Skip to main content

How to Make Networking Easy

 If you’re like me you find the whole idea of networking stressful. Walking into a room of people, making small talk…but over the years I went from terrified to networking champ. Here’s one strategy and one tactic that will make all the difference.

 Let’s take the awkward out of networking. In this video, one strategy and one tactic that will make all the difference. Networking, if you’re like me, the whole idea of networking it’s just awful. Maybe you don’t like small talk, maybe you find yourself under a lot of pressure, “oh, I have to get the leads, I have to close a business, I have to meet new people” Maybe you just don’t like meeting people, maybe you don’t like people, I don’t know, whatever it is you don’t like the idea of networking, and I think the problem is we put a lot of pressure on ourselves when we think about the concept of networking. But, the truth is, if you’re a professional today, and if you run your own business, or you’re a senior or executive manager, you just got to get out there and meet people, it’s what it’s all about. And even more important today than five years ago, because we’re so insulated from others, technology has done that, so the moment you actually meet someone is an important moment. So, how can you make it a more comfortable experience for yourself so that it’s more fruitful?

The first thing I think we need to do is eliminate the word networking from our vocabulary because it’s loaded, let’s think about it as something else, let’s think about it as cross-pollination. So, being these wonderful little creature, and they alight upon a flower, and they pick up a little pollen and then they fly to another flower and drop some pollen off, picking up some more pollen and going to another flower and repeat the process. They make honey, we get fruits and vegetables, it’s a great deal, it works for everybody, and that’s really what the concept of cross-pollination is, works for everyone, work for you and everyone you interact with in a room.

I’ll give you a really good example; I was recently seated next to an attorney who was clearly at the end of his career, and I thought to myself, “oh my goodness, this is rather awkward. The chances that he might refer business to me or vice versa are slim to none” What to do? So, in this situations the first thing that I do is I ask a question, because asking question takes pressure off of you, and I actually was genuinely interested about his area of the law, the environment, New Jersey is a toxic waste dump, and sometimes I drive down the road and go “Wow, that’d be a really cool building to have my office, I’d love to buy it” and they I think “It might have toxic waste beneath it, how would I know? How could I be really assured that there wasn’t a former dry-cleaning plant beneath it?” So, I began by prefacing my question to this fellow with my genuine curiosity, and he just opened up, and he was so pleased to be asked a question about something that he had spent his career working at, something that was of interest to him. You know, the question betrayed a desire for a little bit of scuttlebutt on my part, I wanted to learn something I couldn’t ordinarily find on google. He heard that in my question and he answered that with something you wouldn’t have been able to “easily” google, some scuttlebutt, some insider knowledge about his domain, and that was very cool. We had a wonderful conversation, and a great interaction, and a “Hey, I learned something”.

But, here’s the thing, I can take what I learned from that interaction and take it to my next conversation. If go into a meeting with a client or prospect in an ancillary or similar, or parallel, or maybe the same domain, I could be more informed when I ask them questions, or if I’m in a room with people who all have similar backgrounds, I can move from that question and answer interaction to the next one informed and say “hey look, I heard over here from that fellow that thus and such happen, what do you think about that? Did you experienced the same thing in your work?” and thus, you become the queen bee, or the hostess with the mostess, or whatever. You can move from one conversation to the next asking questions and getting great information, and really engaging in a meaningful way, and that’s how I got myself comfortable in networking. Whoops, did I use that work? Networking? No, cross-pollination.

 New Videos Every Monday

Shortening Sales Cycles B2B

 If you’ve been experiencing longer sales cycles when selling B2B you are not alone. A recent Harvard Business Review article tells us why and provides a solution. Read the Harvard Business Review Article: The New Sales Imperative:

Business to business sales cycles have gotten longer, now we know why and we have a solution. Business to business selling and marketing has always been a challenge, always. You had to find a guy in pain and you had to convince the guy in pain that you were the right solution for them, and then you had to convince the guy who signed the checks that you were worth the value, and they were all the busybodies came into the sale and you had to position with them so they wouldn’t put the Kibosh on the sale. Well, the internet changed a lot of that, and very famously people started pre-shopping, and there was a famous statistic that people were 70% of the way through the sales cycle before they even called you, and a lot of folks in the business to business environment are starting to beefing up their web presence, this was the right thing to do to start getting your website to sell for you 24/7 365 and position with everyone in the buying committee, so that they could pre-shop and make a decision about whether to speak with you further, they could also make a decision not to speak with you further. So, your website and your market positioning really had to work very hard for you.

