How to influence
All human activity involves selling: whether influencing a movie choice or a proposal of marriage, your success will depend upon a blend of social skill and advocacy.
In business our ability to influence is no less important. However, our natural skills are frequently impaired by business systems and a lack of personal contact. It is sad fact that we tend to ‘lose our humanity’ when we don the corporate suit.
Examples:
1. Only the foolish would approach someone in a social setting and without introduction launch into a sales speech. But telemarketers do it all the time.
2. Interruption is generally considered rude but interruption advertising is ‘fair game’.
Real business success can be achieved by retaining our humanity and leveraging well honed social skills to influence others.
How corporations get it wrong
Most marketing communications plans focus on getting pre-determined messages ‘out’ to the target market. It is like a military operation. The timing of Direct Mail, eMail ‘Blasts’, PR, advertising, media coverage is all pre determined. And once the markets have been ‘softened up’ its time to send in the telemarketing ‘shock troops’.
No wonder response rates are pitiful. The problem with this approach is that it is not holistic and unsustainable. Just like a military operation your target market is left traumatised and at best indifferent to your next approach.
If your business proposition is complex, the ‘military campaign’ approach is particularly damaging. You may still win business from individuals and organisations ‘entering the buying cycle’ but you are unlikely to build up a sustainable pipeline. The whole cycle will have to be repeated (with another campaign theme) next quarter.
As an acid test ask your marketing team what their email open rate is. Forget the ‘industry standards’, they are adversely affected by large ‘batch and blast’ email campaigns.
Frankly anything below 20% is pathetic.
How you can get it right
Response rates are significantly improved when organisations communications are personal and designed around normal human dialogue. Experiment with the following dialogue stages and see how your response rates (and revenues) grow:
Engage
We have all met a bore at parties: someone who constantly ‘talks over’ people, is not interested in the opinions of others and soon sends guests fleeing to the furthest parts of the room. Take a look at your current communications. Are they one way diatribes? Full of corporate messaging; filling the reader in on all your benefits? If so you are in danger of becoming a corporate ‘bore’. And prospects are likely to run a mile.
Popular people take a real interest in those around them. They try to see the world from the other person’s point of view.
In the corporate world, focusing on customer’s needs and preoccupations will initially attract and engage the reader. Identifying subjects of immediate concern will keep your prospects interested.
And of course, intelligent copy helps. Would you be reading this if the title had been: ‘How to Sell More’?
Maintain Interest.
Ever had one of those awkward situations where the conversation just dries up? Normally when that happens people drift apart feeling somewhat dissatisfied. In a business situation you have just ‘burnt’ an opportunity.
Once you have engaged your prospect you need to back up the initial good work by keeping things relevant. Stay on message and develop the conversation from the customer’s point of view. Allowing the customer to explore all the implications of an issue helps to quantify the size of the problem. It also gives you an indication of the potential value of the deal.
Let the customer build up a compelling business argument; it saves you time. But be on hand when they are ready to buy (ever noticed that you never felt ‘sold to’ by a really good salesperson?).
Provide Proof
Humanity is hard wired to enjoy the telling of and listening to stories. From tales passed down generations through to the latest Hollywood CGI blockbuster, all tales perform two functions. At one level they entertain at a deeper level they inform. People love stories. It is how we learn about the world around us.
Too often corporate Case Studies are formulaic and dehumanised, focusing on fact rather than the emphasising the human story behind challenges overcome. Even the description of the Case Study library is dehumanised: ‘Marketing Collateral’. Often what sets companies apart is not the product or service supplied it is how the solution was delivered.
Take a look at your current Case Study set: ‘Same Old Same Old’? How different is your material from your competitors? Try a re-write of some of your best successes. Focus on the human story behind the business problem. You will find that your ‘collateral’ transforms into a good read and a tacit recommendation.
Isn’t that what Case Studies are supposed to deliver?
Credible Follow up
Soon your customers and prospects will be enjoying the dialogue you have structured for them. Don’t ruin all that hard work by ‘dropping the baton’ as nurtured leads are passed to sales and telemarketing.
Imagine building a mental picture of an organisation only to have your preconceptions smashed by an insensitive telemarketing call.
Building personal dialogues into your campaigning is a strategic process. Everyone has to be involved and ‘buy into’ the new approach. Telesales staff will need briefing, training and practise. Picking up an email or web based ‘conversation’ and continuing it over the ‘phone takes skill and intelligence. Your telemarketers must be familiar with all the material the customer has read, be able to answer questions and engage in meaningful conversation.
One to One dialogues on a commercial scale are possible
Technology and techniques have been developed which enable truly engaging personalised communications to be managed on a commercial scale. It may require some investment, training and restructuring of existing assets. If you would like to view or discuss some case studies, get in touch. If you have ‘experimented’ with personalised dialogues, disagree or have other comments, please feel free to comment.
Kind regards.
Mark Grey
Posted: October 27th, 2009 / 4 Comments /
4 Comments to How to influence
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The theory is great. Practise is more difficult. Anyone know of a software system that can do all of the above automatically, because I don’t. What is being suggested takes a lot of time and investment in materials. Which is why I suspect organisations fall back on the traditional campaigning approach.
And I don’t believe it can do that much damage: after all, if everyone is doing it?
Biggles on
October 27th, 2009
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Social comments and analytics for this post…
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uberVU - social comments on
October 30th, 2009
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Well really
Interesting point you make, very well thought out.
Outsourced IT on
January 28th, 2010
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Thank you Outsourced
MG1 on
February 5th, 2010