Even worse, try to get an email read. First it has to get past the server spam filter, then through the spam filter on the prospect’s email client. If you get through these hoops you next need to get your email read. Then you need to get your email acted upon. It’s enough to make you want to pack in any form of industrial marketing and go join the circus.

So is there a way to get the attention of a higher percentage of key accounts? The answer is yes but it isn’t an easy thing to get accomplished. Simply customize your version of the following and you will find yourself getting in the door of your key accounts more often.

Focus on education
If you want to gain the attention of prospects in key accounts you must offer value in exchange for their time. What is most valuable to prospects in key accounts is educational information that will help them improve the performance of their companies. Your sales literature is irrelevant and will be ignored. Offer them factual and unbiased educational information and you will grab their attention. As a matter of fact, it is all about them.

Create campaigns
The key to reaching key accounts is to think of integrated campaigns rather than a series of unrelated actions. You want to utilize a multi-modal approach that integrates print, email, and the telephone. Each of your campaign “touches” should build on one another and reference each other. For example, your printed sales letter may reference you will be sending an email and attempting to reach your prospect by phone. Prospects have different communications preferences so use as many as you can.

Don’t fight reality
Accessing key accounts can be a lot of hard work and it’s important to accept this as reality. Today’s executives are overloaded with work and are bombarded with demands on their attention and time. You can expect the following.

The vast majority of your phone calls will result in you hitting voicemail. I like to view a well-written voicemail as an opportunity to get 30 seconds of undivided attention from a prospect and provide them with what is, in effect, a personalized radio commercial.

A substantial percentage of your printed letters will never make it onto the desk of your prospect. So make sure your mail looks like personal mail, keep you message prospect focused, and send several letters out.

Your emails may largely be ignored as well. Maximize your probability of success by keeping them bite-sized so they can be read on mobile devices and always focus on providing value.

Don’t get discouraged
What are the odds of picking up the phone, calling your ideal prospect, having her answer the phone, and telling you she has been waiting all her life to speak with you and wants to send you a purchase order immediately? Pretty slim, I would say. But if you want to reduce these pretty slim odds (or any odds) to zero then simply stop trying to contact her. Logical persistence wins the day and will get you in the door.

Reaching key accounts can seem to be a major exercise in frustration. You may find you need to use 10 or more contact attempts. The upside is that the majority of your competitors give up too early and that’s good news, well for you anyway.

How To Get In More Key Accounts

When I mention this risk to my industrial marketing clients many of them will say things like “Walmart seems to be doing just fine.” While Walmart and other large retailers do have vast product lines (and seem to be making a dollar or two), there are some significant differences between retail and industrial sales transactions.

A couple of obvious differences (there are many more than this) immediately spring to mind. First, the majority of items retailers sell are low cost transaction based purchases which do not have complex buying processes with multiple buyers. Second, purchasing decisions like ROI seldom apply to a high percentage of retail purchases.

The following are three ways being everything to everyone dramatically decreases the effectiveness of your industrial marketing.

You confuse your marketplace
The first problem you run into is that unless you are very careful you will confuse your marketplace. It is a fundamental truth in industrial marketing that a confused prospect is a prospect who won’t buy. It’s equally true that when faced with too many choices prospects will choose to not make a purchasing decision. Focused industrial marketing simplifies choice.

You dilute the strength of your position in the marketplace
When you think of the car manufacturer Bentley you get a very clear picture in your mind of what its brand is supposed to represent. So while Bentley may well offer various price points in their product lines (expensive to unbelievably expensive), the concept of the cheap Bentley is absurd. A cheap Bentley would really harm their brand and weaken their hard-fought position in the marketplace as a high luxury/performance vehicle. Focused industrial marketing strengthens positioning.

Your messaging lacks focus 
This is another problem you may encounter. While it is tempting to think that by simply putting together a catalogue featuring all your lines and offering something for everyone you will then gain prospect interest, this may not be so. The prospect interested in the high-end machine in your catalogue assuredly has less interest in your bargain basement option. To put this in a different way it would be like your car dealer giving you a single catalogue featuring the Sonic, Cadillac, Fiat, and Bentley—incongruous. Focused industrial marketing motivates prospects.

How can a full-line manufacturer or distributor improve their industrial marketing?
I want to stress there is nothing inherently wrong in offering a full line of products. What you want to avoid at all costs is finding your company stuck in the middle. To put this another way, “ABC Company sells 25 brands of drill presses” may not be the best position in which to find your company.