But then something else happened, and it’s been written about in a recent article in a Harvard Business Review, that article is linked below, I strongly recommend that you read it. Here’s what happened; the buying committees were from about five and a half people to nearly seven people, they got larger, and all that fabulous information on the internet just bogged them down because there were more people now wringing their hands risk-averse trying to get to the right decision. Meanwhile the guy in pain is suffering and you there have the solution, but you can’t get the committee to by.

So, how do you solve it? Here’s what you need to do; your salesperson needs to have a different set of skills, they need to sell prescriptively, really amp up the consult of selling. You need to act in many ways like Maitre D’ at a very fancy restaurant calling over the wine steward, your subject matter expert to explain the wines, and then perhaps bringing up a sous chef to explain the hor d’oeuvres. So, your salesperson really has to be orchestrating, getting the right people in front of that selling committee, and having conversations with all of the members of that committee throughout the entire process. Every action you take now has to move the committee to action, it has to make it easier for them to act. Your marketing messaging and your marketing materials have to speak to everyone, this has been the case for a long time, but now it’s super important that you really explain and broaden out what you do, make it understandable to a broader group of people.

Just think about it, especially if you’re selling in a tech space complex technical product, finance guy is just not going to understand what it is that you’re selling and why it’s a value to the organization. If you provide that information on your website, and in sales materials, and in PowerPoint presentations, that person will be grateful to you and more likely to trust you than other folks.

[03:56] Okay. So, larger sales committee in the weeds, get them moving forward with better marketing communications and prescriptive selling, and you will begin to shorten sales cycles. I hope you like this video, please subscribe, please ring the bell so you’re notified of the next video, and please download that Harvard Business Review article, it’s so worth the read, and please put your comments below, I’ll respond to them with videos in the upcoming weeks. Okay, until next time, have a great business day.

Stop Talking To Yourself!

 The single biggest problem every business selling b-to-b has and the one thing you as the owner can do to make sure you get out from under it and put your company on track to succeed.

The key to success is handed to you the minute you stop talking to yourself. When you’ve been inside of as many businesses as I have over the last three decades plus, you begin to see commonalities and there is one thing that 100% of the businesses I’ve been inside of have in common, and it’s really dangerous, and that is that they’re talking to themselves. Here’s what I e by that; you’re stuck in an office in an office complex, surrounded by a parking lot with a lot of cars, and you go into your office and you see your colleagues every day, you see your boss, or maybe you are the boss and you see your employees every day. Maybe you’ve just come back from a conference, you think you’ve done great, and that’s great, and then you talk about how great everything was, and how great you are, and how terrific you’re doing, but your sales are still not great. So, maybe you’re not doing so well. But, you have these ideas about who you are, “we’re just the best at service, we’re the market leader, we do it this particularly peculiarly different way that everybody loves” but your sales are still bad or could be so much better, or maybe they’re flat, but you’re just not performing.

Here’s the deal; talking to yourself happens when all you talk to are your colleagues and your offices mates about your business, and you don’t speak with your customers. Now, going to one trade show or conference is not going to do it, because there you can have all the excuses in the world and feel really good about yourself, and “gosh, this brochure was really popular” and “this backdrop looked really terrific” That’s great, you can feel really great in your branded shirt, you can feel terrific, but that’s not speaking with your customers. Here’s what we do to kind of break out of that talking to yourself that businesses get into.

