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Getting Known By Those Who Matter. The Brand Of You.

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

I’m fascinated by branding. Perhaps it’s because I worked for two large consumer goods companies, Pepsi & Kraft Foods, where brands are what they live and die for.

But, branding in the world of consumer goods is very different than what you or I should do to build the brand of “You”.

A good to place to start, if we’re going to create a branding strategy, is to define what we mean by “branding”.

Here’s how Entrepreneur.com defines it: “Your brand is your promise to your customer. It tells them what they can expect from your products and services, and it differentiates your offering from that of your competitors. Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be and who people perceive you to be.”

That last sentence is particularly important and underscores one of the primary reasons why so many branding strategies just don’t gain much momentum.

People focus on the wrong stuff.

Here’s what I mean.

If the goal of the branding strategy is to become very well known by those who can hire you or refer you business, then the name of your company, your logo, website banner, the colors you choose for your marketing materials, becomes secondary.

What? The name of my company is “Secondary”? Bear with me-I’m not saying it doesn’t have value, I’m merely suggesting that you need to focus your efforts elsewhere.

Quite frankly, you just don’t have the marketing muscle and the financial resources to imprint a new name, or a logo onto the consciousness of your market. The last company to do that was Accenture, and estimates are that they spent over $200 million to do so. (Plus they had you-know-who as their celebrity endorser.)

So does that mean that attempting to brand yourself and your company (and I’m using the separate terms “yourself” and “your company” deliberately) is a fool’s errand? Not at all.

Rather, what I’m suggesting is that you approach branding from a different perspective. Remember the last sentence of the definition: “Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be and who people perceive you to be.”

A branding strategy has two distinct components. The story about the company and the story about the person behind the company. It’s the stories that get remembered, not the logo, not the name, not the font…the stories.

It’s a two-pronged strategy.

First are the stories about your company. These would include the stories about the problems you solve. Your case studies. Your successes. IMPORTANT… Remember that these need to be actual stories. Not three paragraphs which give a bare bones problem/result summary. Nobody’s going to remember those. And that’s what branding is all about-getting remembered by those who matter.

Flesh them out. Tell them in an interesting way. Make the reader or listener want to know what happened. If you engage me, not only will I remember you, but I’m also likely to tell your story to others.

Ted Irwin is a financial planner in St. Louis. He told me that his referrals went from 3 a month, to over a dozen. For him, that’s a huge jump. What did he do differently?

First, I’ll tell you what wasn’t responsible.

It wasn’t any new system, software, social media or marketing method. Ted gets almost all his business from speaking.

The change was that Ted shifted from telling audiences what he did, to sharing stories about his clients. Their hopes. Fears. Frustrations. How he helped. That got him remembered. That got his name passed along. That’s what quintupled his referrals rate.

That’s branding.

But it’s only the first part.

Back once again to the definition, “Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be and who people perceive you to be”.

The second area (and personally I think that this is the most important) is creating a brand around you. How you got into the business, how you experienced the pain your clients face, what you’re like as a person.

Judy McDonald is a HR consultant outside of Los Angeles. She’s been in business for 12 years and had by her own admission a practice that was, “OK, but not great.”

Her best year was 2009.

2009? Wasn’t that the year all the financial implosion occurred? When the unemployment rate went through the roof? When companies cut back on spending on anything deemed non-essential?

That was her best year?

It turns out that Judy made a shift in her marketing and branding strategy. She says, “I remember one thing you told me that you can’t out-McKinsey, McKinsey. If you’re not a big firm there’s no point in trying to be perceived as something you’re not. So I decided to take the opposite approach. I embraced my ‘smallness’ which meant that I started telling the Judy McDonald story.”

“Turns out that it resonated with people. HR executives at some very large companies liked my eclectic background as a former troubled teen, social worker and eventual leadership coach. It’s a unique story, that only I can tell, and it breaks through the clutter of all the ‘me-too’ solution providers that I compete against.”

“You wouldn’t think that a multi-billion dollar aerospace company would select me and my programs when they had the pick of all the large mega-firms in my space. But they did. And when I asked them why, they simply responded, ‘At the end of the day, we hire a person not a company.’”

Branding doesn’t need to be complex nor does it have to be expensive. If we remember that ultimately it’s all about being remembered by those who matter, then the strategy shifts from logos, fonts and image; to stories.

Well told stories about both your company and yourself.

That’s what gets you known. That’s what builds your brand.

Food for thought.
Mark

Related Links
Coaching on Developing your Stories

The Best Self-Study Marketing Program in the Universe (seriously)

Want me to write your website landing page or a sales letter for you?

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The Most Watched Business Speech Of All Time

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Last night I re-watched what I (and many others) consider to be one of the best speeches given by a business executive in the past 10 years.

Can you guess whom I’m referring to?

Ironically, it was a commencement speech given by one of the world’s foremost business visionaries-who never actually graduated from college.

It started this way.

“Thank you. I’m honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation.

Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots…”

It’s been viewed over 2.4 million times and is the only commencement speech to actually go viral. But most importantly it’s a model that all of us can learn from who aspire to gain greater attention for our marketing messages, motivate others or simply differentiate ourselves from the over-increasing hordes of competition.

