Jeremy Miller's Blog, page 39

Personal Brands Are Not Corporate Brands

A personal brand is not a corporate brand.

The brand building process is different. The outcomes are different. The goals are different.

And this all stems from one simple reason: you can’t compress a career and a personality into a nice shiny box.

We’re talking about your life, and you’d be selling yourself short if you tried to constrain your career with corporate branding techniques.

Corporate Brands Are Crafted

In many respects branding companies, products, and services is easier than branding people.

Companies are crafted entities. It’s not like they are born with a personality, intrinsic values or ambitions. Those traits are blown into it, shaped, and molded into something customers identify with.

And if a corporate brand hits hard times, you can change it. You can reinvent it and bring a “new brand” to market. Or abandon it and start something new.

Businesses are not people with personalities. They are made up.

People Are Messy

In school, did you know what you wanted to be when you grew up? How about after you graduated?

Fifteen years after graduating I am still wrestling with this question. I have a firm grasp of my career and goals, but I am constantly striving to push myself to break through barriers and discover new opportunity. The next horizon excites me, and this means my brand keeps evolving as my career develops.

This is pretty common. According to Workopolis, an average person can expect to have fifteen jobs in their career, and may change careers several times along the way.

These changes do not break your personal brand, they enhance it.

A squiggly career creates an exciting and interesting personal brand. This is in stark contrast to corporate branding. A squiggly corporate brand creates confusion and uncertainty.

You’re Measured On Output

Corporate brands are measured on revenue and profitability, personal brands are measured on output.

Ultimately your personal brand is shaped on what you create and who your work impacts. For example, an athlete’s brand is defined by their medals and rank in their sport. A writer’s brand is defined by their body of work, which can range from blog posts to books.

In every profession an individual’s work shapes their brand.

The most assured way to grow your brand is to be prolific. It opens up so many opportunities to grow your personal brand:

More opportunities to reach people
More people to influence and help
More opportunities to hone and develop your skills
More learning opportunities
More opportunities to be brilliant

The more you produce the more success you will find.

Give Your Brand Room to Grow

You don’t need to confine your personal brand with the constructs of corporate branding.

Give it room to breathe and grow. Give it the freedom to chase opportunities and surprise yourself.

Your personal brand is your life. Give yourself every opportunity to be successful while pursuing your dreams. Your brand will reflect the work you do along the way.

Good Is Average and Average Isn’t Worth Sharing

Word of mouth referrals are an essential source of new customers for a service based business.

A happy customer who sings your praise is worth her weight in gold.

But getting people to talk about your company takes more than doing a good job at a fair price. You’ve got to do something memorable for a customer to talk about your brand.

Last week Anna Farmery and I tackled a question of how to gain more referrals from your existing clients. Anna is the host of The Engaging Brand podcast, and we riffed on a few ideas.

Create Memorable Moments

One of my core messages is referral marketing is dependent on memorable moments. Any company can deliver good service, but that doesn’t get your customers talking about your business or referring it.

For example, Anna shared a story of how her mother recently purchased windows for her home. She was quoted £430, but when it came time to pay the bill the contractor informed her they were able to buy the materials for less and knocked £30 off the bill.

Anna’s mum was delighted, and has since told a dozen of her friends, family, and neighbors the story. The simple act elevated the service for Anna’s mum, and she’s out singing the firm’s praise.

Companies that stand out go above and beyond the call of duty. They operate at a higher standard by delighting their customers at strategic points in the purchasing cycle.

Three Pillars of Retention Marketing

To focus your retention marketing, Anna advises you look to three buckets:

Remind your customers they need you.
Reward your customers.
Personalize your service for each customer.

The tactics aren’t sophisticated. Be present and stay in touch with your customers. Demonstrate you appreciate their business with small acts of generosity. And create an experience that is unique to each customer.

This isn’t hard, but so many companies overlook the basics. It’s so easy to overlook a simple follow up call, or acknowledging that you appreciate your customers’ business.

You can create memorable moments by being brilliant at the basics.

Listen to the Podcast

Check out my interview with Anna.

It’s a 30 minute podcast, and we tackle the topic from the perspective of a listener’s question.

Do you have any other comments or advice on how to improve retention marketing?

Focus Your Brand To Win

Where does your brand play? How does it win?

These are two of the most important questions in defining your brand strategy. It’s a matter of positioning and focusing your business.

A company that defines where it plays and how it wins can create a substantial competitive advantage. They appear to always be one step ahead while their competition is duking it out over features, price, and relationships.

As Wayne Gretzky famously said, “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.”

When you define where to play and how to win your brand will be where the customer is going to be.