We make a list of all of your customers, we find maybe 10 that we want to talk to, then we make another list of all of those prospects that didn’t close and we take maybe 10 of those, and then we make a list of the customers that got away, the ones that fired you, and hopefully there’s not 10 of those, but if there are we take 10 of those. Then, we make a list of questions, and the questions are things we would like to hear from the customers, and then we interview them, this is very important, and very special about how we do this. Our client introduces us to the customer via email, and then we make the appointment directly with the client or prospect, or the one that got away, and we assure them that the interview is completely confidential. They can tell us anything they want, they should think about us as their criminal attorney, they should leave nothing on the table. When it’s anonymous— It’s confidential, right? so when we present the data to our client about this conversation it is anonymous. So, when the client or the prospect, or the one that got away is assured that what they say will not be identified with them, they become very honest.

Now, these interviews can be extraordinarily insightful. We have found new revenue channels, we have found real difficult problem areas for our clients that we can then help them solve, and they can work on solving themselves. We’ve also discovered new competitor that our clients hadn’t even considered, and sometimes there are new technologies. The other thing that we’ve discovered is inflection points, what was the need that they had, and sometimes that’s a big surprise for our clients. But, let’s get back to those new revenue channels. If you have a good person interviewing they’re going to probe, and they’re going to ask questions to the prospects like “That sounds like a pretty big problem, would you be willing to pay to have someone help you solve it?” You know, I can’t tell you how many times the answer is yes, then we can go back to our client and say “add this service and people will buy it, they’ll love you for it, they’ll be so relieved”

So, that’s how you stop talking to yourself, you break the cycle. Try to find somebody to do the interviews for you, preferably someone how is a good professional interviewer. Who might that be? I’ll tell you who that is; business reporters, journalist. One of the things for me is that I was trained as a journalist and hey, that really helps the ability to probe and ask questions that get those really golden nugget answers for our clients. So, stop talking to yourself, find someone to help do your interviews, do them confidentially, and reap the rewards.

Okay, if you liked this video, if you liked this channel, please subscribe. Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, your preferred social platform of choice. Please leave comments below, because I want to hear from you, and I’ll do videos responding to your questions and comments. Until next time, have a great business day.

Inbound Marketing Does NOT Work

If you sell B-to-B do not count on Inbound Marketing to fill your pipeline with qualified leads. It simply does NOT work. Here’s what does.

Whatever you do, don’t lead your marketing strategy with Inbound Marketing. Let’s cut to the chase, inbound marketing is BS, it’s completely wrong headed, and it’s been pervaded by the likes of HubSpot and marketers for the last five years, and the bottom line it just doesn’t work. If you’re looking at your strategy as Inbound Marketing “to deliver leads, then you contact the leads, then you close the business” you’re going to be working for a really long hard time spending a lot of money and heartache, it’s true. Actually, if you start with inbound, you’re starting at the back end, you’re starting at the wrong end of the process. Here’s why, if you’re selling business-to-business the most important thing about selling is getting that facetime, there’s no inbound marketing tool. If you start with that first, that’s going to get you to that meeting. Trust me, I know, I’ve been there.

Here’s where you start, you start with the Face time. “ah, what a concept”. So, when I look at a budget, when I look at a company selling BtoB, when my team starts putting together a marketing plan for our clients that sell BtoB, you know where we start? We start at FaceTime, we start a conference, and we love the smaller conferences where there may be 300 or 400 people, and you can sponsor and be the big guy on campus, maybe sponsor the breakfast or the breakout, and have a nice little table there, remember to stand in front of the table. But there, while you’re at that conference standing in front of the table, you can connect with people, you can talk to people, you can begin to build their relationships, oh my god, you got face time, that’s what you want!

And then you use all of the social media tools, you use email -because email is social media- you use Instagram or LinkedIn, whatever your chosen social media is for your market, to tether your relationship with that individual that you’ve had Face time with at the conference, and then you’ll get the deal, you’ll get the meeting that will help you close the deal, okay? Don’t rely on inbound marketing because folks, it just doesn’t work. Start with face time. So, when your considering your marketing budget, look at all the possible conferences, all the potential, where can you get in front of an individual for real live conversation? Start there, and you will be incredibly successful in bringing a new business to your company.

Okay, I hoped you enjoyed this video, I hope you enjoyed all the videos, we’re going to have tons of them here on the channel. Please subscribe, please hit the little bell, follow me on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, I’m everywhere. And until next time, have a great business day.

