept great
products and marketing and sales becomes a real joy. It's filled with passion
resulting in messages that are irresistible.
Here at Richter, we constantly critique our products and continue to push
ourselves to only have great products. Nothing less. It's a constant evolution
with a bar that keeps raising. While it can frustrating to continue to tighten
standards, we know that everything else revolves around and counts on great
products.
So we're here to communicate your great products to the world to make
them absolutely irresistible by ensuring that our products are also great in
doing so.
36
37. Effort Has Increased
In the current and coming months, November, December and January,
people tend to check out a little mentally. They get into the holiday mode and
things tend to get delayed, people drag their feet or operate in a more
distracted fashion.
Every year it also seems that companies fail to predict this trend and fail to
take the correct amount of effort to offset it. For example, if you went to a
basketball court and shot hoops everyday on a 9 ft net and could hit virtually
every shot and one day I changed the height to 10.5 ft and you maintained the
same effort you were taking for the 9 ft height.... it’s easy to see that you
would miss a lot of shots.
In other words, you can’t take the same amount of effort in times during the
year when the effort required has actually gone significantly up. Make sense?
People talk about it being slow around Thanksgiving and Christmas but
what’s really happening is that the effort required has gone up and they have
not increased their efforts to match the amount required and so things seem
“slow.”
So take a look at how much effort you realistically need to take between now
and the end of January to blow through the end of the year with strong
numbers and start the new year off right.
Juice up every outflow and sales related activity like crazy and you’ll be
thankful you did by Thanksgiving, wishing seasons greetings to all the new
business you’ve created by Christmas and setting a new resolution to do it
again in the coming year by New Years.
37
38. Excitement Fuels Sales
If you can excite a prospect, you can sell them or at the very least make the
sale a lot easier. But how? By communicating to them and about their
company, product or service. Get them visualizing how their company,
product or service could be better. Discuss ideas about their company,
product or service for the future or how it could be improved with your
products or services.
The prospect only cares about their problem or ideas or challenges they’re
trying to handle. They’re speaking to you because they feel there’s a chance
you can help. Your job is to get them excited about their company, product or
service while showing them how your company, products or services
remedy their exact problems to create alignment.
When we write copy for a video, we focus on the viewer who will be seeing
the video. We write the copy to impinge on the viewer to get them excited
about their company, product or service so they recognize how your
company, products or services will be exactly what they need.
It all boils down to effective communication and how to correctly address the
prospects needs or wants.
So arm your sales and marketing team with video trailers that communicate
to your audience to get them excited and fired up which will cause them to
reach (call or email) and help fuel your sales.
38
39. Follow through…
One of the biggest barriers related to sales is follow through. It plagues both
sales and marketing teams. Because the marketing folks work like crazy to
get quality leads and then the sales team needs to see those through from
start to finish to conclude sales.
Only, many times the follow through doesn’t happen. Why? Because the
team gets distracted, is unorganized, moves on to other things or is not
armed with tools that will help them enlighten and sell the prospect from start
to finish, so they run out of gas and just let it drift off into the darkness….
This costs companies a fortune in lost opportunities and revenue.
We’re here to prevent and stop that from happening. Our job is to help you
get the tools your team needs such as videos, that will help sell prospects
and arm your team so they can use these tools to followup
and follow
through on the active cycles.
So when you’re considering budget as it relates to creating a video project,
also consider how much is currently being spent and lost from lack of follow
through on active cycles. You’ll see that having really strong communication
tools is one of the best investments you could make.
39
40. Fresh business
When viewing all areas of the company, it’s obvious that every single division
and component of your company is critical but ultimately, none of it really
matters unless the company is bringing in fresh revenue in high enough
volume to pay for the overall company and help it grow.
It’s not everything but it is a critical focus and without it, there’s no company,
products or services whatsoever. We’ve built Richter around the mission of
driving new fresh business for our clients that align with their company
strategically. We focus on two key things, knowing everything about our
clients target public and then crafting the best communication possible to
impinge with that audience and help drive new business. But with our
strategic relations program, we cultivate the communication to what we call a
“reach” and essentially walk ideal candidates through our clients front door.
We’re not concerned with volume here, we focus on precision. In other
words, when you look at the companies that are best suited to be a client for
you and you know you need to get to them but aren’t sure how, that’s where
we come in. We handle this component for our clients to essentially be their
ideal relationship maker. There’s a huge amount of ideal clients out there for
your company but you need to know who they are, how to get to them and
how to get them interested so they’re reaching and are ideal sales
candidates which
is what we do.
40
41. Get Focused
The concept of focus is a very powerful one and one that I feel needs to be
used quite a bit more in most businesses. It’s challenging and takes
discipline to use but powerful when applied. By focus I mean getting all areas
of the company to have laser precision on what it is or what they do or what
they sell or what the message is etc.