Choose Your Playfield

Focus your brand by deciding where you will play: market segments, business needs, distribution channels, or verticals.

Roger Martin’s book, Playing To Win, has been influential on my thinking in this area. He writes, “Focus is a crucial winning attribute. Attempting to be all things to all customers tends to result in underserving everyone. Even the strongest company or brand will be positioned to serve some customers better than others.”

How can you segment your marketplace, product categories, or customers to serve a clear group that plays to your firm’s strengths? Who can you serve better than anyone else?

Commit To Win

Choosing the right playing field is only part of the branding equation. How are you going to win on that playing field?

Another book I refer to frequently is Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore. It argues, “Target a specific niche market as your point of attack and focus all your resources on achieving the dominant leadership position in that segment.”

Moore takes the idea of the playing field — a niche market — and emphasizes focus. Choose your market and commit to it. Put everything on the line to win.

Moore continues, “If you are committing an act of aggression [working to be the dominant player in your niche], you’d better have the force to back it up. Or, to put this in terms closer to our immediate topic, marketing is warfare — not wordfare.”

Generalists and Dabblers Never Win

The easy decision for a company is to accept any customer that walks in the door. If someone is willing to pay them they take it — the perception is revenue is revenue. 

But not all customers are good customers, and not all market segments are the right segments. Sticky Brands set the conditions for success by making deliberate decisions of where to play and how to win.

Wayne Gretzky had it figured out. He played where the puck was going to be. He wasn’t concerned with where everyone else was skating. He played his own game. He played to his strengths and became “The Great One.”

You have a similar opportunity for your brand. Make the decisions now of where your brand plays, how it wins, and then commit every resource to achieve that victory.

How to Write a Bestseller Without Losing Your Soul

Writing a book is one of the most rewarding things you can do.

It’s incredible to consolidate your thoughts and put them down in a long form document. It’s incredible to create a product that will bring other people value. It’s incredible to have people read it, share it, and appreciate it.

That’s how I felt writing Sticky Branding. It was one of the best projects I’ve ever done. And to see it make the bestsellers’ lists and beat Oprah — wow, nothing compares.

But it wasn’t easy.

Writing the book was also one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I describe my experience this way. Imagine cram night in university. Now repeat that process for six days a week over nine months. That was my experience writing Sticky Branding.

So the title of this article is a little misleading. Writing a bestseller may take a piece of your soul, but the question is how much?

As hard as it was to write the book, it could have been worse. I saved myself a lot of undue stress because I had a plan. A strong plan is your savior when writing a business book. It will help you avoid losing every shred of your humanity as you toil through your words while trying to maintain a day job.

To write Sticky Branding I applied five principles to focus my time and save my soul.

1. The Book Proposal is the Blueprint

You can’t build a house without a blueprint. The same goes for your book.

A well thought out book proposal will save you a lot of headaches as you start writing the book. Spend the time upfront to map out your thesis, conduct your research, develop core stories and metaphors, and define the structure of each and every chapter.

The more focused your book proposal, the easier it will be to write your book. Plus a well developed book proposal makes it a lot easier to sell your title to a publisher.

I actually hired a freelance editor, Don Loney, to help me prepare the book proposal. It was one of the best investments I made.

2. Write to a Deadline

Writing a business book goes through predictable phases: first draft, substantive edit, copy edit, design, and page proofs.

Work with your publisher from the start to define each of the major milestones and due dates. If possible, do it as part of the contract negotiation.

Once you know the dates you can develop your plan for each milestone, and how you will accomplish them in the allotted timeframe.

For example, I figured out early on that it took me two-and-a-half days to write a chapter, and three days to rewrite a chapter. (I rewrote every chapter at least twice. I didn’t like rewriting the chapters and cursed my editor under my breath, but I am so glad he pushed me to write better.)

By understanding my writing pace I could schedule my time and achieve my deadlines with some room to spare.

The due dates come upon you fast and furious. If you’re not careful you will find yourself behind schedule and stressed out beyond belief.

3. Finish the First Draft, FAST

If you blog regularly you may get lured into the trap of making your words perfect. I definitely fell into this trap as I found myself rewriting the first few chapters of the book again and again.

Eventually my editor stopped me and said he wouldn’t look at my work until I completed the entire first draft. It was great advice.

A business book is 60,000 to 80,000 words. If you keep getting stuck perfecting the words in one section you will never get enough momentum to complete the project.

Anne Lamott writes in Bird by Bird, “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.” Get that first draft done, and then refine it.

4. Share The Workload

The book is a massive project, and can completely upset the balance of your life. Find ways to alleviate the stress.