How to get a Great Professional Portrait: Tips by Top NYC Photographer Bob Krasner

If it’s time for a new professional portrait make it SUPERB 

This week’s video shows you how! I go on location with renowned NYC photographer Bob Krasner to learn from him what makes a great portrait. Watch how he works a miracle with this old bird — then grab his tips and work with your photographer to make your portrait FABULOUS!

​How do you make your professional portrait look marvellous? Even if you’re grey and overweight. When you look like this and your professional portrait looks like this, it’s time for a new one, even if you’re a little greyer and heavier than you’d like to be, because you know, the trend is not going to change on that anytime soon, so you might as well just get a grip and do it.

So, how do you get to a great professional portrait? How do you get to a portrait that shows you as someone other folks would want to get to know and engage with? That’s a problem we’re going to solve in today’s video, and I’m super excited because I called on my old friend and colleague, Bob Krasner. He’s our go-to photographer here at Camere, and he’s shot presidents, philanthropist, actors, musicians, and he’s been published in Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, and Town & Country. So, you know, doesn’t get much better than that.

Bob and I met in New York where he lives and works. The first step to a great portrait is getting out of the studio and going to a location that will give your portrait some more interest and tell more of a story about you.

Bob: To create a portrait you really want to show something in the person that says kind of who they are, and you have to make sure that you’ve have the basic’s, you have good lighting, you got to have a nice composition, you don’t want to have anything in the picture that doesn’t belong there, and you don’t want anything that distracts from the person. You want to make sure that the background either frames the person, or it has a nice, pleasing texture. But, it’s not so much in focus that it’s distracting from the person’s face.

Deb: I’m reminded of that picture you took of Demise. Demise works at Camare, she’s director of operations. You were in central park, and you would think that in central park you’d have some rolling vistas, but you took this incredible picture, you got here in a tunnel. It was the light behind her— the lighting on her face was extraordinary, but that wonderful circle, almost a halo around the back of her head, the shot is very interesting and what a beautiful portrait came out. It wasn’t what I would’ve expected when you said “meet me at central park” you know?

Bob: I’m going to agree with you that the picture did come up fabulous. That bad lighting in the picture can totally backfire on you if it’s not handled correctly. You want to make sure that the person is placed in such a way that it enhances the picture, it doesn’t distract.

Deb: I think it’s amazing how you get people to calm down in front of the camera.

Bob: You know, it’s a matter of getting people to trust you, because they have to feel like you know what you’re doing, first of all. I mean, the basic advice I would give to anybody who is having a portrait done in anyway, no matter who the photographer is, is they need to trust the photographer, because if they don’t trust the photographer, no matter how good the photographer is the pictures are going to be terrible, because the person is going to be twisted, or contorted, or they’re not going to let down that wall between them and the camera that you need to kind of break down to get a nice picture of somebody.

Deb: Okay, we’re off to do a photoshoot of me, and we have a wonderful assistant sage behind the camera who’s going to shoot some of it, and I’m really excited and kind of nervous, but Bob is going to call me down. We’re going up to the highline, and we’ll show you how that all works out.

The highline is an abandoned elevate railway that’s been transformed into New York’s most popular park. High above the street it offers unique vistas, great light, textures and backdrops. Add a great photographer and baby, you’re a star.

A quick word about glasses and transition lenses, if you wear them and you’re going to shoot your portrait outside, they’re going to turn into sunglasses. So, I went to my optometrist and got the same frames, they’re not filled yet, they will be filled for my prescription, but for the portrait they’re much clear obviously. So, you can see the difference. Okay, on to the portrait.

Today with the internet there’s so many uses for photography, and it’s important to know how your imaged will be used. One of my used would be for the banner art of my YouTube channel, and that means I need some space over my right hand should to accommodate text and design. So, be sure to think through how you will use your image and your portrait, and discuss that with your photographer before you set out on your shoot.

Oh my god, bob asked me to put my foot up this way, twist that way, lean towards the camera, and here’s why it’s really important to trust your photographer, because even though those kinds of poses may feel weird, they look great in camera. The one think about bob is that he feels relaxed, here we are in a super crowded park and it’s not a problem. Bob and I work in really high pressure and dangerous corporate shoes, and he’s always Mr. Calm and focused, and that’s so important when you have seconds to get this shot, and it’s really critical for a professional photographer. When your photographer is relaxed, so are you.