You may have guessed that the speech I’m referring to is one given by Steve Jobs at Stanford University’s commencement exercises.

What made this speech so powerful? A large part of it is what Job’s said in the very beginning, “Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.”

A friend of mine who was there later told me that you could visibly see the audience’s level of attention increase as Jobs spoke those words.

Intellectually most of us know that if we want to get attention or persuade and motivate others, using stories is by far the most effective tool we have.

But do we really do it?

Unfortunately the answer is usually, “No”

A quick case in point.

I was in a meeting last week with a top senior sales executive for one of the largest financial services companies in the world. I was there to talk about my sales training program Unique Sales Stories: How To Get More Referrals, Differentiate Yourself From the Competition & Close More Sales Through Storytelling.

I could tell that Mr. Williams (he asked that I not use his real name although he did hire me to conduct the program for reasons that will be apparent in a moment), agreed wholeheartedly about the “concept” of using stories to more effectively develop relationships and close sales.

I could also tell that he thought his sales team:
1) Already knew how to tell stories, and…
2) Were doing a good job of it.

I could tell this because…well, he told me so.

Anyway, playing a hunch, I asked Mr. Williams if he would spare 2 more minutes and walk with me out on the sales floor. Humoring me, he agreed.

We walked past the desks of over 2 dozen financial advisors, all on the phone, all pitching their services. We’d stop periodically and eavesdrop.

Guess what we heard-or more specifically what we didn’t hear?

Not a single story.

Lots of facts. Lots of features. Lots of…noise. But not a single story that would enable prospects and clients to visualize the benefits these advisors were offering.

I’m sure you get my point.

There’s a world of difference between intellectually knowing something and actually doing it. Even more importantly…as I suggested to Mr. Williams, there is a huge difference between knowing what you should be doing and actually how to do it.

Which is why Mr. Williams is now a client.

But let me go back to Steve Jobs’ speech for a moment. After I watched the speech again I got curious. I’m a big fan (in fact I’m likely to be the only person you’ll ever meet who actually has never used a PC), but I was curious about something.

Does Steve Jobs wing it when he gives a speech? I mean the guy is one gifted speech giver. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he did.

But apparently he doesn’t. Not by a long shot.

I had the opportunity to do some work with Apple about 15 years ago and have stayed in contact with the person who hired me. (Not a big surprise-I am the Gentle Rain guy after all.) Anyway, he had a lot of interaction with the CEO so I posed the question of whether Mr. Jobs did much preparation prior to giving a speech. He replied:

“You wouldn’t believe how much preparation goes into making these speeches look completely unrehearsed and natural. The content is excruciatingly and painstakingly reviewed to make sure the ‘points’ come across. Absolutely nothing is left to chance. The preparation and the practice is the stuff behind the scenes, that very few are aware of, that makes the end result so powerful.”

So here’s something to think about…

Stories are powerful.

Stories get you remembered.

They help you develop more brand new relationships and convert prospects into paying clients.

But knowing and agreeing with those statements is worlds apart from actually developing those unique sales stories that only you can tell.

Perhaps that is something I can help you with. Whether it is training your sales team on how to develop and deliver sales stories…to coaching you one on one…to writing a great sales story for your website…please let me know how I can assist you.

Thanks and I look forward to speaking with you soon.
Mark
mark@gentlerainmarketing.com
770-643-8566

Relevant links:
Learn more about my sales training
Let me coach you one-on-one
Need a great sales story written for you?
Steve Jobs YouTube video:
Transcript of the speech:

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A Quick Tip For Creating Great Sales Stories

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

What makes a sales or marketing story interesting and motivates a prospective client to pay attention? How do we develop and communicate a message so that gets attention? The most effective sales stories are the ones that enable the listener or reader to picture a desired outcome. In other words, you need to paint a picture with your words.

Far too often sales stories are little more than a restating of the obvious. While this may be the safe path to travel, it’s not a particularly interesting one, which is why it is so important to have an opinion about your particular area of expertise.

Although that sounds perfectly fine in theory, what exactly does developing a different opinion mean? How do we do that? One of the easiest methods is to develop a system or process for implementing your particular type of solution. Thus, the opinion becomes that your process is what works. When people mess up the implementation phase, it’s usually because they fail to follow the process, or do things out of order.

Another alternative is to develop a contrarian point of view. What is the prevailing belief among people in your field? Why might that opinion be incorrect? It’s true that people are attracted to those who have a strong opinion and will tend to give them a greater look. It’s the people who get stuck in the middle of the bell-shaped curve who are ignored..

Unfortunately far too many fledgling storytellers think that they can just get away with making it up as they go along. After all, we’ve told stories to each other since we were children. Are we not taking something that is pretty simple and trying to make it complicated?

The reality is that there is a huge difference between communicating a story to your friends and telling a sales story that is designed to get you more referrals, differentiate you from the competition or help you close more sales.

To develop that type of sales story you need to start at the end. First you must determine what the point is that you want to make? What do you want your listener or reader to do once they have heard the story? That is the only way that you’ll construct a story that truly advances the sales process.