Build resources into your plan. This could involve hiring a cleaning lady to keep some order in your house. It could mean recruiting a writing buddy to help keep you on track and do weekly check-ins. It could be hiring a research assistant, a designer, or some other professional you need to help you complete the book.

Figure out the resources you need at the beginning, and lean on them. It’s amazing how many people will help you and support you through this journey. It’s really inspiring to discover who is in your corner.

5. Focus On What You Do Best

You may aspire to write like Malcolm Gladwell or Seth Godin, but that’s not the real measuring stick.

Create a book to the best of your abilities. Create a product that you are proud of. That’s all you can hope for. Write the best book that’s in you, and then promote and market it to the best of your abilities.

The market will tell you if they like it or not. That’s outside of your control. But you can put your best foot forward, and that’s something to be proud of.

Do you have a business book in you? If so, I encourage you to write it. The world needs your voice. Set your plan, do the work, and create your own bestselling business book.

Make Your Brand Googleable [+Free Webinar]

Like it or not, Google is shaping your brand. It’s influencing your positioning, core messaging, and communications. It’s influencing how you speak to your customers.

You can’t fight this phenomom. We use Google everyday. It’s ubiquitous in how we find information and navigate the Internet.

Our constant interactions with Google have conditioned us to think and search in phrases. We type in statements or categories to find products and services.

For example, if you’re looking for an accountant in your area you may search “accountant + [your city].” You may narrow the search further by typing “small business accountant + [your city].”

Notice how factual these phrases are. They do not have a benefit statement nor a value proposition. They are simple, categorical statements.

This is Google’s influence, and this is the essence of good brand messaging today. Can you make your brand fit into a nice, simple, Googleable phrase?

[Join me for a free webinar on this topic, “Find the Words That Stick: Make Your Brand Googleable.” It’s being hosted by SEMRush at 12pm EST on March 5, 2015. Sign-up at SEMRush.]

Just The Facts

I’ve never watched an episode of Dragnet (a TV show from the fifties), but Joe Friday’s catch phrase is stuck in my head.

“Just the facts ma’am. Just the facts.”

That’s what Google is all about — the facts. Instead of developing a creative elevator pitch, break up your brand into building blocks:

Category: What is your industry or business?
Specialization: Does your business specialize in a niche or vertical market?
Location: Where is your company based? Do you serve customers in specific regions?
Customers: Who does your company serve?
Trigger Events: What issues or situations propel your customers to seek out your products and services?

You may not use all the building blocks listed above. Choose the ones that are most relevant for your customers.

Look to Google for Insights

You don’t have to assume or guess what phrases your customers are looking for. You’ve got Google.

Tools like SEMRush, Google AdWords Keyword Planner, or BuzzSumo all provide insights into the words and phrases people are using.

You can examine the phrases most used on your competitors’ websites. You can look at common search phrases and where they lead. You can analyze keywords coming into your site, and how they may be linked to the building blocks of your brand.

These phrases are very important, because they are the language of your customers. Pay attention to what phrases people are searching for, and how you can adopt those statements into your brand marketing.

Finding The Words That Stick

I will delve deeper into this topic in a webinar hosted by SEMRush. We will examine why you need to make your brand Googleable, and practical tactical ways to achieve it.

The webinar is on Thursday, March 5th, 2015 at 12:00pm EST. Sign-up at SEMRush.

I’m really excited for this webinar. We’ll get to look at some practical ways to make your brand stand out and perform well on Google.

Are LinkedIn Groups Worth It?

LinkedIn Groups seem like an obvious place to grow your brand in social media. But do the assumptions fit with reality?

Let’s start with the facts:

LinkedIn is the largest business-focused social network with over 347 million users
40% of LinkedIn users check the site daily
There are over 2 million LinkedIn Groups

By the numbers LinkedIn is a happening place, but it’s not all that rosy.

Spend a few minutes surfing through the LinkedIn Groups, and you will find countless groups floundering or abandoned. They are virtual ghost towns. Companies set them up with good intentions, but fail to get them off the ground.

Only three percent of the 2 million LinkedIn Groups have over one thousand members, and less than 0.017 percent of groups break 10,000 members.

Vibrant, engaged, and growing LinkedIn Groups are anomalies.

It’s Hard to be Good at LinkedIn

From time-to-time I get asked, “If you were to do it again, would you grow your social media community on LinkedIn?”

It’s a good question because my LinkedIn Group, Sticky Branding, is one of the largest branding groups with almost 40,000 members.

I hesitate when I get that question, because the conditions for success have changed.