This can be applied across a company to make it better. Here’s a few ways:
● Getting your products or services more focused so you only sell the
best ones and get rid of any that are not that workable, helpful or
profitable
● Getting the sales team focused to make them specialized and only
have them sell a focused product or service. You’ll see dramatic
improvements by doing this.
● Making your marketing focused to a very specific audience that
communicates solely to them and no one else.
● Crafting your message to be focused to a specific audience about
specific products or services that is completely crystallized and
clearly communicates.
● Deciding on and focusing your efforts on who you sell and who you
need to pursue rather than trying to go to anyone and everyone.
● Getting all of your people in the company focused on exactly what
they do, what their role is and what their end results need to be for
their area so there’s absolutely no confusion on what they need to
work on day in and out.
These are just a few examples to show that focus applies across the board.
I’m fairly obsessed with this topic and have found that getting a company
more and more focused helps drive expansion and success. It’s a strange
thing because people tend to think that … “well, if I had more products to sell,
we would bring in more revenue...” but experience tells me that this isn’t the
case. Less products that a company puts all of their creativity and talent
behind to make them worldclass
is actually a more profitable and successful
strategy. Salespeople that only sell one thing as opposed to 5 different things
is a more successful strategy. Marketing that communicates one message is
41
42. better than 5 messages jammed into one..... etc
That’s a big part of what we do here at Richter. We get our clients focused,
we make their message focused and by doing so, we help drive their sales
revenue.
42
43. Get In Their Head
It can be exasperating trying to get your prospective clients to understand that
what you're offering is completely in line with what they need enough so they
do in fact buy. But a big part of the problem is that a lot of companies are
beating the drum for their companies, who they are, what they do, how long
they’ve been around, the benefits of the product or service and so on…. and
the prospects are being hammered with this from many companies at all
angles, not just from you.
So the focus needs to change. You need to really plant yourself in their
shoes. Who are they? What are their needs or wants and motivations or
problems and why? When communicating, you need to adopt their view so
you can imagine receiving your communication as them and this will give you
a better idea for how to communicate to them.
It’s certainly a challenge and one that we obsess over daily.
So while it appears that we produce videos here, the reality is, we develop
communication strategy that comes in the form of a video because video is
the chosen platform these days to view messages and is the easiest way to
spoon feed that message to your prospective clients in a way that will make
them reach (call or email).
43
44. Go To Them
When your audience is a higher level position like the VP or Clevel,
you can’t
wait for them to come to you rather you need to go to them. Why? Because
they aren’t searching. Think about it for a second. This is a very busy group
of people that are focused on their daily objectives and typically aren’t online
searching for products or services to buy or invest in.
There’s a lot of strategies that promote improving your search results, ads,
etc but if your audience isn’t typically searching then it becomes wasteful or
pointless.
You need to go to them. Find the audience and reach out directly to them to
get their attention. They may have the exact need for your product or service
but aren’t specifically searching which requires you to directly reach out to
them to make your product or service known.
Our audience is solely focused on key executives or key people so we know
that we need to go to them. We use things like video to communicate our
value proposition in a clear and simple way (and short way so we don’t waste
their time) in order to spark their attention and get them engaged. It works....
well.
So first identify exactly who you are trying to get to and then craft a video that
communicates to them in a simple but clear message that will entice their
interest. Being that you're most likely not going to catch them on an elevator
these days, this is the online equivalent and the pitch will be more refined
through video.
44
45. Graphics Are Worthless
Ultimately graphics are worthless…. without effective messaging. Strong
statement, but true. It’s easy to get caught up in the visuals or animation of a
video project and lose sight of the copywriting that forms the message itself.
The visual work of a video is meant to hold the attention of the viewer while
the message sinks in. If the message is poor, the visuals will simple entertain
and nothing will really happen from the video as a result. On the other hand, if
the message is really strong, the visuals will hold the viewer's attention while
the communication woos them to take action.
So never underestimate strong copy. Ultimately sales is in fact just
communication. Great communication to an exact target public will move the
needle. This isn’t to say graphics or visuals don’t matter because they really
do, but without incredible copy…. the effectiveness dramatically decreases.
45
46. Here’s What We Know
Here’s what we know about sales it
takes a heck of a lot of followup
and
follow through in order to make things happen. Why? Because people are
busy, distracted, overwhelmed, not totally sold, have other things to attend to
….. and the list goes on.
But it doesn’t mean they don’t need your product or service and aren't
interested. The truth is, most salespeople seem to fall off the face of the
earth after 2 to 3 attempts to communicate with a prospect.
When the prospect doesn’t reply, they chalk it up to reasons like “it’s dead” or
“they're not qualified” or “they must not have a need right now” and so on.
These reasons only really work to serve the salesperson so they feel better
about stopping there and not continuing with the cycle. But there’s still a lot
more work that needs to be done.