Even our assistant sage and had her moment in front of the camera, let’s watch how Bob gets comfortable, relaxed, and gets that shot.

And here are the results of my day in the park. Authoritative, friendly, a captain of industry. My grey hair and assets, my extra weight, are non-issue. I love, I’ll take it.

So, in a nutshell; trust your photographer, consider the clothes that you’re wearing, something or upside dark, you said. You said dark tones. Consider the location so it tells a story, and trust your photographer. So, if any of you are in New York call Bob, his link is below. Also, if you liked this video please subscribe and follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. And you can follow bob on Instagram, he’s got two wonderful Instagram Channels, and we’ll link them below too. Until next time, have a great business day.

The Power of Inflection Points in B2B Marketing Strategies

Hi There!

Today I’ll talk about THE POWER OF INFLECTION POINTS in B2B Marketing Strategies. Do your products and services answer your customer’s pains during their inflection points? I want to hear your thoughts!! Enjoy the video!

The power of the inflection point, hmm. An inflection point is the moment when your customer or your client experiences so much agony that they determine they need a solution, and hopefully, that solution is your product or service. That’s why it’s so important that you understand that inflection point.

Now, for consumers inflection points are fairly linear and easy to predict, fairly. For instance, graduating from high school and choosing the right college or right choice after high school, there are a huge number of decisions, little ones around that lifetime inflection point that require outside support, getting married, having a baby, an enormous number of businesses have built around this lifetime inflection points.

But, if you sell business to business, it’s not as neatly linear, and it gets a little more challenging. What it really requires is that you understand your customers market place better than they do, you anticipate issues that are going to cause inflection points before they do, you know the run up to that inflection point for your customer. So, examples of inflection points in business to business would be market consolidation, market deregulation, market regulation, commoditization, disrupt of technologies. All of these things would cause agony and pain for a business owner, and if your product or service solves these and answer these pains, then you really need to know when they are going to happen, and that means you really need to understand in a very nuanced way.

So, do your market research, go to conferences, read white papers, watch what’s happening in your customers marketplace so you can identify those inflection points, anticipate them, and present your service or product right at the moment when your prospective customer needs you.

Okay, thank you for watching. If you like what you see here and are going for the big time, please subscribe and hit that little bell so you now when the next video is coming up, and follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn, and Facebook, and all those great places. Until next time, have a great business day.

Google Paid Search vs Facebook Promoted Posts

Hi There!

Google Paid Search vs Facebook Promoted Posts — both are incredibly powerful, but which is best for what? Take four minutes to watch and save yourself some heartache!

Google AdWords vs Facebook Promoted Posts, which to use when? There are a million thing you can spend your money on when it comes to online advertising, but today we’re going to talk about the two behemoths. Google versus Facebook. Google AdWords and remarketing or it’s also known as retargeting, versus Facebook promoted posts and display advertising.

Let’s start with google first. It’s the most mature platform, and it’s really a cool platform because people go to google with intent, they go with the intent of solving a problem or doing some research, they are taking action simply by being there, and once they found the solution they’re looking for, they intend to take action. So, if your Google paid search Ad responds to the query that the prospect has made, and the landing page really brings it home, they have more greater likelihood of converting, because they intend is to take action, cool.

Now, google remarketing, google retargeting, once the prospect lands on your website, it places a cookie on the browser, and then your ads follow your prospect all around the web. There is good news and bad news about that, the good is that they’re seeing a lot of your ads, the bad is they rarely click them, display ads are traditionally the poorest performing ads online. So, you’re not going to necessarily keep them back to your site, but if you keep your expectations that this is a really great and inexpensive form of branding, you’re good.