The true purpose of a great sales story is not to just entertain. It’s to accelerate the selling cycle or create an initial level of curiosity about who you are and what you do. While simply speaking off the cuff may work in social situations, a more calculated approach is what is needed in the highly competitive sales arena.

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How To Use Trojan Horse Marketing To Attract New Clients.

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

An interesting short article in SalesForceExp magazine about “What Business Are You Really In?” It reminded me about the power of Trojan Horse Marketing.

For example, on the surface one might think that your local cinema is in the movie business. But they’re not.

The movie is just the “Trojan Horse” for their real business, which is selling popcorn and refreshments. As the article points out, “Cinemas are fast food businesses that happen to offer entertainment.”

So why is this worth thinking about?

Because most services business use a straight ahead-direct-battering-ram approach when attempting to get new business.

And there’s a much more effective way that achieves far better results. Let me explain…

You’d put it more elegantly, but the general gist of most marketing messages tends to be…

Hi…If you suffer from (problem) I have a solution for you. As the leading (financial planner/executive recruiter/technology consultant/Fill-In-Your-Expertise-Here) we have extensive experience working with…(well you know the rest.)

Now there’s nothing inherently bad about that. However the problem is that everyone (or at least all your competition) is taking pretty much that same approach. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so difficult to stand out.

Alternatively, the Trojan Horse strategy approaches the target market at an angle. It may not be immediate obvious what in fact the ultimate objective is.

You see this many times with infomercials. You know, the ones that sell a $8 doo-hickey like some sort of goofy lure that fisherman can use to catch “the really big one that got away”. You’ve probably said to yourself, “How in the world after spending all this money on advertising can they make any money selling something so inexpensive?”

And the answer is…”The can’t.” (And they aren’t.)

In most cases what they are really doing is building a list of buyers of fishing equipment and then selling that list to lots of manufacturers and marketers who sell rods, reels and other fishing equipment.

There’s a lot of money in fishing.

Now they could have used the straight ahead approach, “Give me your contact information and we’ll have a lot of fishing manufacturers send you stuff you might like to buy.” They’d get the really hard core fish fanatics that way. But that’s just a teensy tiny segment of the market.

But they used a Trojan Horse, and now have a list of people who have actually bought fishing stuff.

That’s worth big bucks to others who want to sell fishing stuff, since it’s a proven list of buyers (as opposed to just those who are interested in fishing).

So how does the Trojan Horse approach work with services firms?

Here’s an example.

I’m about to launch a new sales training initiative. It’s my one day sales training program, Unique Sales Stories: How To Get More Referrals, Differentiate Yourself From The Competition & Close More Sales Through The Power Of Stories.

Now I could just create a nice PowerPoint presentation, brochure, website, direct mail campaign ect and market this to sales executives and training directors.

Might work.

But the sales training field is very competitive. Lots of programs vying for attention.

And there are a lot of heavy hitters, companies with far bigger budgets than mine who are mailing their brochures to the same people I want to hire me.

So I need a Trojan Horse.

And I’ve got one.

It’s a book. Not a eBook but a real paperbound book, published by a real publishing house -it’s even got some pictures in it. Pretty cool if I say so myself.

I wrote this book over a 6-week period of time this spring and early summer.

Was my goal to have a best seller?
Was my goal to sell a lot of books?
Was my goal to get “famous”?

Nope.

My goal is to sell a lot of sales training programs. And my book is my Trojan Horse.

Instead of doing what all my competition is doing…sending sales training brochures, having their sales reps cold call training directors and sales executives pitching their sales training programs…guess what I’m going to do?

I’m sending some very targeted direct mail and implementing other very-focused marketing to one niche market that I think has a burning need for this program. (After I hit that one market I’ve got 9 others that are on the list.)

But I’m not going to be talking about sales training in my sales letters, emails and ads.

Nope.

What I’m going to be doing is offering this very targeted and very specific audience a FREE copy of my book.

Guess how many of my competitors are doing this?
What’s their approach?

The straight-ahead-direct-battering-ram approach.

I’ve done this before, the last time I was in the training business. (For reasons I won’t bore you with I’ve been in and out of the training biz periodically for the last 12 years.) The last time I was marketing a program on how to gain access to top decision makers.

Similar model.

Wrote a book. You may have heard of it, Power Prospecting: How To Gain Access To Key Decision Makers (http://www.gentlerainselling.com)

Direct mail to partners at large consulting firms offering the book. Had a small sales team follow up with those who “raised their hands”. (Gave them a great incentive: 50% of the fee for the first training program a company bought and 20% ongoing for all subsequent sessions. With initial commissions of $2250 and then $900 for each subsequent program, my sales team made some serious money…BTW I’m offering the same sales incentive program again so let me know if you want in on it.)

The seminar went head-to-head with at least 7 other programs focusing on the same issue-all of who had been around for at least 5 years.

Using the Trojan Horse strategy we sold $1 million of training in the first 18 months.

All because my team and I were able to get attention by offering something that was “one-off” from the standard straight ahead-direct-battering-ram approach.

And I’m going to do it again.

But the really important point is…so could you.

It doesn’t have to be a book or a movie theater. What it does have to be is something creative that gets people to initially raise their hands. I’ve helped my coaching clients strategize on these and we’ve created some outstanding programs in over 17 different niche markets.