To help support sales and help remedy this issue, we created our campaign
strategy. Here’s the latest video in a series that explains what it is:
http://vimeopro.com/richter10point2/videocampaigns/
video/101248090
The bottom line is, there’s a lot of sales revenue left on the table because
sales teams often don’t followup
and follow through at the level required,
which the campaign helps arm them with tools and organizes the process so
they’re ready to persist through the cycle, helping them capture the sales
revenue that was previously lost.
46
47. How Does This Relate to Me?
Yesterday I had a sales call with a company that was presenting an online
platform to me that is meant to help manage a company's analytics. Prior to
the call I watched their video and the thing I noticed was that the entire video
was showing the platform and it’s benefits and attempting to explain using
jargon terms that, if the viewer was not clear on what they meant, caused the
viewers eyes to glaze over ….
I then had the call with the sales rep and it continued along the lines of what
their platform can do and it’s benefits and features and I couldn’t help but
wonder, how this relate to me and is this company actually closing sales and
making money from this pitch? I then asked the sales rep to walk me through
how this actually relates to me… which he couldn’t necessarily do.
This isn’t to rant about that company. In fact, it’s a great company and they
have a great product but they have a communication problem. While on the
call, I was visualizing how I would tell their story to their audience to actually
show a real life setting of a real company using their platform to manage their
day and make their company better. They had a case study of a company
that found $250,000 in lost revenue so I would incorporate that story to really
impinge with the viewer. Because the only thing that matters is the viewer.
Your audience and what their problems or painpoints
or motivations are.
When you're crafting your communication strategy, you need to obsessively
focus on them. How does your company, products and services relate to
them? The more time you spend on answering and delivering
communications related to that question, the easier sales will become. Don’t
rant about your product and it’s benefits or your company on and on and don’t
pitch right out the gate without taking the time to get to know and understand
your prospect (audience). Commit to understanding them and clearly
articulate how your product or services relates to them and then deliver your
message via things like videos and your sales pitch in a way that is
completely tailored to them and you’ll see your sales numbers improve.
47
48. I’m Busy...
I find it interesting how common some phrases come up in sales like “I’m
busy... not a priority right now.... next week..... followup
next quarter..... not in
the budget.....” but truthfully, all of these statements are a bunch of baloney.
You know it and I know it and if you realized that your competition says it too,
well, you’d be in a position to take advantage of it.
In other words, let your competition use stall tactics, delay projects, add time
into every equation, delay, procrastinate etc but
don’t do it yourself. Be swift.
Act fast and get things implemented immediately that are going to help drive
the business forward.
Otherwise, when you push things off because you’re “busy” you miss
opportunities which slows your growth or tends to bottleneck your work
making you all the busier.
Heck, we’re all busy. I haven’t met one person who isn’t these days. It’s how
you take advantage of situations, how you mold time to fit your needs and
how to be efficient to outpace,
outsmart
and outwork
your competition that
counts.
So now that we got that resolved and out of the way, I’d like to sell you a video
that will drive fresh interest to your sales team because they need it! Just go
and ask them if they would like a video that helps them pitch and sell your
products or services and I can assure you the answer will be resounding
“yes”.
48
49. Intention Drives Sales
Almost more than anything else, intention drives sales. You have to intend to
sell something and you have to intend for your prospect to buy. Part of that
intention comes in the form of communication. When you communicate with
your prospects, the intention needs to come across to them and strike them
in a way that grabs their attention.
The dictionary defines intention as: “an act or instance of determining
mentally upon some action or result.”
So with sales, you first and foremost have to intend to sell your audience and
from there your communication needs to come across with intention that
results in action.
The question then is, does your current communication (website, video,
emails etc) come across with intention that results in action from your
audience? If not, then we have some work to do.
We tend to be obsessed with the topic of communication here and we’ve
gotten pretty good at it over the years. If you feel you need to ramp up your
communication efforts in a way that delivers your message with intention and
gets your audience to take action lets
have a call. It’s all we do all day,
everyday around here....
49
50. A Drop in the Ocean
I think we can all agree that the internet is the equivalent of an expansive
ocean that never seems to end. So using that as the analogy for getting
attention for your company, I would then state that you can’t toss pebbles on
one side of that ocean and hope to make an impact.
Being that it’s such a big place it requires sufficient action to gain attention
and traction. Of course, you don’t want to take any action willy nilly. You need
to be strategic and efficient.
So here’s a few recommendations:
1. Define who your target public truly is. In other words, who are you
going after.
2. Do some research to understand where they’re located online.
3. Survey them to understand what their painpoints
and motivations are
as it relates to your products or services.
4. Create videos or other tools to communicate to that target public
where they spend time online.
5. Focus your time and energy on staying active in the places your
target public is online rather than aimlessly promoting anywhere and
everywhere to be efficient with your time and resources.