For best results your industrial marketing processes should be clearly delineated based on the price point or value you are trying to sell. What this means is the way you market your high-end products must be different from the way you market your inexpensive lines. You need to target, approach, qualify, and sell individual markets in totally different ways. You want to customize the buying experience. These markets have vastly different perceptions and needs.

As I have said for years, you can be all to everyone, just not all at once.

Industrial Marketing And Focus

Just for fun (because I am always such a fun fellow) let’s assume you are a salesperson and, wonder of wonders, you have a qualified sales lead calling your company and asking to speak with a salesperson who just happens to be you. Does life get any better than this? Well my advice is to not go buy that new car you have wanted for so long as there are many ways you can destroy the value from an inbound lead.

From the first call to the purchase order there are several points where a poorly aligned selling process will lead to disaster. Here are the chief culprits.

Initial contact with your company
On numerous occasions in the past I have written about the importance of your receptionist in positioning your company. Your receptionist is the first point of contact with your prospects and the manner in which your prospects are handled is their first indicator of what type of company you are working for.

This interaction is the first opportunity where you can build trust (and value) with your prospects. If your shiny new sales lead calls and your receptionist is inattentive or indifferent it will make a very poor first impression. While your receptionist does not need to be singing the company song and jumping up and down when the phone rings being pleasantly engaging with prospects is a minimum requirement. In this day and age of automated attendants the same principles apply to any staff member answering the phone when the caller asks to be connected with the operator.

I tell my industrial marketing consulting clients that training a receptionist to be truly effective needs to go well beyond how to operate the phone system. The actions of your receptionist need to illustrate their alignment with your strategy and marketing communications

Initial phone contact with sales       
The first contact your prospect has with you as a salesperson is what I refer to as the second first impression. The point of this is that although it is their second interaction with your company it is their first interaction with you. This phone call allows you to position yourself in the minds of your prospects. It also allows you to align yourself with your company’s strategy and marketing communications.

The key point here is that prior to this initial phone conversation you are an unknown quantity. Equally important, this phone call allows you to “set the stage” for your future selling interactions. So like the old saying goes “Start as you intend to finish.” This critical first call needs to be completely focused on discussing this particular prospect’s challenges and aspirations. As a salesperson your key purpose is to illustrate a genuine mindset of service at all times when speaking with your prospects.

This call affords both you and your prospect an opportunity to mutually decide if further conversation is warranted. Far better to go no further after a short call than to waste time on expensive field sales calls that will ultimately result in a no, or a no-decision.

Watch for part two coming soon.

Selling Success And Alignment

Now before you think I am down on all salespeople or even the sales profession as a whole please read the following. The vast majority of salespeople are hard-working dedicated professionals who are obsessed with improving the condition of their prospects.

But then there are the minority of salespeople who persist in the belief that the road to sales success come from blathering on and on about their products and being selfish. It is to these primitive salespeople I address the following screed.

If you are getting less than stellar results from your sales activities and want to improve the results your salespeople are getting when attempting to convert your prospects into customers simply be certain your salespeople know the following.

Selling is not about you
The key to selling more successfully is to realize that the sales transaction is not about you. This is possibly the most difficult selling concept for underperforming salespeople to internalize and act upon. Selling is 100% about meaningful conversations with prospects that clearly identify their specific problems and aspirations. These conversations must be one-sided with the salesperson listening about, oh, 98% of the time.

Selling is not about your product
This is a statement that causes all kinds of consternation. The fact is that successful salespeople know they are not in the products business they are in the results business. If you are an underperforming salesperson you need to brand this critical distinction backwards on your forehead so you can view it in the mirror every morning.

Selling is not about price
There are companies in the commodity business who are in the low price derby and can’t get out. Sorry about this but in this case only there is not much that can be done. Unfortunately there also are companies who unnecessarily put themselves in the low price derby through poor selling practices. It’s an old story but a true one. It’s all about value. The more value salespeople bring to prospects the less significant price becomes in the purchasing decision.

Selling does not have to be complicated
Salespeople can easily learn a customized consultative sales system in an afternoon. In less than a week they will dramatically improve their results, gain access to higher-level executives and, stop being pounded down on price.

Sales success really is this simple.

Everything You Need To Know About Selling

Take five minutes and fifteen seconds to tune up your industrial marketing by watching this video and you will discover a better way to sell in today’s marketplace. As I have told my manufacturing clients for years,”When you stop selling your products at first you will start selling your products at last.”

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Video: Why Selling Your Products Dooms You To Industrial Marketing Failure

As Napoleon said, “Ability is of little account without opportunity.”

Take three minutes and fifty-five seconds to watch this video and you will discover what is making industrial marketing such a chore today and three things you can do today to start getting better results.