I launched my group in May 2010, and with the help of my members we have grown the group into a vibrant and engaged community. But Linkedin has also evolved and changed over the same period of time, and the obstacles to scale a group are dramatically higher than they once were.

Three Obstacles for LinkedIn Groups

There are three very big obstacles that limit the potential of new LinkedIn Groups:

Limited options for discovery: LinkedIn’s search engine favors big groups. For example, if you search the group directory for “branding,” Sticky Branding comes up first because it’s the largest. LinkedIn prioritizes group size above all else.
Lots of content, limited participation: A few years ago LinkedIn opened the groups up to social sharing tools like Hootsuite and Buffer. This allows people to post articles and content without participating in the group, or even showing up. This makes it much harder for group owners to engage their members.
Once bitten, twice shy: LinkedIn Groups get a bad rap, because so many have deteriorated into cans of spam. The failure rate is so disproportionately high that many LinkedIn members don’t even consider checking out the groups anymore. Group owners have to work very hard to engage and retain their members, and give them a tangible reason to show up.

Look Beyond LinkedIn Groups

I encourage you to grow a community for your brand. It’s an incredible way to scale your brand’s reach and influence.

But look beyond LinkedIn before you start a group. Take a look at the other platforms: Google+, Facebook Groups, Instagram, or maybe even an exclusive community on your website.

Ask a few questions:

A community starts with 1,000 members. Where can you achieve this critical mass fastest?
Which platform will bring your brand the most residual, long term value?
Where will your users be in one, two, and three years from now? Is the social network a fad, or an integral part of your industry?

Choose your platform deliberately. LinkedIn may be the right choice, but it’s not the only choice.

Community building is a long term venture. Expect to invest in your group for years to come.

For some added reading: Nobody Likes To Dance Alone, my free ebook, is a roadmap on how to grow a social media group. It details my journey growing the Sticky Branding LinkedIn Group, and how to grow your group.

Bet The Company To Build The Brand

[Today’s post is part of the Spin Sucks Scavenger Hunt. Details at the bottom.]

What would happen if you failed?

Would it set you back? Would it hurt your business? Would it cripple you?

We all set goals and build strategies for our companies, but most of the time the stakes aren’t very high. Missing a sales target or a product launch might be embarrassing, but it really doesn’t hurt that much. It’s just a number.

That lack of risk is a problem, especially if you want to make a demonstrable impact with your business.

Big Goals are transformative. Achieving a Big Goal has the power to change the trajectory of your company, but missing that goal comes with equal risk.

What Would It Mean To Fail?

Writing Sticky Branding was a Big Goal for me, and the risks were high. If the book flopped I probably wouldn’t be writing this article today. I’d be getting a job.

Let me put this in context. In November I confided with my friend Gini Dietrich (who I also hired to help me launch and promote the book),

“I am finding myself in a weird state with the book launch around the corner. It feels like my future is resting on something rather inconsequential, a book. And I can’t tell if it’s any good or if it will have any impact. It’s almost easier to think about contingency plans at this point.”

Her response meant the world to me,

“When Marketing in the Round was published, I said the same thing to my mom. It feels so weird. She said, ‘I know everyone in your world writes books, but out here in the real world, being a published author is a BIG deal.’

You don’t need contingency plans. Everything you do should be focused on its launch. It’s a fire that has a long burn. You’ll have a fun launch week and then it’ll go quiet for a bit and then it’ll pick back up. You’ll see. You won’t regret it.”

Gini was right. The book launched to rave reviews, it’s a bestseller that beat Oprah, but more importantly it is transforming my business.

But if it fell flat … yeah, that would’ve crippled me and my business.

Put Everything On The Line

Big Goals aren’t gambling. You’re not rolling the dice and hoping to get lucky. You are making deliberate choices and strategies to transform your business.

But for the goal to be transformative you have to put everything on the line to achieve it.

The iPhone is a great example of this. Phil Schiller, Apple’s global marketing chief explained, “There were huge risks [with the first iPhone] … We had a saying inside the company that it was a ‘bet the company’ product … We were starting to do well again in iPod … Then here we’re going to invest all these resources, financial as well as people, in creating this product.”

Today we see the iPhone and its impact. But imagine the anxiety in Apple prior to launch in 2007.

If you’re not putting everything on the line to achieve your Big Goals, you’re not pushing your company far enough.

It’s you AND …

Big Goals that transform your company are not solo-ventures. Accomplishing Big Goals requires a team and their support and guidance.

This is a philosophy that’s baked into my business. For example, my holding company is called Jair&. It’s me AND …

I view marketing as a collaborative industry. To make an impact you need to surround yourself with the best and brightest people to help you achieve your Big Goals.