But here’s why most everyone won’t do it.

It requires a lot of thinking.

And planning.

There are a lot of moving parts.

It’s not quick…

But projects that have a potential $1 million payoff seldom are.

So what might be your Trojan Horse?

Summer is good for lots of things. One of which is planning how you’re going to grow your business in the fall.

I’m launching my Unique Sales Stories Sales training program. (And maybe helping some of you with your business launches.)

What will you be doing?

Food for thought.
Mark

Related links
http://www.gentleraincoaching.com
http://www.gentlerainblueprint.com
http://www.gentleraincopywritng.com

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This is what you need to do-every single day.

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

What you need to do every single day.

This was probably some of the best advice I ever got. Sadly, I can’t remember who gave it to me-but that doesn’t minimize how helpful it was (and continues to be).

This advice is what has gotten me through lean times…

It’s what’s gotten me unstuck when I sit in front of my computer wondering “Okay, what should I do now?”

It’s arguably, what’s enabled me to work with great clients and have a lifestyle that meets my particular wants & needs.

Here it is…

Every day (without exception) do something to promote your business.

Kind of a “duh” wouldn’t you say?

But there’s a bit more to it. And this is the important part.

What you do every day doesn’t have to be huge. It doesn’t have to be massive. It doesn’t have to reach thousands of people.

It could be something as simple as writing a letter to a prospect. (Perhaps I’m old school but with so much email, a letter that arrives in the mail does so without the competition it used to have. It means something.)

It could be something as simple as calling a former colleague and re-establishing a relationship.

It could be something as simple as tearing an article out of a newspaper or magazine, sticking it in an envelop with a two-line handwritten note and sending it to a prospect or client.

Or something else.

But here’s what it’s not.

It’s not thinking about any of the above.

It’s not planning to do any of the above when you have more time.

It’s not researching something…

It is doing something.

Just one simple thing…every day.

A wise man once said that we grossly overestimate what we can accomplish in a month, and grossly underestimate what we can accomplish in a year.

One year…365 days…each of which you do at least one thing to promote your business…stay in touch…introduce yourself to someone new.

You’ll be amazed at the relationships you build.

This is my “one simple thing” for today. (Yesterday I called two people I’ve lost touch with. The day before I mailed one letter.)

What’s your “one simple thing” for today?

Go do it…Now.

I’ll talk with you soon,

Mark

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Why Was This Sales Letter So Successful?

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Perhaps it’s just because of the nature of my profession, but I’ve long been fascinated with why one sales letter attracts a swarm of interested clients while another is studiously ignored.

This question motivated me to do some poking around and research what the most successful sales letter of all time was. The first step was to determine how we defined success. Would it be number mailed? That didn’t seem right. Just because a letter is mailed a lot doesn’t necessarily mean it is effective. What about greatest number of responses? That seemed better but simply getting people to say they’d like more information didn’t seem like a high enough bar for a letter deemed the “most successful sales letter of all time”.

No, in order to be crowned with that honor, the letter would need to actually motivate readers to pull out their wallets and spend money. Not just one person who spent $25 million on a Gulfstream but lots of people buying something. Now that would be a letter worth examining for its secrets. Imagine if we could capture that letter’s essence.

Surprisingly it wasn’t all that hard to find. What was surprising was how long ago it was written. I would have thought that with all the new information we have about buying behavior and the sheer number of excellent copywriters working today that the “Greatest Sales Letter” would have been written less than ten years ago. Apparently we don’t know as much as we think we do, since the letter I’m referring to was written over 40 years ago.

According to numerous sources the letter that is credited with selling the most stuff (to put it inelegantly) is a sales letter written for the Wall Street Journal. It’s been used on and off by them for decades and it’s been copied by numerous copywriters and used successfully to sell a wide variety of goods and services. You may actually be familiar with it. Here’s how it starts:

“Take two men. Both graduates of good universities. Both hardworking and ambitious.

Flash forward twenty years and one is in the corner office commanding the attention and respect of hundreds. The other toils amid the legions of middle managers in a largely obscured position. Why did one ascend to great heights and the other plateau so early?”

The letter to goes on to point out that one key point of differentiation was that one person read the Wall Street Journal and the other did not. Regardless of the Journal’s actual ability to elevate you to the corner office, this is one very successful sales letter.

Which raises the next question of, why? What makes this letter so effective. Why did this one, amid all the others that have flooded our mailboxes over the years motivate so many people to take action?

The answer is actually fairly simple. It tells a story. A story that is deceptively simple in the telling. In a mere 57 words we are transported from reading words on a page to visualize two men. One successful, the other considerably less. Not only does the story enable us to visualize the scenario but it also does a masterful job of forcing us to decide which camp we are in. Are we resigned to the plateau? Isn’t there more that we can achieve? What’s the answer? What’s the secret? How can we too, get to whatever level of success we most aspire to?

Unleashing this psychic visualization of desire and limits is the power behind a great sales story. The power is in its simplicity. It’s elegance is in its restraint.

Those of us who offer our services for a living often hear about “selling invisibly”. It’s an appealing concept especially when the concept of “selling” is uncomfortable. However, while selling invisibly seems like a good idea in theory, how exactly is it done?