50
51. It’s a Process
There’s a line in the movie Moneyball where Brad Pitt is coaching the team in
the locker room and he says, “it’s a process..” This is true in baseball and it’s
true in business and very true in selling. It’s a process.
With everything, there’s a sequence of steps you have to go through. Your
job is to control each step as well as you can and handle them expertly to
provide the prospect with the information needed so they become
enlightened, excited and sold on your company, products or services.
So then knowing that it’s a process, you need to know the sequence steps in
that process and ensure each one is handled fully toward concluding the
cycle.
After years of studying the sales process combined with our communication
work toward a given target public, we married the two up to create the
campaign product. The campaign is a series of videos that follow the
process to help the sales team handle those steps fully so each step can be
done leading the prospect to being interested, informed and ultimately, sold.
51
52. Waiting Solves Nothing
It’s a new year and we all have a lot to get done. It’s relatively easy to fall into
old habits and delay critical moves that will take your company further into the
future so I wanted to send a quick message to encourage you to keep your
sights firmly planted on your goals for 2013. What’s urgent to you? Are you
correctly estimating the amount of work and time needed to pull off your
targets?
In terms of using things like video, if I had it my way, our clients would do no
less that 12 videos this year (one for each month) because I firmly believe
that they will make well more than what the video costs and the amount of
attention they would get from the videos and uses are valued much higher
than the cost.
Just imagine for a second if you armed your marketing and sales team this
year with 12 new videos that communicated the story of your company,
details about specific products, announcements for events, a trailer about
working at your company for prospective new hires, a quick 30 second pitch
that spikes attention, a 2 minute explainer whiteboard video that walks
someone through your product or service.... and so on.
The impact of that level of outflow and promotion would greatly impact your
inflow and bottom line for 2013. Check any latest movie coming out and you’ll
see that they have no less than 45
trailers or teasers for it. You need to think
big and act big to make a dent. The internet is a big place. It’s easy to get lost
or drowned out by the noise of it so take big action to get big attention and it
will pay off big in 2013.
52
53. Know The Public
Let’s say you drew a triangle upside down. So, wide part at the top and sharp
part at the bottom. Then you drew sections in the triangle to break down
things related to marketing material, outreach, leads, qualification and sales
as steps. Most companies operate this way. The focus gets narrower and
narrower toward the bottom and the step before sales is qualification after
leads have come in.
Now, flip the triangle the other way. Point at the top and broad base at the
bottom. Target public should be the first section. From there, you can do
research, material, messaging, reaches and sales. Think about it for a
second. If you don’t do your homework upfront, you’re potentially wasting
enormous amounts of time, money, energy and resources doing it the other
way. You need to know your target public as objective number one and from
there, you can know where they are, what to say to them and work toward
selling them thereby cutting the waste and executing a focused and effective
approach.
Whether we’re creating a video, campaign or executing our strategic
relations program, we’re always addressing it with this approach.
Qualification is not second to last…. it’s first.
53
54. Know What Wins
Do you ever inspect your numbers or stats to see what's working? It's an
incredible process and it reveals key data that will help you build a winning
formula.
About a week and a half ago I was thinking about the weeks when we had our
highest ever weeks and started to ask myself questions related to those
weeks. Questions like, how many times did we hit above a certain number
which made our highest ever? Who sold the most? Why? What did we sell?
Where did the revenue come from?
I then started to dig up our data to find out what weeks we hit a certain range
or better. We keep each week on a google doc spreadsheet that we then turn
into PDFs and save. So I found those weeks and then looked at the data to
see if I could find commonalities. I did.
I then took those commonalities and made a basic profile for our best week. I
then reported what I found to our executive team and our sales team to make
it clear for them so they could put their attention and focus on doing the
things that would lead to our highest ever week.
I kid you not, the following week, we went on to produce our second highest
ever week. I was blown away.
So I thought I would share this little tip with you to do the same.
We then want to play a role to help you with your winning formula by crafting
strong communications through our videos or a full campaign or our end to
end strategic relations program all focused on pushing your strategic revenue
and growth to much greater levels.
Hope this helps. Have an incredible end to your July.
54
55. Lack of Follow Through
Often I’ve observed that prospects don’t become clients simply because
there was a lack of follow through on the part of the salesperson. If there
were 10 steps to go through in order to sell the prospect through the sales
cycle, the salesperson only really executed 4 or 5 of those steps.
To me, this is one of the most wasteful areas in sales and results in a lot of
lost potential business for a company.
Often though, the sales team is not armed with tools that help organize the
process and that assist them to follow up and follow through. So, they get
distracted by new cycles or opportunities and with prospects that are active.
So this ends up creating this enormous amount of lost potential business that
builds and builds unless addressed.