That’s why I hired Gini and her team to help me launch my book. She launched her second book, Spin Sucks, very successfully and sold thousands of copies. Her company’s blog is the most popular PR blog in the world, she’s a sought after professional speaker, and she’s doing a lot of the things I aspire to.

I didn’t have to go it alone. I could ride in Gini’s wake, learn as much as possible as quickly as possible, and plug into a team that could help me achieve my goals — which they did.

Who is on your team? Who can help you accomplish your Big Goals? It’s you AND … ?

Bet Your Company To Transform Your Brand

Break free of the confines of your industry. Bet big.

You’ve got to challenge the status quo and do something remarkable. You’ve got to put it all on the line to transform your company.

What is your company going to do to shake things up and make an impact? How will you bet the company to transform your brand?

Spin Sucks Scavenger Hunt

This post is part of the Spin Sucks Scavenger Hunt. Gini and her team are celebrating the one year anniversary of Spin Sucks (the book), and they asked me to help.

The secret word for February 23rd of the scavenger hunt is above.

Join the fun. Order a copy of Spin Sucks before March 4, 2015 and email a copy of your receipt to iboughtspinsucks@armentdietrich.com. They will send you a little package of Spin Sucks awesomeness (who doesn’t love free stuff?) Plus it’s a fabulous book. You can view my review on Amazon.

What’s Your Rallying Cry?

Last week I went to the dark side. I bought an Android phone. (Cue the ominous music.)

I’ve been locked into the Apple ecosystem for years, but a scrappy upstart caught my interest: OnePlus. I wanted to experience the brand.

OnePlus isn’t like your typical smartphone makers. You can’t buy their phone, the OnePlus One, at Best Buy or from your wireless provider. You’ve got to buy it from them directly.

And it’s not really that straightforward either. Up until a week ago you needed an “invite” to buy the phone. This meant you had to either know someone who already owned the phone and get an invitation from them, or you had to participate in OnePlus’s social networks and forums to win an invite.

For most people this approach to getting a phone is just a pain in the ass and not worth it. But for the people who care, the invitation program and the exclusivity of the phones is a powerful way to engage a community and develop a fan base.

What caught my attention, and why I wanted to buy the phone, is how the company is building its brand. OnePlus pulled me out of the Apple ecosystem with a strong rallying cry.

A Rallying Cry Is More Than a Tagline

OnePlus has a very clear and proud rallying cry, “Never Settle.”

It’s featured prominently on their website and communications materials. You can even get it on a t-shirt.

But it’s also packed with meaning. OnePlus writes,

“We don’t box our users into categories based on age, gender or geography. Our target user is simply anyone who wants the best, those who don’t want to settle.

Our goal is to make a product worthy of those with a discerning and critical eye. We will work tirelessly to build that product for you.”

“Never Settle” is more than a tagline. It’s a rallying cry. It sets the tone for the brand. And it gives OnePlus’s team permission to challenge the giants of its industry, and to take risks to fulfill a commitment to themselves and their community.

A startup cannot compete and win against giants like Apple or Samsung by trying to mimic them. They have to take big risks, break rules, and find new ways to create success.

“Never Settle” is more than clever marketing, it’s a matter of survival.

Rallying Cries Draw the Best Out of People

Rallying cries connect with people, especially your employees, at a deep, visceral level.

In an interview with the New Yorker, Jony Ive — the creative genius that has shaped the design of Apple’s products — shared what “Think Different” meant to him, “Ive took it as a reminder of the importance of ‘not being apologetic, not defining a way of being in response to what Dell just did.'”

That’s powerful. This isn’t just marketing hype or a creative ad campaign. It’s a rallying cry that gives your people permission to perform and fulfill your brand’s promise.

Pull the Brand Together

“Think Different” has shaped Apple since 1997. And it lives on well beyond Steve Jobs.

“Never Settle” is shaping the OnePlus brand. You can see it materializing in several ways:

Product Development. The OnePlus One is described as “The Flagship Killer.” It’s $300-$350 for an unlocked smartphone. That’s less than half the price of an iPhone 6, Samsung Galaxy S5, or HTC (One) M8. And the specs are comparable.
Go-to-Market Strategy. This is one of the most obvious areas of innovation in OnePlus’s approach. They are pioneering a new way to sell smartphones to consumers. Yes, there have been bumps along the way and it’s not for everyone. But good on them for trying something new.
Emphasis On Community. The go-to-market strategy and invitation process emphasizes community building. It creates a shared experience, because you’ve got to know someone to get the phone (or at least you did for the first year it was available). This emphasis on community builds consumer relationships that harken back to the original Apple Fan Boys and Girls.