So, that’s Google paid search and remarketing or retargeting. Let’s take a look at Facebook. Facebook is a different creature all together, people go to Facebook to check up on their communities and their friends, so when you advertise, it’s largely interruptive, you’re interrupting their intend, they want to check up on their friends and there you are, Bam, you’re the price of free, you’re interrupting them. But, the cool thing about Facebook is that it allows you -because we’ve given them permission- they know everything about everyone, and it allows marketers and advertisers to go in and super micro target special interest, all kinds of groups. No other platform is so powerful in term of targeting. So, Facebook is really great for expanding your brand to folk who don’t already know you, just don’t have high expectation about them taking action, remember, you’re interrupting their day.

Display advertisement in Facebook is largely the same, so we think about it, and I’m saying on both sides very generally, there are people, groups and businesses that can do quite well advertising on Facebook. But, in general, given its interruptive nature Facebook is really more of a branding tool than a tool that actually gets conversions in the that you can really get conversions from AdWords.

Alright, I hope you found this informative, if you like what you hear here please subscribe, share the video with friends, follow me on all the other places you can follow me, hit the little bell so you get notified of the next video. Until next time, have a great business day. Thanks, bye.

Searching for sales success with Google Adwords? Here’s the key…

I promised a video a week — and so far, so good! (If you’re “Going for the Big Time” it helps to be consistent!)

This week: A lot goes into a successful Google Paid Search campaign — but there is ONE THING most folks NEVER do — and that one thing can make all the difference! In less than four minutes you’ll learn how to do it too!

Google paid search, is it one big rip off? You go to google AdWords, you go to the keyword tool, you get a whole bunch of keywords, you create a campaign, you throw some budget and a month later… Bupkis.

There is a lot that goes into a paid search program to make it successful, but the most important thing is the one most people completely overlook, and that is that google is the ultimate collision of an algorithm with humanity. If you’re just looking for words from the keyword tool you’re relying on the algorithm alone, you’re not looking at the human element.

So, before you even being your program, this is the key thing that you need to do: Think about your customers inflection point, that is the moment where they are in so much agony that they go looking for a solution, and they go to Google to do the research to find the solution. Now, think about how they frame that pain, think about how they articulate it, how they expressed it. Now, this isn’t as easy as it seems, you have to really listen to your customer.

Let me tell you a quick story that exemplifies some of the complexity. Let’s make a believe that I have a diner and I sell green eggs and ham, and everyone on two know Deb’s diner has the best green eggs and ham. But, when tourist come to town I never see them, why? Well, because if you’re from the south, you call it Chartreuse Eggs & Pork, and if you’re a lefty from Berkley California you call it Ova & Oink. Okay, this may make up half of my market and I may lose them because I’m not using Ova & Oink or Chartreuse Eggs & Pork.

I want those customers, don’t you? So, here is your assignment; you and your team, and your sales people, and your customer service people, give them all a big stack of post it notes and ask them all for the next 30 days to listen really carefully to the customers that they are speaking with, and to write down the exact words used by your customers to describe the problems that they’re having, the exact words. Then, take those post it notes and put them all up on a wall in the office, at the end of the month you’re going to have some really exciteful keywords, and you’re going to have the human element, you’re going to be able to augment that keyword tool with some really good, juicy, powerful search terms.

Please subscribe, please hit the bell so you know when the next great going for the big-time video is posted, follow me on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, the works. And until next time, have a great business day.

New Videos Every Monday

Going Up? You’ll be with this New Elevator Pitch!

 As promised here’s your Monday dose of sage advice. This week: Your Elevator Pitch — If Aunt Sophie Doesn’t Get it You’re in Trouble! This week’s vid is shorter and even more entertaining than last week! Enjoy!

(…and with your help I’ll claw my way to Youtube stardom! Please subscribe!)

 Elevator pitches! For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept, let me explain it, it’s a good one. You’re on the 14thfloor of a skyscraper, you step into the elevator and the doors close, then you go down one floor, and on the next floor the doors open and in walks the perfect prospect, that’s they guy you want to close. He walks in, he stands next to you, and you have exactly 13 floors to the lobby to explain to him what you do. That’s an elevator pitch, and if you’re in a high-speed elevator, you have to talk fast.

But what happens with people in elevator pitches is that because they know they have to be very short, and condensed, and tight, they tend to use a lot of insider lingo, insider market lingo and acronyms that really make the elevator pitch only comprehensible to that one perfect prospect or to a finite group of people even inside their client companies. Now, I have always said that you really need two kinds of elevator pitches, the second is what I call the Family Party Picnic Pitch. Can you say that three times fast?