We created the campaign to help handle this issue. The truth is, most
salespeople don’t really have the time, attention or organization ability to
ensure that these prospects are not lost. So the campaign is a series of
videos that helps ensure the follow through is done and continues to stay on
the prospects radar to enlighten and sell them bit by bit.
55
56. Let It Do Some of the Heavy Lifting...
We all know sales can be a tough game and if sales are down, revenues are
down and revenues are arguably the most important part of your business.
So part of your role is to make sales easier and faster. The more you cater to
your sales team to make their job easier, the bigger payback you’ll get. You
shouldn't have to rely on a team of rockstar salespeople to handle everything.
Load them up with ammunition and tools that does part of the selling for
them.
Take a company like Apple for example, they've done a brilliant job with their
videos to communicate the emotional appeal of their products. They've done
such a good job that they've turned their sales team into order takers rather
than having to actually sell something. I don’t see too many people in the
Apple store hard selling anything. :) Of course the products are great but
that’s not enough. The communication and marketing of those products
needs to be equally brilliant.
With fantastic videos, not just one but many that communicate your products
or services in an aesthetic way with a powerful message, if done correctly,
will do a lot of the selling for you making your sales teams life easier which
then drives revenue.
You need an arsenal of beautifully crafted video trailers that communicate
your message. Here's a few questions to ask yourself to help you think in
terms of messages that need to be communicated:
● To demo your product or service
● To pitch possible new employees for recruiting purposes
● To thank your new clients for their business
● To handle a specific barrier or objection your sales team is hitting up
against
● To pitch your company, products or services in an enticing way that
elicits reach
● To provide a 30 second message that’s used to open up initial
conversations
56
57. ● A case study to highlight your value proposition
57
58. Make the Communication Count
We’ve all experienced in sales where you’re trying to communicate with a
prospect and they just sort of…. neglect to communicate back. It’s certainly
frustrating but what’s the real issue here?
The issue is that your communication is not penetrating. You’re not hitting
home to address the prospect in a way that sparks their desire to
communicate back.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a salesperson communicate along
these lines: “Hi John, I’m following up to see if we can get this started…. let
me know…. call me back thanks!” This sort of thing just doesn’t hit home and
misses the reason they're not communicating.
So when you’re stuck with a prospect, go all in on the communication itself.
Put your heart and soul into what’s being said and hit them with an
emblazoned passionate email or call that shows you’re taking an interest in
them and that you care. You need to imagine what’s happening on their side
and preemptively work to address that in your communication.
If done right, the prospects will get back into communication with you.
Using a video link in this kind of email is a great way to improve the
effectiveness of the email itself as well. If you arm your sales team with
videos that cover key points in your sales process, they can use the videos
along with strong emails as suggested here and you’re sure to see their
prospects in better communication with them while also making the process
easier overall.
58
59. Making Stories
There’s a funny thing that goes on in sales…. the salesperson will make up
stories for what’s happening on the prospects side. Let me explain. The
salesperson had a great call with the prospect, worked the cycle along well
and then the prospect is slightly (or a lot) out of communication with the
salesperson. Here come the stories…. The salesperson then starts to create
the scene for what’s occurring on the prospects side. It may go something
like this…. “Well, I called the marketing director and she needs to get
approval from the CEO and she said he’s traveling this week so he’s
probably out with his family and he probably hasn’t even looked at his emails
or checked his voicemail let alone seen the proposal I sent over to her that
she was supposed to present ….” I’m sure you’ve seen this before. :)
Am I saying that the above isn’t possible or realistic? No. But you don’t know
exactly what’s going on from their side so don’t make up stories that make
you feel better about them being out of communication with you and cause
you to back off taking actions toward wrapping up the cycle. Only operate
based on the data you have and know, then take action based on it. Now,
using the above example and only operating based on the information you
absolutely know …. you could simply put a quick email directly into the CEO
to acknowledge that they’re traveling and just to ensure they did indeed
receive everything and to to reach out if needed or put a quick voicemail into
them along the same lines to ensure you’ve got traction.
The point being that you should simply focus on what you know and act
based on it. Don’t make up stories for what’s happening on the prospects
side because it will misguide you and reduce your level of actions because
you’ve made up the story all the way to the point that you’ve concluded the
outcome and don’t end up taking the right actions to see the cycle through.
It’s a lot more effective to just operate based on what you know from your
side. This then leads you to take further actions toward getting clear
information and moving toward closing the cycle.
Hope this helps.
Oh and since you’re now going to be operating only from data that you know
to be true…. you’re going to need to take sufficient action and have more
ammunition to make your product or service irresistible to your prospect so
I’d encourage a midsales
cycle video that either walks them through your
process or hits them hard on the core benefits or handles the frequently
asked questions. These are the sorts of things that tip cycles over the edge.
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61. The Homework Prior to Sales
Prior to sales there’s actually a secret sauce that makes life alot easier. A lot
of companies miss it altogether and it just so happens that we specialize in it
so I wanted to share some knowledge.