What’s Your Rallying Cry?

What’s your company’s rallying cry? What’s that one, pithy statement that rings so true to your brand?

What statement gets to the essence of what your brand is trying to accomplish? And how can you leverage your rallying cry to empower your team to challenge the giants of your industry and grow a Sticky Brand?

A rallying cry like “Think Different” or “Never Settle” could be the boost your brand needs to stand out and make a real dent in your industry.

The 2-Call Close, Part 3

Winning new clients is a process, and that process can be complex: proposal writing, product demonstrations, pitches, and meeting after meeting to build rapport and demonstrate your firm’s capabilities.

How long does it take you to run this sales gauntlet? Or a better question, would you like to shorten and simplify your sales process so it doesn’t feel like a gauntlet?

This is the objective of the 2-Call Close. Simplify your sales process to the point where you can sell big deals — $10,000 to $75,000 solutions — in two calls without a proposal. This is the holy grail of branding.

In this three-part series, we are discussing how to achieve the 2-Call Close in your business. In part 1 we discussed “Deliver Contracts Not Proposals.” In part 2 the focus was to make your website do the heavy lifting in the sales process with a “Website That Sells.”

Today, in this third installment, we are talking about sales talent, “Experts Close Deals.”

Part 3: Experts Close Deals

There is no substitute for great sales talent.

Hiring weak sales reps is like driving a car on bald tires. They can get you from point A to B, but you can never gain traction.

Developing the 2-Call Close for your business is the equivalent of building a race car. You can engineer the best car in the world, but it’ll never reach its potential with bald tires.

You need Experts on your sales team to achieve the 2-Call Close. Customers will not make rapid purchase decisions dealing with a rookie or turdy sales rep.

The Data Proves It: Experts Close More Deals

Only one in 250 sales reps exceed their sales quotas.

That blows me away. 0.004 percent of all sales professionals consistently exceed quota!

In the mid-2000’s Lynette Ryals, a professor at the Cranfield School of Management, conducted a comprehensive study on sales performance. She found that there are three types of salespeople who consistently achieve their sales targets:

Experts
Consultants
Closers

Experts are the most effective salespeople, and account for only nine percent of reps in the marketplace. As Ryals describes, “Experts make selling seem effortless, keep customers happy, and consistently outperform their peers.”

Experts are unique because they not only possess deep expertise in the products or services, they also have deep expertise in the craft of selling.

Closers, on the other hand, are naturally persuasive and gifted salespeople. They are good at bringing the right parties to the table, negotiating, and driving people towards their desired outcome. But they are “closers” and their style can be off putting for some customers. Closers represent thirteen percent of sales professionals

Consultants are up-and-coming Experts. They are talented, but they don’t have the depth of knowledge of Experts yet. They can ask the questions, but they usually have to draw in additional resources to close the deal. Consultants represent fifteen percent of all salespeople.

The 2-Call Close Requires Experts

Closers and Consultants are good salespeople, but they’re not good enough for the 2-Call Close.

Consultants have to draw in additional expertise frequently to help their customers address and solve problems. This slows down the sales cycle, and often adds additional meetings to the sales process.

Closers are deal makers, and they are excellent at bringing together enterprise-size deals. But the 2-Call Close is not about deal making. It’s about consensus building, facilitating the buying cycle, and getting to rapid decisions.

Closers also tend to complicate things, because their aggressive style erodes trust. Customers become defensive, and that makes them more prone to ask for more information, request more meetings, or demand a proposal. These are natural rebuffs from the customer, because they are trying to control the buying cycle so they don’t feel pressured into making a decision.

Experts strike the right balance. They have the depth of knowledge in the products and services to ask good questions, answer questions with authority, demonstrate credibility, solve problems, and put the customer at ease.

Customers trust Experts sooner, and that makes them more likely to make faster purchase decisions.

Three Essential Selling Behaviors

Not only are Experts deeply knowledgeable about the products they sell, they are skilled at selling them. They treat sales like a craft, which it is. It takes years to become an Expert salesperson.