This letter from the Wall Street Journal offers an answer. The key to selling invisibly is to tell great stories.
***
That all makes sense but the question becomes…Do you have the time to actually write a great sales letter or success story? If not perhaps I can help.

Send an email to me at mark@gentlerainmarketing.com and I’ll send you my newest portfolio of letters, sales stories and lead generation advertisements along with my current fee schedule. By this time next week you could have a sales letter or email out in the market, generate lots of interest in what you offer.

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The End Of Boring Sales Messages

Monday, May 17th, 2010

OK…The first step if you want to capture attention is to focus on a problem.

But that’s only the first step. How do we go from “mild curiosity” to having our prospect really care about the story we’re about to tell?

Care so much that they’ll give us a call?

Care so much that they’ll pay us large sums of money to solve it for them?

The answer is by communicating the consequences of not solving the problem. This is the stage at which we make our prospect start to really care about the challenge that faces the character you’ve created.

Consequences address the question of, “Why should I care?” or “Why is that a big deal?” Sometimes a form of Socratic questioning can be highly effective in uncovering the consequences of a particular problem.

Dan and Stan are in conversation. Dan is struggling to hire a salesperson for the St. Louis territory. The search has been going on for over 9 weeks and he still hasn’t found the right person.

Stan: “I don’t understand why you just don’t hire the best person you’ve found thus far. I mean you must have interviewed over 30 candidates.”

Dan: “I tried that once and it really backfired on me. If all you’ve seen is grade C prospects you’re not going to get someone who is really going to solidify our sales position in the mid-west. Compromising just isn’t going to work.”

Stan: “I still think that you’re making too big a deal out of this. I mean you’ve got the majority market share right now-what is it, 65%? That’s huge. Any warm body would have to work real hard to mess that up. I still think you’re being too picky.”

Dan: “And I think you’re missing the point. Sure, I’ve got a majority market share at the moment, but that only because our largest competitors new it wasn’t worth their time to try to muscle in while Susan was working the territory. Now that she’s gone, you know they’ll be dog-birding the new rep to see if they’re as strong. I put an ‘also-ran’ in that job and I’m going to have competitors coming out of my ears in less than 30 days.”

Stan: “Well I really I think you’re giving your competitors a lot more credit for awareness than they deserve.”

Dan: “Suppose you’re right. Suppose they don’t bird-dog my guy. Here’s the next problem. Corporate is rolling out the new products at the end of the month. If this guy isn’t up to speed by then, he’s toast when it comes to being able to talk coherently about the new stuff.”

Stan: “I guess I hadn’t thought of that.”

Dan: “If this guy isn’t super sharp I’m not only not going to make my numbers on the new product, but dollar to donuts he’ll start falling apart with the prime products.”

Stan: “True, I guess the last thing you want is for someone to get overwhelmed.”

Dan: “Yeah, I’ve gone done that road before. Once they feel that they’re in over their heads, they start to get nervous and then embarrassed that they’re not doing better. The next thing I know I’ve got a resignation notice sitting on my desk and I’m starting over from scratch.”

So let’s examine this dialogue and see how it uncovered some real and substantial consequences to the problem of staffing a sales position that Dan faces.

The conversation starts out with the problem being, “not all that big a deal”. This is the attitude that many of your prospects will have as well. Although you may think that the consequences of not addressing the problem are obvious, your prospect is likely not to be as self-aware. As a result of the ensuing dialogue it becomes apparent that there are at least three consequences to compromising and hiring only a average candidate.

1) The competition is likely to find out and as a result put a greater emphasis on gaining market share.
2) There is a new product being introduced. It will be a challenge to get up to speed on both the existing product line and the new one. Unless the new hire is extremely sharp it’s likely that he or she will get overwhelmed and be effective at neither.
3) As a consequence of becoming overwhelmed, the odds of the new rep quitting become increasingly likely. This would put Dan back in the position he currently is with the added pressure of wasted time.

It’s likely that if we allowed the conversation between Dan and Stan to continue, we would uncover additional consequences for not addressing the problem. At this stage in the development of your sales story you may find it helpful to map out the consequences section by using this form of interactive dialogue.

This “devils advocate” approach can be highly effective in uncovering consequences that might otherwise not be readily apparent. Although one could use the discussion model to communicate these consequences, that may not be feasible or practical, especially if your story is to be told verbally. This Socratic dialogue technique is often best used for uncovering the key points rather than as a method for story telling. However, if your story is being told on your blog, website or through a sales letter, dialogue can be a highly effective tool.

The story that we have developed thus far might be told as follows:

Dan Sullivan wondered to himself why with the economy so poor was it so difficult to recruit a top flight sales rep? When he started the search 9 weeks ago, he felt confident that he would have it wrapped up by now. Unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth.

“Over 30 interviews and I’m not really impressed with any of these people” thought Dan to himself.

He pulled the schedule for the rest of the week up on his computer and groaned. Hardly an open hour remained. “Maybe I should just hire one of these people and hope for the best” he considered as he once again shuffled through the pile of resumes.