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Video: One And Done Industrial Marketing Gets You No One

Fishbowl Inventory is an order management solution that has two new software features that could really benefit manufacturing businesses. These new features are multi-currency purchase orders (POs) and UPS Ready integration.

Multi-currency

Manufacturers often purchase parts and materials from a variety of vendors in different countries. That means they have to work with several currencies, which could lead to problems when it comes time to balance the books and pay taxes. Fishbowl Inventory’s new Currency Module will solve this problem by allowing manufacturers (and other business types) to:

• Add as many currencies as they need
• Update currency exchange rates
• Generate POs in any currency they have created
• Attach a currency to each vendor

These multi-currency features will be limited to POs when they are released later this month, and they will be available in sales orders and other areas of the software in the future.

UPS Ready

It’s important to get products to customers as quickly as possible. To do that, it helps to have instant access to shippers. Fishbowl Inventory is now UPS Ready certified, which means that when an order comes in, you can do the following things without having to open a Web browser or leave Fishbowl’s interface:

• Compare estimated costs of using different shipping methods
• Print UPS shipping labels for packages
• Request pickup services from UPS
• Email packing lists and tracking information to customers

Fishbowl Inventory is one of the few inventory solutions to offer multi-currency features and UPS Ready integration in addition to its comprehensive manufacturing feature set. It can help you track orders, manage inventory, and stay on top of your manufacturing operations.

Two New Order Management Software Features Geared Toward Manufacturers

Well, no, actually.

As you all know, to never fail simply never try. This is, however more than a bit unrealistic for those of you in business. You will not get far sitting on your hands and letting all of the changes in your marketplace float by. We are all of us living in a time of radical change. This remains true whether you are the CEO of a multi-billion dollar manufacturing company or running a manufacturing concern with a handful of people. Radical change is also having a profound effect on every facet of industrial marketing.

If you seek to improve your industrial marketing you must be willing to embrace failure. Although on the surface this may seem like a strange comment on further reflection it does make a great deal of sense. If you think of virtually every new activity you participate in it is unusual to think you will have it mastered the first time.

There is a learning curve you must consider whether you are learning to ride a bicycle to putting together a multi-channel prospecting campaign.

So how do you tie this all together in terms of any industrial marketing campaign?

First, accept the fact that there is always the possibility your campaign could fail. Anyone who says that an untested industrial marketing activity will work with 100% certainty is lying. You need to carefully weigh the probability of the activity you have in mind generating a negative consequence. You also need to consider the seriousness of this negative consequence.

Second, as I have written many times over the years, make a firm company-wide commitment to test small and fail fast. Don’t ever bet the company on a roll of the dice. Testing an industrial marketing campaign takes time, costs money, and is totally worth it.

Third, live and die by the data. I am continually amazed at how long otherwise rational people will persist doing something that is clearly not working. Remember what Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” If the data says it isn’t working then accept this as a truth. Don’t deny reality.

Fourth, make changes and retest. Small changes can make an enormous difference to the success of an industrial marketing campaign. Always change only one element at a time.

The key to never failing is to fail often, fail small, learn from your failures, and make the necessary adjustments. This may seem like a contradiction but it’s true.

Now an experienced industrial marketing consultant (hint, hint) who has gone through the learning curve can be of great help, shorten the time to a full roll-out, and increase the odds of success in any industrial marketing campaign you may be considering.

Never Fail Industrial Marketing

So let’s assume you have an amazing product or service but, due to a lack of customers, you can’t grow your company as fast as you would like. All you need to do is form an alliance with a company that currently has lots of customers and you’ll soon be rolling in the cash on your secluded tropical island. What could be simpler, right? Well it’s a little more difficult than that.

In order to form alliances and make them work it’s best to remember the following.

When approaching a potential alliance partner it’s imperative to understand that size does matter. If your company is considerably smaller than theirs then your alliance partner may perceive that working with you is a great risk. You need to allay their fears with strong performance guarantees and demonstrate willingness for graduated access to their customer base.

Another key point is if your product does not have the potential of making a substantial contribution to their bottom line then your product may not be even remotely of interest. The truth of the matter is the last thing any alliance partner needs is another product cluttering up their warehouse. You need to prove to them that you know how to market and sell your products effectively and are happy to actively participate and show them how.

A third critical fact you must keep in mind is that in many instances your alliance partner will not sell nearly the kind of volume that you expect or that they promise. In some cases when forming an alliance there can be a period of exuberance where large promises are, somewhat innocently, made. In fact sometimes your alliance partner may exaggerate their marketing and selling capabilities just to get their hands on your products.