The 2-Call Close demands three essential selling behaviors:

Create Anxiety: The 2-Call Close is a fast sales process. It’s efficient, but respectful. This balance is hard to achieve, but it’s something Expert salespeople do extremely well. They create anxiety to make a purchase decision without pressuring the customer to buy. The salesperson creates the conditions for a customer to be excited about the solution, and fosters the belief that waiting (or kicking tires, evaluating other vendors, or requesting more demos) would simply be a mistake.
Constantly Qualify: Expert salespeople don’t qualify once and move onto the next stage in the sales cycle. They are constantly qualifying. They are constantly taking the customer’s temperature and assessing the situation. This is an essential skill in the 2-Call Close, because the sales process is so fast and fluid. If a salesperson determines a customer is not ready to buy, they pull back and try to identify what the customer actually needs.
Ask for the Order: I hate the term “Always Be Closing.” That’s amateur selling. Expert salespeople don’t pressure their customers to buy. Experts are more like consultants — they are professional problem solvers. They speak with authority, ask great questions, identify opportunities, solve problems, and deliver results. And when they see the opportunity to deliver results, they pounce. They let the customer know what they can do for them, and they ask for permission to help. They close because the customer knows the salesperson has the solution they need.

Experts make these three behaviors appear effortless. It’s just part of the way they act and behave, but they are learned skills. It takes conscientious practice and coaching for them to be able to smoothly create anxiety, qualify constantly, and drive for a positive outcome — the sale.

When You Pay Peanuts You Get Monkeys

A great salesperson is worth his weight in gold. He gives your organization traction, and helps it go further, faster.

But acquiring, retaining, and developing great sales talent is a process.

Do not cheap out on your sales team. When you pay peanuts you get monkeys, and monkeys will not deliver the results you expect.

The 2-Call Close demands Experts. Salespeople who are deeply committed to their craft; salespeople who will get into the field and deliver remarkable results with your customers.

Hire the best sales talent you can find. This doesn’t mean you have to hire the most experienced sales talent. I am not suggesting that. Hire the people you can develop, train, and groom into Experts. Give them the runway and guidance they need to make a demonstrable impact on your business.

Nothing Relieves Pressure Like Sales

The 2-Call Close is not a fit for every business, but it’s something I strive for in mine.

I came into the world of branding as a sales guy that had lost his competitive advantage (check out the Preface of my book Sticky Branding for the story). This was a jarring experience, but it taught me two very important lessons:

Nothing relieves pressure like sales.
You create the conditions for success. If you want more sales, set your organization up to generate more sales.

This lead me to develop the 2-Call Close. I achieved it in my former business, LEAPJob. And I am finally achieving it with my current business, Sticky Branding.

The ideal is not easy to come by. It’s taken me five years to refine Sticky Branding’s brand, services, and marketing to achieve the 2-Call Close. But I can write about it now, because I’m doing it.

I know you can achieve the 2-Call Close for your business too. It’s a complex undertaking, but it’s achievable. The three parts all interconnect and support each other:

Deliver Contracts Not Proposals
Websites That Sell
Experts Close Deal

Look at your organization as a complete selling system, and then constantly refine and improve upon it until you have achieved the 2-Call Close.

The 2-Call Close, Part 2

The 2-Call Close is the holy grail of branding, and the epitome of selling. It’s the ability to package your services so well that you can win a complex sale in two calls over two weeks.

This is fast, efficient, effective selling. And it’s an ideal worth striving for in your business.

In this three-part series I am sharing the steps it takes to package your products so well that you can achieve a 2-Call Close. In Part One we discussed the concept of “Deliver Contracts Not Proposals.” And today, in Part Two, we are discussing “Websites That Sell.”

Part 2: Websites That Sell

Make your website sell as well as your best salesperson.

This has been one of my mantras for the better part of a decade. Your website is the face of your brand. And not only does it make a first impression for your business, it often makes the second, third, and fourth impressions too.

Buyers spend a lot of time looking at websites. How well is yours performing?

Sales Has Changed

A website that sells is an integral component of the 2-Call Close.

Your salespeople can’t meet and build relationships with everyone in your market, nor should they.

Let me illustrate this with an example. In the early 2000’s Versature had a classic approach to sales. They had a couple of sales guys, an appointment setting service, and ran direct marketing campaigns. Their goal was to call on companies in their local market, and sell them business phones services.

On paper Versature had the right approach to selling. The problem was the “classic approach” wasn’t very effective.

Paul Emond, CEO of Versature, explains, “We pushed and pushed, but we weren’t getting the results we expected. When people aren’t in the mode to replace their phone system they don’t want to talk about it, or even think about it.”

In 2004 Versature made a drastic shift in their approach to selling. They terminated the appointment setting service and let go of the outside sales reps, and invested the bulk of that budget into digital marketing: website, search engine optimization, and pay-per-click advertising.

Within weeks they experienced a shift. The phone started ringing regularly with qualified customers. Buyers were typing in “hosted PBX Toronto” or other relevant terms to Versature’s service and finding them.