His hand paused mid-thought as he reflected on what had happened the last time he had gone down that road. It had been over 5 years ago but the painful memory still lingered. “What a bust that was. Not only did he only last in the job 6 weeks, but our largest competitor instinctively knew we had compromised our hiring standards. They’d stayed out of the territory when we had an A player in place, but this industry is so incestuous-everyone knows everyone-that they rushed in once I hired the best of the mediocre. I certainly don’t want to be sitting here 6 weeks from now starting this process all over again from scratch.”

Dan’s eye turned to his Blackberry and it’s most recent message. “Update on Sniffer New Product Introduction at 3 pm Today” read the subject line. “One more reason not to compromise”, thought Dan. “This person is going to need to not only get up to speed on the existing product line, but this new product is going to challenging to explain to our prospects. Great potential, it could be huge for us, but I really need someone who is going to catch on quickly.”

Realizing he had made his decision, Dan picked up the phone and placed a call he had been hoping to avoid. “These search consultants are awfully expensive, I was really hoping to do it myself, but I just don’t see how I’m going to find the person I need on my own.”

What makes your unique sales story compelling and interesting is the layering of facts it contains. At the early stages of the story, when your prospect is still considering in their mind whether to pay attention to you, we need to make them care about what you are communicating. If you think about stories that didn’t engage you, often times the reason was because the problem they focused on just didn’t seem to be “that big a deal”. By infusing your story with the consequences that can occur we make our prospects care. And that’s a very important step since if they don’t care about the problem they certainly won’t care about the solution. And if they don’t care about that, the odds of them becoming a paying client become very long indeed.
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Want me to write a client attraction sales story for you? I’m actively seeking a couple of great clients who are the “best kept secret” in their market. If that’s you and you’d rather be well known and in high demand, email me (mark@gentlerainmarketing.com) and I’ll send you the most current PDF with a list of the services I offer and the reasonable fees I charge.

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How To Get Your Prospects To Care About Your Solution

Monday, May 10th, 2010

One of the key challenges in any sales presentation is communicating a message that makes prospects pay attention. Amid all the clutter and noise that exists in the marketplace, how do we get those with whom we most want to do business with, to pay attention to us?

Obviously, that’s a complex question and the answer quite frankly is that there are a lot of factors. But if we go to ground zero, that point where we are first trying to get attention, there is one element that we most want to focus on.

The problem. That’s what gets attention. That’s what makes people say, “Perhaps I should learn a bit more.” It doesn’t mean that they’re going to get them to hire us. It doesn’t mean that they’re going to give us money. But, the right problem, presented in a way that is compelling and intriguing, can be the proverbial spark that starts the dry brush ablaze.

However, what do most people do? How do they try to capture attention? Ironically (and mostly ineffectively) they talk about themselves. The opening salvo usually takes one of two forms. Sometimes it’s the ubiquitous, “This is what I do.” “I’m a lawyer, realtor, financial advisor, headhunter, butcher, baker candlestick-maker. “ What’s the response? Typically, “Oh.”

Those that have been to sales training 101 (but didn’t stay through the whole thing) know that this is not enough. So they confidently answer, “We offer the worlds most researched solution on extrapolating data through software integration.”

“How very nice for you.”

Answers like these are what my friend Don refers to as “Hammers in search of a nail.” Realistically how many of us really know what software integration is? Or care?

So what’s the answer? How can we make people care? One of the most effective ways is to put the answer in the context of something that I can understand. Something I can relate to. And what might that be? Simply put, it’s a story.

What stories have in common is that they address a problem. Some sort of gap between what the main character desires and his or her current state. It could be desire for love, success, confidence or any of another basic human goals. From a business perspective it could be something a bit more pragmatic: increased sales, improved employee morale or reducing costs.

The point is that if you want to get someone’s attention you need to focus on the problems that you solve. Even if the person you’re speaking to doesn’t suffer from that particular problem, by focusing on problems rather than some bland recitation about what you “do”, you dramatically increase the likelihood that they will remember you.

Let’s take the marketing consultant as an example. She could try to get attention by saying, “I’m a marketing consultant.” In one ear and out the other. Let’s try again.

She could say, “I offer an integrated turn-key solution to help my clients get more new clients.” Hmmm. Still a bit of the “hammer in search of a nail.” It’s hard to visualize what she really does. And that’s the key. We need to get what we do visualized in the person’s brain. We need for it to come alive.

So how do we do that? We need to paint a picture. We need to tell a story. Like this:

“On a fundamental level I help my clients get more new business. The challenge most of them face is that they’re the ‘best kept secret’ in their marketplace. I show them how to get more referrals by communicating unique sales stories about what they do.”

So let’s examine this last answer in a bit more detail. Certainly it’s longer and that may take a bit of getting used to. Since most everyone describes what they do in 15 words or less we feel compelled to do so as well. Resist that temptation. If you have something interesting to say, your reader or listener will stick with you.

So this answer starts by framing the topic by focusing on a large problem-getting more new clients. However, she doesn’t stop there. She immediately drills down on a highly specific problem (being the “best kept secret”) that she helps solve. She then concludes by transitioning into what she offers. However it’s important to note, that she is very specific about how she helps.