The simplest way to avoid this trap is to ask other suppliers about their experience with your alliance partner. If you are the only supplier in a potential alliance, then be certain to ask for and enforce short performance assessment periods. It may also be wise for you to look at any sales projections with a cold eye.

Gaining access to new customers through alliances is one of my favourite industrial marketing techniques. When managed well alliances can dramatically increase your rate of growth. As the beneficiary you need to be realistic and realize that much of the success will come from their access to customers and, more importantly, your industrial marketing prowess.

How To Improve Strategic Alliances

This leads to a dangerous trap for all of you trying to improve your industrial marketing through content marketing—taking the thought out of thought leadership.

So, how does one take the thought out of thought leadership?

When thought leadership is contributing to the noise rather than diminishing the noise you have taken the thought out of thought leadership.

I believe true thought leadership must add value and not be a rehash of what is already out there. This seems to be the biggest challenge of all for industrial marketing professionals. While it may be an overstatement, you may well have noticed that many companies are producing content that at best is a variation on a theme and at worst is adding nothing new.

The result of this can easily be gleaned for anyone with even the slightest bit any industrial marketing knowledge. The result of undifferentiated content is no different than that from an undifferentiated company, commoditization.

Here are two of the more obvious examples.

If I read another piece of content extolling the virtues of marketing automation software I really don’t know what I will do. I think most anyone can grasp the essence of marketing automation software without having to plow through yet another piece of content. Think autoresponder on steroids with sophisticated analytics and prospect-behavior based lead nurturing capabilities that informs you when certain online activities have occurred and that pretty much explains it. Perhaps saying a totally hands free way of converting prospects into leads is an even easier way to explain it. Greatest thing since sliced bread, we get it.

Another equally tedious subject is content marketing. As with so many other areas in business it becomes tremendously over-intellectualized. Here is my take on content marketing in one sentence: Produce and make available unbiased and educational content for prospects that aligns with where they find themselves in their buying process and helps them to make quality decisions. Do we really need a library of information being produced about content marketing on what seems to be a daily basis?

As you know, prospects are drowning in a sea of information and over-communication. In my opinion a great deal of thought leadership out there is the equivalent of throwing prospects a bucket of water—the last thing they need. If you want to produce content be certain it creates clarity and cuts through the marketplace noise.

If the content you are thinking of producing does not cut through the industrial marketing noise and offer your prospects unique value or a unique perspective then don’t bother. Remember your Marketing 101 lesson, if everyone is saying the same thing then nobody is saying anything.

Taking The Thought Out Of Thought Leadership

Take a minute to watch the breathtakingly incompetent Smith and Jones have their encounter with Mr. Foley and you will see firsthand the danger of taking the R out of R&D. To paraphrase, if you think market research is expensive, try market ignorance.

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Video: Market Research Is Good

Fortunately there are some things you can do to improve your industrial marketing results and give you a fighting chance against low price competition. Check out the following video:

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Video: Dealing With Low Price Competition

Follow these four steps and you will soon see better results from all of your direct mail campaigns.

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Video: Improving Direct Mail Response

Well it is the biggest challenge in marketing full-stop. It is also the same challenge that manufacturing companies have been trying to overcome since marketing began. The main difference between now an then is now this challenge is more difficult than ever to deal with.

To find out more and a simple way how to overcome this challenge simply watch this video.

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Video:The Biggest Challenge In Industrial Marketing

Step one to lead nurturing is to commit to sending our useful information to your prospects. The less promotional and the more educational your information is the more welcome and read it will be by your prospects. If you do nothing but send out promotional information save your time as it is not what your prospects want at this early stage.

One lead nurturing option you have is to chiefly stick with email. So when you talk to your prospects and they tell you they do not have any near-term opportunities simply ask them if they can be added to your email list. You then can send them out useful information on a bi-weekly or monthly basis. This can be easily done with the incredible variety of autoresponders and marketing automation software. You also can track if it is being read.

If you really want your lead nurturing activities to stick out like a sore thumb consider adding your longer-term prospects to a mailing list. By this I mean old-school postal mail. Before you say it, remember, it is only junk mail if you are sending junk. If you take the time to mail our valuable information your mail will be both welcomed and read.

So what should you send? My response to this question is it depends. It depends on how strongly you want to differentiate your company and what lengths you will go to do so.

So if you are in a very conservative marketplace and you are running a very conservative company then sending out a tip sheet or a case study each month may be all you should do.

If you are running a company that is less conservative you might want to consider sending out useful educational information in less-traditional ways. One of the best ways to do this is through the use of a one to two minute video.