There’s two key elements related to cultivating sales that we obsessively
focus on:
1) Target Public this
has to do with who you sell. Not the demographic or a
vertical but the actual target public meaning, who’s currently successful for
your company that completely aligns and that you should focus all of your
time and attention on. We define the target public for our clients so we have a
clear picture of who we need to go after on their behalf, who we need to
communicate to and how to find them. It’s an area that both large and small
companies miss most of the time which results in more effort than needed
on the sales front. Once you know this, you can craft your message and
sales process as well as all marketing to the target public and create
alignment for your company starting with sales.
2) Copywriting and Message once
the step above, defining the target public,
has been done, the communication can be crafted specifically for the target
public. It wouldn’t make any sense to craft copy and the overall message if
one didn't know who they were communicating to, would it? So one needs to
understand who they’re communicating to and then craft the message that
plays to their needs and wants and to their pain points, problems or
challenges in order to get a receptive response. Once the target public is
defined, the copy and message can be precise, accurate and personal to
make it impinge.
These two items are core components to our strategic relations program
which leads to a successful strategy.
If you’re having trouble developing new business or the business you are
getting seems disconnected with clients that don’t seem to align with your
company, it’s time to look at your target public, your copy and overall
message. By addressing these, you can create alignment for your company
that makes driving new business development efforts a heck of alot easier
and enjoyable.
While these are both core components to our strategic relations program, we
also deliver these individually so let us know if you’d like to discuss the details
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62. of having us define your target public and craft the copy and overall message
for your company. It's quite the game changer.
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63. Creating Motivated Buyers
The keyword here is motivation. Initially when a prospect reaches out to your
company, they have some level of motivation. In other words, there’s a
reason they reached out. There’s some kind of thorn in their side that they
may or may not tell you but you can be assured there is. Your job is to find
out what it is and then keep the motivation active and in sight for the
prospect.
The truth is, we’re all a little forgetful and a problem may blow up at the
company that causes the motivation to flare up and only then, do we act. But
once the problem sort of fizzles out, we forget why we were ever interested
or motivated until... it happens again.
So with your prospect, keep this in mind and focus their attention on why they
initially reached out and what their motivation is. What is it that they’re trying
to solve?
You can use a video that communicates the key pain points your prospect
has and then make sure your marketing and sales team uses the video
frequently to keep the motivation fresh in their view. This will help sales
convert to closed deals.
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64. Massive Assault
To get attention that drives interest and fills your sales teams pipeline, it takes
a massive effort. There are many tools that can help but the honest truth is,
you have to have a consistent "assault" of outflow that grabs attention to land
on your target prospects radar and stay on the radar to turn them into
interested parties that become sales cycles.
Headed into the end of the year, you need to be completely focused on
gearing up all efforts in order to push your numbers up for the end of the year.
That means, a much bigger pipeline, more communication with clients,
more calls out to prospects, sales proposals sent out..... you get the idea.
Take what you've been doing and ramp it up 3 to 4 times.
We use short, punchy videos to quickly grab attention that results in interest
and reach from our target prospects. They work.
A 2 minute smartly done video will give your sales team ammunition to push
deals over the edge and will rake in new fresh interest to help fill the pipeline.
You can place the video on your site, on blogs, on facebook, send them in
follow up emails as a link, send them in your weekly email newsletter ......
anywhere really, just get them out on a wide scale.
Most of us are pretty terrible at estimating the correct amount of effort it will
take to drive in new business to attain the sales we need. So my
recommendation is for you to fall on the "way overestimated"
side of things
because in business, it's way better to have a pipeline so large that you have
to turn people away that be worried about a pipeline that is far too skimpy.
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65. More Isn’t More
Common logic seems to lead us to the idea that more is more. In other
words, more products or more services equals more revenue. Or more
people to market and sell to equals more sales. But more isn’t more. It feels
counterintuitive to go against this idea though.
When you apply a “more is more” strategy to things like products, services
and prospective clients, you’ll find that it creates confusion, overwhelm and
less efficiency as well as less quality generally. Most people and companies
can’t deliver on more is more because they need to support all of those
products or services to market, sell and deliver them or as it relates to
prospects, they need to cater to the needs of too many and it waters down
the company.
So I’d encourage you to focus. Zero in on the exact products or services that
cater to your specific target public (audience) needs or wants. Also, focus on
your target public. In other words, who the exact ideal client profile is for your
company, product or service. Every company has a target public or various
target publics regardless of size and you’ll find that by knowing it and zeroing
in on it, that your success rate improves.
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66. More...
It’s funny in business how these norms come into play that tend to constrain
and limit a company. People and companies tend to do just enough. Every
now and then you come across a company that pushes the boundaries and
continues to push their reach or efforts further out. I hear people say things
like… “we already have a video” or “we just redid
our site so not sure we’re
ready for a marketing push right now”…. and it makes me squirm in my seat.