What our marketing lady has done here is to paint a picture in our minds. We can now easily visualize a problem she works on. In all likelihood she probably works on many different problems and depending upon the situation she is in, she draws upon different answers. However, each answer follows the same format of hooking attention by focusing on a problem.

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How To Make Sure Your Business Is Remembered

Monday, April 26th, 2010

As a wise mentor of mine once said, “People don’t remember facts. They remember stories.” If you want more referrals for your business the key is to be top of mind when people have a need or learn about opportunities that make sense for you. As I learned from hard fought experience, simply educating people about what I did, simply wasn’t enough. In order to be remembered, I needed to make my services come alive through the use of unique sales stories.

Now, I will admit that this is hardly new news. Sales professionals have known for years that using metaphors, case studies and stories is a time honored method for standing out amid the competition. Which then raises the question, “Why are some people so good at this while others so painfully bad?”

It’s a bit like cooking. Most of us know the basics. So why are so few of us accomplished chefs? I think that great chefs are a lot like great storytellers. The key is that they understand how the ingredients fit together. They know when to add a “touch of this” or a dash of “that”. It’s part science but it’s also part art. I’m not sure that the art part can be taught, but the science of it certainly can. What that means is that while you may never publish the proverbial great American novel you can learn how to tell a story that gets your point across in a way that is both educational and memorable.

What great chefs and storytellers also share is a process that is more similar than dissimilar. By that I mean that they both begin with the end in mind. The great chef visualizes the outcome. The succulent crispy duck or the moist three layer chocolate and strawberry cake. They don’t simply start dumping ingredients into a bowel and hope that something delicious will emerge. They begin at the end which is the same thing that the gifted storyteller does as well.

However, unlike the chef, far too many fledgling storytellers think that they can just get away with “winging it”. After all we’ve told stories to each other for how many years? I mean, can it really be all that difficult?

Truth be told, there is a huge difference between telling a story to your friends and communicating a unique sales story to a prospect that will keep you in the front of their mind when they hear about opportunities that would be perfect for you.

Thus the first question you want to answer is what is the point that you want to make? This is a bit like working the puzzle maze backwards, or beginning with the end in mind.

For example, suppose I wanted to make the point that starting an entrepreneurial venture or small business is a path best traveled by those with a burning desire for independence? Now there’s nothing particularly earth shattering about that statement. It seems like common sense and the moment someone told you it, you’d probably forget all about it.

But suppose I really wanted to make that point? Perhaps I’m doing some career coaching and I’m concerned that the people I’m speaking with may be following the self-employment path for reasons that don’t make sense for them. If I really want to get the point across, what I want to do is tell a story. Like this:

My career has really had two distinct parts to it; corporate and self-employment. I had the great fortune to work for one of the great companies in the United States, Kraft Foods. It was a wonderful experience, I learned a lot and I had the opportunity to interact with a group of outstanding individuals.

One of them was my boss, Bob Morrison who at the time was the CEO of Kraft. Probably more than any other individual he had the greatest impact on the direction the second half of my career took.

I can still remember my final performance review (although I didn’t realize that it was my last one at the time) which took place on the 6th floor of Kraft’s headquarters. The 6th floor was far different than the rabbit warrens the rest of us worked in. This was the “executive floor”. The carpet was plusher. Each office was protected by a not one, but two executives assistants. And the offices themselves, a Hollywood set designer couldn’t do a better job. On the floor where I had come from, all my years of hard work had managed to secure for me a small office, with a plant and two guest chairs. Supposedly, if I continued to work hard and succeed some day I might get a couch. Now I realize that this all sounds somewhat silly as I type this but for anyone who has toiled in a world headquarters of Fortune 50 corporation, knows, this is the stuff we aspire to.

Thus, emerging on the hallowed lands of the 6th floor (with its own security guy no less) was to travel to the highest peaks of aspiration. Anyway, I digress.

As I entered Bob Morrison’s office for my performance review I noticed that Bob was dressed as he always was with the blue button down collar shirt, red tie and sleeves rolled up over the forearms. A look that said “senior executive who gets a lot of stuff done”. He was gazing in a slightly befuddled way at a sheaf of papers which I presumed were the HR forms that accompanied (or as some said, sucked the life out of) the performance review process.

With a sigh Bob tossed the papers onto the desk in front of him and motioned for me to take a seat.

“We’ll fill out these forms later”, Bob began. “Basically Mark, I can summarize your performance in just a couple of sentences, so here goes. Mark, if you’re interested in the topic there’s no one better than you. But Mark, if you’re not interested in the topic, everyone’s better than you.”

Not surprisingly that message stung a bit. (OK, it actually stung a lot.) But I didn’t dismiss it. After I cooled down I understood the point that Bob was making. In order to have a successful corporate career one needs to have a level of flexibility. One needs to approach assignments in which they have only a modest interest with the same enthusiasm that they do for those projects which match up well with their passion. Entrepreneurs by contrast have an overwhelming desire to focus just on their passion. It’s that single-minded devotion that causes the most successful entrepreneurs to overcome all the obstacles they face. Without that passion, the chances of success are slim.