You can send a link to a fairly traditional corporate video by email, in a postcard, or with the old tried-and-true sales letter. For those of you more daring souls you can send out a more outrageous video and really get recognition and buzz in your marketplace. But even if you choose the outrageous option be certain your video clearly makes a single point that resonates with your prospects.

Industrial Lead Nurturing

The same principle applies to the menu of products you are utilizing in your industrial marketing activities. Lots of products may give the appearance of heft but ultimately they work against you.  Lean and mean also works best for industrial marketing. Pare your menu down.

In some industries extensive product lines are required. Obviously there is nothing inherently wrong in offering a wide product line (although an 80/20 assessment followed by some serious cuts to your product lines would save you a bundle).

While, like one of Chef Ramsay’s restaurants, a large menu of products can make your company more expensive to operate it will cause additional problems.

Here’s why.

When you market your company by first presenting a large menu of products to your target market it often has the not so wonderful effect of creating confusion in the minds of your prospects. A confused prospect will often choose to do nothing. This is the least desirable course of action if you have any hope whatsoever of selling your products.

Here’s what to do.

If you want to add power to your industrial marketing you are far better to take the time to first consider what constitutes the main problem or aspiration in your marketplace.

Surveying your marketplace will give you a good general idea of what your prospects want to avoid or to gain. Once you have done this the next step is to come up with some kind of lead generation asset that will get their interest in your company. This could be a report, tip sheet, video, teleseminar, or a webinar. This is, of course, standard two-step lead generation.

The next step is the one that is often skipped but will dramatically increase your rate of success.

Simply create and promote a fabulous lead offer that makes it easy for your prospects to become first time customers. Where possible this offer should be focused on helping them solve their specific biggest challenge or meet their most-desired aspiration. One thing you could do is provide an onsite assessment. You could charge a nominal amount or make it a free assessment.

When you survey your marketplace be sure to ask them to tell you what lead offer they would find most interesting.

Once you have a more complete understanding of their particular situation form your free assessment you will then know exactly what to offer. Instead of presenting your prospect with a menu of 20 product choices present them with three or fewer (one may be better). Make it easy for them to choose and they will choose you. And isn’t that what industrial marketing is all about?

Improve Your Industrial Marketing

While all of us know that selling in today’s fast-paced marketplace can be challenging getting to know and understand the biggest enemy to sales success is the first step to closing more sales.

But first you need to avoid some of these common misconceptions.

The biggest enemy to sales success is not substandard salespeople. In my industrial marketing consulting activities I encounter numerous salespeople who are average at best but consistently outsell their more highly-trained counterparts.

The biggest enemy to sales success has little to do with the product being offered. Products of varying value and utility are being sold in enormous quantities this very minute.

The biggest enemy to sales success is not competition. There are many small companies out there with a good winning percentage against much larger competitors.

The biggest enemy to sales success is not price. Unless you are offering an undifferentiated commodity and trying to charge a massively premium price or are always selling to purchasing agents the lowest price is not imperative.

So what is the biggest enemy to sales success?

It is the status quo within the prospect’s company.

It is far easier for companies to either not change suppliers or to stick with their current substandard solutions. If you fail to realize this key factor you will seriously be limiting your rate of growth.

When designing your marketing and selling activities it is imperative that the earliest stages revolve around identifying and expanding the costs to your prospect by maintaining the status quo. Many of your prospects may never have considered there could be anything wrong with their current solution. It is your job to ensure they understand that as Ronald Reagan said “Status quo, you know, is Latin for ‘the mess we’re in’.” You need to show them there is a better way and you have it.

Other prospects are fearful of change as they have not had to change in the past. For them making a purchasing decision can be complicated and fear-inducing.  In that case your selling activities need to illustrate that you have a simple step by step method to guide them through their buying process. Reassure your prospects and make it easier for them to buy.

The Biggest Enemy To Sales Success

While I am quite well-versed in the various online marketing techniques I think it is important to consider the needs of your specific audience. In other words where do they go for their information? Your painstakingly crafted lead generation campaigns are strictly focused toward online media you may well be missing out on a lot of opportunities.

Drop the misconceptions about your target market
One of the most dangerous misconceptions any industrial marketing professional can hold is because they spend endless amounts of time online their prospects do the same. Now at the risk of starting a firestorm I believe it is important to point out that most of the key executives I know in manufacturing spend very little time online. Their time is largely taken up with meetings, strategic thinking, and taking care of the innumerable fires that crop up on a daily basis.