And on top of that, customers were landing on an attractive website with clear messaging, a strong value proposition, a compelling description of the service, pricing, and more. A customer could answer all of their upfront questions, qualify if Versature was a fit, and call if they were interested.

Versature developed a website that sells.

Your Website is a Salesperson

It’s a mistake to think of your website as a marketing tool. It’s a salesperson.

Your website tells your company story, describes your products and services, establishes trust, demonstrates capabilities, builds relationships, and drives customers to logical next steps.

A website does everything a talented salesperson does, except for negotiating and closing deals.

So I have one blunt statement: invest in your website like it is your best salesperson. Train it. Support it. Manage it. Invest in it. Upgrade it. Generate leads for it. Do everything in your power to make it a success.

If your website sells as well as your best salesperson you will be well on your way to achieving a 2-Call Close.

Three Components of a Website That Sells

A website that sells is not simply an attractive, functional website. It’s so much more than that. A website that sells is different, because it’s built for sales. It’s built for the 2-Call Close.

There are three components to make your website sell as well as your best salesperson:

Simple Clarity: A website that sells doesn’t try to win over customers with flattery and big words. It speaks with authority. It boldly and clearly states what the company is, who it serves, and what services it offers. It even goes so far as explaining how the services work and what you can expect. Anyone who visits the website can clearly categorize the service, and make a decision if it’s a fit for them or not.
First Call Advantage: At any given time 3% of your market is buying, the rest are not. The vast majority of visitors to your website are not buying right now, but they will be soon. A website that sells recognizes that every visitor is an opportunity to build relationships. It offers valuable, interesting content that they can subscribe to or download. The website builds relationships with every visitor — buyer or not.
Be Everywhere: The term “websites that sell” is a little dismissive, because what I am really referring to is a broad digital marketing strategy. A website that sells has defined marketing programs to generate traffic, build distribution channels for content, reach new prospects and influencers, grow domain authority, optimize the site to be in the Path of Search, and many other tactics to drive new customers to the site.

If you are reading Sticky Branding (the book) with this post, the three components are based on three Principles from the book:

Principle 1: Simple Clarity
Principle 7: First Call Advantage
Principle 8: Be Everywhere

There’s a lot going on to create that compelling customer experience that sets the conditions for the 2-Call Close. But from your customers’ vantage point all they notice is your website.

Pick your priorities and give your website the support and investment it needs to sell as well as your best salesperson.

Three Metrics of a Website That Sells

How do you know if you have a website that sells? You will see it in your sales metrics:

Inquiries: The first measure of success is lead generation. How many leads per week is your website generating? To achieve the 2-Call Close you need enough leads coming into your funnel that your salespeople are not desperate.
Closing Ratio: A website that sells will generate a lot of activity, which is what you want. The challenge is to have your sales team qualify the inquiries, and determine if a customer is a fit or not. Of the ones that are considered a fit, the ones that become sales opportunities, what is the closing ratio? How many become customers? In my business, for example, I target a closing ratio of 75% or greater.
Velocity: How long does it take for an inquiry to convert into a customer? How many calls or demos does it take? What hurdles do you have to jump through? When you understand the velocity of the sales cycle you can work to compress it into a 2-Call Close.

The 2-Call Close Starts Online

The 2-Call Close is all about driving velocity into your sales funnel. The first step is to package your services so well that all you need to deliver is a contract versus a proposal.

The next step is to free your sales team’s time to focus on core selling behaviors:

Qualify customers to determine if they are a fit for your services
Demonstrate capabilities and reinforce customer expectations
Facilitate the buying process, and provide all the details they need to make sound purchase decisions
Negotiate the deal and close

Your website (and your digital marketing as a whole) facilitates the rest of the sales process:

Make positive first impressions
Place your brand in the Path of Search
Answers questions day and night
Deliver value and share expertise
Reinforce customer relationships when you’re not available
Drive customers to logical next steps

The combination of a well packaged service, talented sales people, and a website that sells provides a complete selling system. They all work in harmony to engage customers and sell to them in a way that is natural and efficient.

What’s Next?

In the final installment of this series, Part 3: Experts Close Deals, we will tackle the need for great sales talent.

The 2-Call Close is high level selling. It takes expertise to build credibility and demonstrate capabilities in one or two calls. It takes expertise to qualify a customer, and help them make sound purchase decisions.

Aggressive sales reps, closers, and socializers do not perform well with the 2-Call Close. You need experts to close deals quickly.

And let me know what you think. Share your comments or questions. I am happy to carry on the dialogue in the comments of this post.