I personally cannot think with this idea. It’s limiting.
Here at Richter we apply the principle of “more” to our agency and to our
clients. There’s always more that can and should be done. More push. More
videos. More attention. More prospects and clients. More outreach. It’s so
simple and perhaps that’s why it’s overlooked all the time. Just do more.
Push to do more in every area and the company will grow. Do more than last
week on a continuing basis. It’s magic.
Don’t do a video and say… “great… now we have a video, we’re all set now.”
Go and build a video catalog for your company that can be blasted out on the
social channels, your website, have the right keywords added on each one
on YouTube and Vimeo to make them searchable, arm your sales team with
them so they have the right message to send at the right time etc. Always do
more.
While it may sound expensive or the idea that you don’t have the budget to
always do more comes into play… it’s not true. Doing more is a prosperous
approach. Push each and every area to do more and you’ll be loaded with
new business to handle which will help pay for the “more” efforts.
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67. Mountains, Not Budgets
Around this time of year, people talk about budgets for next year. I don't.
We've already beat all of last years revenue plus plus and part of the reason
is that I never talk about budgets. I talk about mountains. I obsess about
mountains and I visualize bigger ones.
And I know the thing that conquers mountains is energy, forward momentum,
action and intention. These are also the things that build budgets. People
tend to lose sight of senior ingredients to winning. It's a bit like the chicken
and egg analogy. Just remember, budgets didn't come first, action and
revenue did and they built budgets.
So when you're planning for the coming year, ensure you dream up
mountains and how to conquer the mountains first and work your way back
from there. Know that driving revenue equals driving sales and driving sales
means doing the things that will fuel sales making your company, products
and services irresistible to your prospective clients. These then build bigger
budgets for you to use to conquer bigger mountains.
Ultimately everything should be assessed by this; will it help tackle the
mountain to forward our goals by giving us the energy (revenue) to attain it?
So peer into 2014 and look where you want to go. Identify the mountain fully
and then work your way back to clearly articulate what it will take to actually
pull it off. I can assure you that this exercise doesn't start with budgets.... it
ends with them. You need to be focused on creating new sales to push
revenue so it affords bigger, more powerful budgets and puts the wind at your
back so you can actually conquer the mountain. This may seem
counterintuitive at times.... but this is the way it is.
We obsess over this here at Richter for ourselves and our clients each and
every day and we've gotten very very good at it. So while planning your future
year, we'd love to have a call to discuss how we can help be the wind at your
back to conquer your mountain by providing the energy you need through
doing what we do here.
We're an agency of mountain builders, climbers and conquerors.
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68. Muscle your growth
There's an element of sheer attention and pounding out your message and
your products that has an unshakable workability to it. Take tesla or apple or
google and you quickly see that you can't escape their sheer presence.
They’re constantly in sight. But you don't have to be that big to go that big.
In order to grow a company, there’s a level of force that’s required. You need
to almost muscle your growth by pushing every area a little harder than your
previous efforts and this includes your sales efforts. Always push harder and
never settle on the idea of something being enough action or effort. You want
to get as much attention as possible and have enough assets like videos to
make your company irresistible to your target audience so they come in
droves.
With the use of the internet you can make your presence known using videos
in every crevice imaginable. A lot of prospects we speak to talk about putting
a video on their website but that's honestly the tip of the iceberg. To gain
attention and to drive new business you should be using a campaign of
videos across the internet taking actions like sending it out to your email
marketing list, posting it to all social media channels, using it as an ad on
Linkedin or Twitter, adding it as a link to your email signature, posting it to
your blog, having a standard email reply that your sales team sends out with
a link to the video to all new prospects, positing to Vimeo and YouTube and
so on… There’s no shortage of ways to get your message out and you truly
need to ensure you’re getting it out in a wide enough sphere to ensure it
drives new business, the right people see it and your sales teams pipeline is
loaded.
We’ve always thought with the concept of muscling our growth here and it
always forces us to think in much bigger terms. When we’ve considered
doing one video to promote Richter, using this concept we’ve realized that we
need 8 or 10 videos because we know what it takes to gain attention in the
right magnitude to grow our agency.
So assess your overall marketing and sales strategy and look at what you
need to do to force expansion further and then accurately list out what’s truly
needed to pull it off. It’s always worked for us.
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69. Not Enough Effort, Work or Action
Sometimes it just boils down to misestimating
the actual effort or work
needed to pull something off. I’m amazed at how often this is true. While
people often search for a more complex answer to solve the problem, so
often it’s just that the level of action or effort or work is flat out off of where it
needs to be.
This is is true in sales and marketing related to sales. Many companies don’t
put the required effort to attain their specific goals or target and so they fall
short. The truth is, people are generally chronically bad at predicting the
amount of effort, action or work something will take to pull something off.