Drop the misconceptions about media selection
The second aspect is that while anyone who believes that online marketing is not important is foolish, anyone who believes online marketing more important than any other type of marketing is equally foolish. There is a time and a place for online marketing, for offline marketing, or for both. As the old saying goes “your results may vary.” As always, you need to test various forms of media to determine what works best for your company. Remember, smart industrial marketing professionals know it’s all about optimization. Test small, fail fast, modify, discard, or roll out.

They won’t bite without the right bait
If you want to catch a particular type of fish you will get best results if you use a particular type of bait. Your prospects are no exception. Let’s say you decide to use direct mail for lead generation purposes. You get 1,000 company brochures printed up, stuff them into envelopes and mail them out. Within a few weeks you are mortified to discover that you did not receive a single response. The conclusion you arrive at is that direct mail does not work. Your conclusion is incorrect. Direct mail does work but you need to use the right bait.

Write a sales letter with a link to a special report or video that solves a particular problem that drives your target market crazy and you will then be fishing with the right bait. Your lead generation campaign will be successful and you will then arrive at the correct conclusion that when done right direct mail really is effective.

Industrial Marketing And Lead Generation

Shock and dismay overwhelm you and you wonder how it is even remotely possible that such a grand alliance has resulted in such a poor increase in your revenues. It might be cold comfort to read this but distributor dysfunction happens with disturbing regularity. There are, however, a few things you can do to minimize the chances of distributor dysfunction keeping you from the growth you desire.

Assume that you are more excited than they
When you formalize an agreement with a distributor that is much larger than your company it’s important to understand that you are likely much more excited than they are about the opportunity. If your company is particularly small or relatively unknown you may well be perceived as dust on their windshield. Don’t be disappointed by this but accept it as reality.

Assume you are number 50 on their line card
It’s wise to assume you are number 50 on their line card and come up with a plan to help you increase your relative importance. If you manufacture Joe’s Drill Bits and your distributor has the distribution rights for Milwaukee Tools it should come as no surprise to you that your distributor in unlikely to be overly concerned about you.

Assume they can’t market your products
One of the best ways to have a distributor market your products is to tell the distributor you will spearhead (and possibly finance) the marketing of your products. I know this may seem counter-intuitive but if you want to control your own destiny and rate of growth you must manage your own marketing.

Assume they can’t sell your products
It’s very worth your while to offer sales training to your distributor’s sales representatives. While they may well have their own sales techniques, they need to understand your sales techniques. To put it another way, if their sales representatives are ultimately an extension of your sales force they must use the same techniques that you utilize in your own company. Additionally, you must be prepared to send your salespeople out with your distributors for pioneering work or for sales calls on key accounts.

I like to tell my industrial marketing consulting clients it can be very beneficial to view distributors primarily as a superior access vehicle on the basis of geography or their pre-existing business relationships and contacts.

Ultimately distributors have access to the contacts you need through the strength of their relationships. If your aim is to grow your business this is a start but the rest is really up to you.

Getting More From Your Distributor

Video will hit the mainstream as a marketing tool
I believe one of the most profound changes in industrial marketing is going to be the growth of video as one of the primary ways of distributing content. While it might be a (slight) exaggeration to say we are rapidly moving to a semi-post-literate society I believe it is hard to overstate the significance of video.

There are a few things that are driving this trend. First, the cost of video cameras is plummeting. You can get amazing HD quality from cameras costing less than $500. If you want to produce simple talking head videos for use on company websites or on YouTube you can purchase an HD webcam for less than $100. I use a Logitech C920 webcam and shoot full 1080 HD video with a quality that is amazing.

Second, the cost of storage is plummeting. While this is not so significant if all you are doing is uploading videos to YouTube, it is very important if you are hosting your own video. It’s now possible to get unlimited storage hosting packages for less than $25 per month.

Third, there is plenty of bandwidth and great adoption of high-speed internet across the majority of the country. The old days of huge buffering times and choppy playing of pixelated 256k videos loaded with artifacts are long behind us now. Most of your potential audience can stream HD video with great ease.

While producing video may seem intimidating there are many options available to you to make it relatively stress-free. For those of you who are concerned about memorizing your lines you can use voice-overs or produce screencast videos. There is also no shortage of budding actors eager to produce a portfolio of work who will work for very reasonable rates.

If you decide to go on camera yourself you will soon discover the videos in which you are being genuine instead of “acting” will rapidly gain acceptance and help you build your business.

If you are interested in discussing corporate video production be sure to contact me and I will offer you some helpful suggestions.

Video And Industrial Marketing

As with so many trends, it can be easy to overdo things and not really think things through. What you may well have noticed is while many industrial companies have bought into the old adage that content is king some of these companies are producing too much irrelevant content which ultimately hurts their brand.