That was what Bob was telling me. He knew I had passion around certain areas. However what he observed was that when the assignment called for me to focus on other areas, I wasn’t able to let go. The passion kept calling me back. That’s the hallmark of a successful entrepreneur but the Achilles heel for a corporate executive.

So let me take a break from this story. Suffice it to say that this conversation was the catalyst for my leaving the safety and security of a corporate career to embark on something far more in sync with my personal goals.

But the real point that I am making here is that what I just communicated would most likely be remembered and thought about if I was speaking to someone who was considering a career change. Simply stating a fact such as “entrepreneurs need to have a passion” would be dismissed as simply a blinding grasp of the obvious.

Thus, when you create your own unique sales stories, think about what the point is that you want to make. You’ll find that if you do, your story will not only resonate with your listener or reader, but it will also increase that they’ll remember you for a long time to come.
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This sales letter made me a lot of money. I’d like to share it with you for FREE. Go get it HERE

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The Death Of Boring White Papers

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

Jason Cornish was a habitually early riser. As a result, the offices of Wakeman Industries were usually dark upon his arrival. Threading his way through the warren of cubicles, softly lit by the morning sun, Jason stopped for a brief moment outside his office.

He’d left early the previous day-the unopened and unread mail still in a pile on the edge of his assistant’s desk. With a sigh Jason picked up the bundle and began to sort through it.

As the Vice President for Human Resources for a $750 million diversified manufacturer, Jason seemed to be on the hit list for every consultant and headhunter on the eastern seaboard. It wasn’t that he didn’t use their services, in fact he was desperately in need of some specialized assistance, but finding just the right advisor was quickly becoming much harder than he anticipated.

One thing was certainly clear-he wasn’t going to find what he needed from his existing network of contacts. That track had been lapped multiple times. Thus, he’d put the word out three weeks ago that he was open to learning about new firms and experts. Since then, the trickle of white papers and reports that came across his desk had turned into a veritable tsunami.

“The problem”, thought Jason, “was the mind-numbing boredom of sorting through all this. Damn, can’t any of these consultants learn to write something that someone might actually want to read?”

He stared blank-eyed at a 37 page, embossed report with the grab-them-by-the-eyeballs title of, “The Integrated Implementation Of Leadership Values-How The World’s Most Successful Companies Achieve Superior Performance Through An Empowered Workforce.”

“Amazing”, reflected Jason, “could they get a title that was both more consulting-speak and yet more boringly generic? There’s got to be a real art to that. I wonder if they teach that at Harvard.”

Jason put down the report with a sigh and glanced at the pile in front of him. Something got his eye. Yes, it was another white paper, but there was something about this that caused him to pause. Perhaps it was the first sentence. It read:

“They all look the same to me” thundered Mike Sullivan to his assistant, “How in the world do they expect me to decide who to hire if they all sound, look and read the same?”

Jason reached over and picked up the report. “Now this is different”, he thought, as he settled back in his chair and began to read.

It’s estimated that less than 10% of business books that are purchased are actually ever read. If business books that someone actually pays money for are so seldom read, how small is the readership of white papers and free reports? And more importantly, how can we increase that percentage?

To find an answer we conducted an admittedly non-scientific study. Two follow up surveys to people who had requested two different free report. Let’s see how many of the reports actually got read and if anyone remembers anything about them. Although the two companies that agreed to participate in our non-scientific study offered different services, they were both in the human resources consulting field.

Off we went to see what we could learn.

In the first study we enlisted the services of a call center and placed calls to 275 people who had requested our client’s free report. We reached 195. The rest didn’t respond to repeated voice mail messages although we stated the purpose of the call. Despite positioning the call as “research”, it’s fair to guess that some percentage of them thought this was just a disguised sales pitch.

Of the 195 we talked with, a meager 23 said that they had actually read the report. Follow up questions made it clear that an additional 60% had started to read the report, but quickly gave up. That turns out to be a very significant statistic.

The subject of the report we were tracking discussed 7 mistakes that executives commonly made concerning a particular business problem. We asked the 23 who said they read the report to name 4 of the mistakes. How about 2? One? To their credit 75% of those we spoke with were able to name one mistake.

Admittedly many of these mistakes were somewhat “blinding grasps of the obvious” so it’s hard to determine whether they knew the answer as a result of reading the report, or whether it was knowledge they already had. Still, given the amount of work that this company had put into writing and producing the report, these results were sobering.

On we went to our second survey.

Our sample was slightly smaller, consisting of 226 people who requested the report. However, 101 people agreed to speak with us. Again the report’s message focused on mistakes executives made around a particular business issue. When we asked a series of similar “recall” questions, an impressive 65% could name 3 or more of them.

Obviously the second report resonated to a far greater extent than the first one. Even more importantly, the message from the second report was remembered and retained.

So what was the difference? I imagine you can guess the answer. In much the same way as our lead character Jason Cornish, introduced in the beginning of this chapter, was drawn to one of the white papers that sat on this desk-so too were our survey participants drawn to one report and not the other.

The simple difference? One conveyed facts. The other told a story.

Certainly something to think about.
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Need a Unique Sales Story that differentiates you from your competition? Send an email to mark@gentlerainmarketing.com and we’ll set up a time to talk. Please reference this blog post. Thanks!

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