They usually underestimate which creates poor results.
So as it relates to your sales efforts and revenue growth, it makes sense to
overestimate everything. I think we can all agree that more business won’t
hurt but less will.
So whatever you think is sufficient, you should focus on increasing that
amount dramatically and you’ll start to see much better results. I realize this
sounds like a simple nobrainer
type of thing but people rarely apply it.
We tend to hear a lot of people say things like, “I don’t have the budget” or
“we already have a video” or “we’re already working on an internal strategy”
but these are all things that indicate that they’re thinking too small. If you have
one video, you need 30. We’re in the middle of producing 36 for ourselves
right this minute. If you already have a strategy, augment it with another
strategy that does it slightly different and helps drive new business to your
team. If you don’t have the budget, find the budget or go and create the
budget so you can make revenue to help build a bigger budget because at
the end of the day…. we all know that budgets come from revenue and if
you’re not pushing revenue, you won’t have a budget.
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70. Last Two Days
November is officially winding down which means we’re coming to the very
end of the year so here’s a brief checklist of items related to promotional
activities you should be doing to drive sales through the end of the year and
to start January off right.
1. Craft a smart email for you sales team to send out to all active
prospects. This is where having a video plays a role because you can
add it as a link to help spark interest.
2. Ensure you have your marketing emails worked out between now and
then end of the year including some kind of video or email either
thanking your clients for their business or wishing them seasons
greetings.
3. Post any video or promotional material you do have to all social
networks on a consistent basis since people become pretty active on
social media channels around this time of year and you need to stay
on their radar. (use Linkedin, Google+, Twitter and Facebook for
business)
4. Have your marketing and sales team update any social networks
they’re on with a video or promotional item to help leverage their
reach.
These are just a few ideas but the common theme here is that you can use
video to stay on your prospects radar and spark their interest to get in touch
because that’s really all you need, their foot in your door so you can take it
from there. The challenge is typically getting the initial sparked interest which
videos tend to play a strong role in if done well..... which we do.
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71. The Window is Small
Every ounce of doing business has to do with communication in some
capacity. When you’re trying to capture the attention of your audience, you
want to communication to impinge in the short window of time you have their
attention.
I hear the word “busy” fly around a lot these days which means the window
has gotten even smaller to grab someone’s attention. This means that having
lengthy text on your site to explain your company, product or service is not
the smartest play. It also means that long sales emails are rarely read. Easily
the best and most effective method to grab attention and allow your message
to sink in is video.
Your can make a 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 90 seconds or 2 minutes video
depending on how long the pitch needs to be and how much time you feel
you have to penetrate and establish interest.
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72. Next Week Becomes Next Week
Unless you handle the cycles that need to happen this week, they become
cycles that you label as "next week" and then next week; when next week is
now this week, the cycle becomes a "next week" cycle yet again which
creates a constant cycle that delays the company, hurts productivity and
adds work to your plate simple because cycles are not being addressed right
this minute, decided on and concluded.
This causes huge inefficiencies in companies today and is part of the reason
you feel "busy" all the time.
Procrastination is not a desirable trait in business. Force yourself to address
each item on the spot and work to handle things within the constraint of the 5
days in each given week. I promise next week will have all new cycles for you
to handle so if you let work that needs to be done this week roll into next
week, you start building yourself a mountain of backlog!
You'll be absolutely amazed at how much you can get done if you focus on
working within the constraints of this week and not letting anything roll into an
endless pattern of "next week"
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73. The Answer is “Yes”
We get asked every day:
● Can you create an animated video like this example?
● Can you create a video that's part live shoot and part animation?
● Can you get our video done in time for our upcoming trade show?
With Richter, chances are that the answer is "YES!" 99.9% of the time.
We started our company not because we're proud of our creative abilities but
because we understand what businesses need to succeed.
Our entire purpose is to help you reach your audience in a way to gets them
to reach back.
We do that with world class copywriting, animation, voiceover, live shoots,
editing whatever
your specific project requires.
It's not about us and it's not about you.
It's about your audience.
And we make sure that when you trust us with your audience that we deliver
a communication that they will appreciate and understand.
If you have a "Can you create" question, the answer is almost certainly
"Yes!".
So ask away... :)
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74. One Video? Pfff...
You now have one video and it’s on your homepage and it explains your
product or service or company overall…. great. I guess we’re done here. :)
Or are we?
Be a prospect for a second. Put yourself in their shoes. Sure you’ve gained
their interest to get them reaching but ideally, what’s really needed here.
What’s really going to make sales easier and probable?
Imagine having a video for each step in the sales process with each being a
continuation of the previous one. The branding, look and feel all coordinated
with each other and the series of videos working as a team to gradiently
increase the viewers interest, urge to reach and ultimately to be sold on your
company, products and services.
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