The following is a simple way to make content work for your company and maintain its relevance.

Develop a content marketing plan
Prior to embarking on a content marketing campaign it’s always wise to come up with a plan. Start by developing comprehensive personas for each audience (specific buyer types by function), you seek to reach and ultimately influence.

Commit to spending the time necessary to create true three dimensional personas. What do they want to achieve? What are their major frustrations? What are the risks to which they expose themselves by maintaining their status quo? What do they need to know to make wise purchasing decisions?

Produce relevant content that follows your content marketing plan
There is no sense in having an excellent content marketing plan and not bothering to follow that plan. The key to producing relevant content is ensuring it is tightly focused around the specific needs and concerns of every member of your audience.
Prepare a content map that answers the likely questions being asked by each audience during every step of their buying journey. Give great thought to the first stage of the buying journey which is when your buyer is blissfully unaware they have a problem.

Utilize multi-modal content
Your content does not need to be restricted to downloadable PDFs. You can use printed content, CDs, audio, and, of course, video. Your buyers usually have visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learning style preferences. For example, when I was at university I rarely attended lectures as I was not an auditory learner. I was a visual learner and much preferred reading as my learning style.

In an ideal world you would repurpose each content asset to meet each preferred learning style. For example you might have a downloadable report, a printed report, audio podcast, and a video which all cover exactly the same subject. While this may not be possible for each content asset it is a good idea to have some content available in each style.

Run your analytics
It’s imperative to have accurate statistics on all of your content. Accurate analytics will help you make wise decisions based on the only input that really matters, that being your marketplace. Here are just some of the questions that can be answered by accurate analytics. What content distribution is most effective? Which content is being most consistently consumed? Is your content meeting the needs of your marketplace?

Ultimately, it is your analytics will reveal what your audience views as being relevant. Be sure to listen to what you are being told and make the necessary adjustments.

Content Is King But Relevance Is Queen

The answer is no. In fact if you keep the following three rules in mind when selling you will get better results than the vast majority of salespeople out there plying their trade in the industrial marketplace.

It’s not about you
The first rule of successful selling is to realize that it is not about you. It is, without exception, completely about your prospect. I have never been able to figure out why salespeople believe a sparkling personality, a practiced patter, and a sincere smile are all that are necessary to succeed as a salesperson. These same salespeople tell you that salespeople are born not made which, in the vast majority of cases, is simply untrue. I can’t tell you the total number of people with absolutely no selling skills whatsoever I have trained over the years who ultimately became incredibly effective salespeople.

The more time a salesperson spends asking well-thought-out questions and truly uncovering the problems and aspirations as revealed by the prospect the more likely the sales call will succeed. Good questioning can easily be made systematic and repeatable.

It’s not about your product
Another common misperception is that comprehensive product knowledge is all a salesperson needs to succeed. If you have ever endured the pain of a sales presentation based solely on product knowledge you will know that product knowledge is not the killer app for selling. I have seen salespeople cobble together presentations in which they revealed they had more product knowledge than the engineers who designed the product in question. I have also seen these presentations fail, repeatedly.

This is not to say that product knowledge is not important. Good salespeople really know their stuff. Great salespeople realize that they need to only present the specific product features and benefits that will allow prospects to eliminate their problems or achieve their aspirations.

It’s not about your closing techniques
Oh man, the takeaway close, the puppy-dog close, the Ben Franklin close. We all know about these closing techniques. Your prospects also know about these closing techniques. There are few things more offensive to an experienced buyer than a manipulative salesperson using time-worn closing techniques. Jedi mind tricks are great, if you are in a Star Wars movie, otherwise, not so good.

The best way to close a sale is to simply ask your buyer how they would like to proceed. Shocking and horrifying, isn’t it? If you have done a good job with your questioning it’s very likely they will be asking you what the next step is to move the selling process forward.

Simple Selling Rules

Ever get those mysterious phone calls, emails, or letters asking you to provide product information, or worse, an RFP with little or no detail? If you take the time to respond to these requests more often than not you are nothing more than column fodder. Someone in the prospect’s company has been asked to be a good boy or girl and get the obligatory three quotes and your company has made the list. Now you feel compelled to participate.

Wait, not so fast. Before you spend valuable time and money putting an RFP together you need to consider the following.

The first thing I suggest you do is to review the percentage of past RFPs that you have won. If you could participate in an RFP and the incumbent wasn’t protected, and all of the participants had exactly the same information, and if all of the websites provided essentially similar educational information, and if all things were equal, and there were only 3 participants, and each of the three participants had equally skilled salespeople, then you would have a one in three chance. There are, however, a lot of ifs to consider.

Next, calculate the time spent putting your RFP together. I am often surprised at how many companies seriously underestimate the amount of time they spend putting together an RFP. In my experience it is not uncommon for 20 to 40 hours to be spent on an RFP. If a single staff member is paid $1,000 per week (not including benefits or any other company contributions) then the RFP is costing between $500 and $1,000. Add in the additional costs for additional staff time and it’s easy to see that RFPs can easily become quite expensive.

Now that you have a good handle on your historical win rates and you know how much an RFP costs you can make an intelligent decision. After all, if RFPs for projects with an average potential profit of $10,000 typically cost you $1,000 each, and you win one out of every six RFPs, then each won RFP actually costs you $6,000. Now for many companies that may make participating in RFPs unattractive. Only you can decide.

The trick to winning first place in the RFP derby is to realize that for many companies RFPs are a waste of time and money.  After all, you can’t lose if you don’t play. Frankly, if you really want to increase your profits then you need to get involved in the buying process long before your company ends up on the RFP list.

Win More RFPs

Today’s over-communicated and over-worked buyers afford an opportunity for those manufacturing companies that produce commodities. As always, what you need to do is to try to see past the visible into that which is occluded or opaque.
What are some of the techniques you can use to differentiate your products and minimize the hit you will take on your margin?

The simple answer is to increase the value in your business activities. You may not be able to create a completely better option for your prospects, what you can do is create a different option.

Market differently
Be certain to change the focus in your marketing from products to education. I know I have written about this many times in the past. I want to assure you I am not bereft of ideas. The fact is that two step lead generation worked well in newspapers, the radio, television, the web, and now in the brave new world of social media. I have never seen education-based marketing not work really well in every one of my industrial marketing consulting clients.

Always remember that your prospects are doing the majority of their early stage buying online long before they would even consider contacting your company. By marketing unbiased and really useful education on your website and with any of your outbound marketing activities you will quickly reposition your company as merely being a supplier of commodities.

Sell differently
Another way to lessen commoditization in your products is to change the focus of your selling process. By structuring your selling process as a way of differentiating your company you will change the perception that all you are offering your prospects is a commodity. There are two steps to accomplishing this.

First, think through how you might help your prospect improve the performance of their business as a result of using your product or as a result of specialized knowledge you have. Your prospects, like you, are working in brutally competitive environments. They sincerely appreciate performance enhancing advice from potential suppliers. If you can tell them how other companies are improving their performance either directly or indirectly as a result of using your product you will dramatically reduce the perception that you only sell a commodity.

Second, don’t sell like so many of your competitors and you will not be perceived as being the same as your competitors. As always, consultative selling is the best way to go. Questions that uncover problems, reveal consequences, followed by presentations that are tightly-focused on showing how your products reduce or eliminate these specific problems are the way to go.

If you want to stop selling a commodity then don’t market and sell like your competitors. Show them how your company can uniquely add value, and then add value.

Stop Selling A Commodity

I had been working with this particular client on putting together a plan they could use to get over a million dollars of financing from their US parent company. This was the third time they were attempting to get this financing and it was imperative that they received these funds in order to stay solvent.

Part of the plan was putting together an executive summary of my plan as a PowerPoint (shudder) presentation. My clients gave the presentation, got the financial backing from the US parent, and we had spent a month or so implementing the early stages of our marketing plan and could see it was getting traction. Yes, I remember this day with great fondness—mission accomplished, done and dusted.

As we were sitting there having a quick coffee break a young lady came into to boardroom. She was quite excited and said, “Guess what guys, it all arrived!” I sat there with a slightly amused look on my face which was eradicated in about 30 seconds by her next actions.

She proceeded to put a series of about seven or eight full colour 8.5” x 11” brochures, five or six full colour sell sheets, and a couple of full colour pocket folders. She then told she had just had all of these designed and printed in town. I would estimate it was probably about $15,000 in printing and design to complete the job.

Well now, that changed my good humor real sharpish like because at that time my company was in the design and printing business. Man I could have kicked myself in the posterior. There was at least $4,000 in profit to my company sitting on the boardroom table.

When I asked her why my company was not invited to bid on the printing and design work her answer was one I will never forget. She simply said “You didn’t tell me you did design and printing so I did not ask.”

Let’s just say that was a mistake I never repeated. As an old sales manager once told me, “Never forget to scrape the change off the table.” In this case the change added up to about $4,000 in profit. My biggest sales mistake was not being certain to find out all of their needs. Learn from my mistake. I sure did!

My Biggest Sales Mistake