Now, for the Family Party Picnic Pitch, you need a pitch that explains what you do to aunt Sophie. Now, just because she’s old and you know, a little grey, doesn’t mean she’s a dummy. She wants to be proud of you, she wants to brag about you, she wants to talk about you when she plays Canasta with her friends. How would you explain what you do to aunt Sophie? briefly, without talking down to her, making her understand what you do, and sharing the excitement you have about your job and what you do about your company, and what it does, and its purpose. Sharing that with enthusiasm with aunt Sophie, so that when aunt Sophie goes to her Canasta party she can brag about you and tell all of her friends around the table what you do, and why what you do is so great. That’s the Family Party Picnic Pitch.

Okay, you may say “Really? Aunt Sophie is not going to get me any business”. I wouldn’t bet on that, aunt Sophie has friends and they’ve got kids too, and some of them are good looking, you never know what could happened. But alright, what’s my point here? This is the deal; if you can explain what you do to aunt Sophie, the you have just broadened out what you do, your explanation, your pitch, to the entire committee you’re selling to inside your client companies. Why is this important? Because that committee has gotten larger over the years, and there are people in that buying committee who do not understand exactly what your company does, and they are often the guys who sign the checks. They need to know too, they need to know what you’re doing, and they need to know without all that extra lingo. That’s really important.

You’re also explaining it to your employees, because your employees have families too, and they want to be proud of the company they work for, they want to share what they do with enthusiasm, they want their family members to tell other people about the great things they’re doing, and they can’t do that with an alphabet soup of acronyms. They can do it with clear, concise communication that broadens what you do to the general public.

So, elevator pitch, great. You can get all alphabet soupy on that. But, Family Party Picnic Pitch, bring it down to the basics, communicate it out, and make your family and the greater public proud of what you do.

Okay well, we have some juicy downloads for inspirations. I’ve created a guide and it’s down below with some example of elevator pitches Family Party Picnic Pitches. If you’ve enjoyed this video please comment, subscribe, follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook. Until next time, have a great business day.

New Videos Every Monday

1

How much should you spend on marketing?

​How much should I spend on marketing? No one likes the answer to this question because the answer is… it depends. There are three marketing metrics that when you take them individually are a good guide, but when you bring them together, they get you to a really meaningful number. The three metrics are Percentage of Growth Revenue, Market Message Saturation Budget, and the Investment you’re willing to make to Achieve your Business Objectives. So, let’s get started

Percentage of Growth Revenue. This has been around forever, and it’s a very general number that is based on surveys across lots of different markets. But, if you’re selling business to business that number is, wait for it, 5% to 10% of your Gross Revenue. Okay wait, do I need to get my resuscitation paddles and jolt you back to life? There’s always a moment where the person on the other side of the table is just keeling over. Do I have you? Good, just stay with me. 5% to 10%, caveat here, that’s just to maintain in the market, okay? That’s not to do anything special like become a market leader, that’s just to stay where you are.

The second metric, Market Message Saturation Budget. This one is fun. Let’s make belief you have all the money in the world and you want to saturate your market with the message, let’s go shopping and find every opportunity for you to get in front of your customer. So, the first place I like to look is events, facetime is golden, let’s look at every event in your marketplace and see what would cost to get a small booth or a table at that event, and bring people there. Open up your spreadsheet, put that number in. Now, look at Google paid search, think about 30 or 40 keywords people might search on, put it in that Google pricelator tool and see what the maximum inventory is, and how much you could spend maximum for month. Google is happy to tell you that information, they really are. Do the same thing for Facebook and for LinkedIn, and check out the associations that your clients are members of, you might want to buy some sponsorships, go to some of the events, maybe buy just one of those old fashion print ads in there if they have a print publication, put about half dozen full-page ads in that spreadsheet too.

Okay, now we an astronomical number, but it’s a really good reference point because it tells you the out of boundaries of what it cost to absolutely saturate your market, and guess what? In the process, you’ve become a really educated consumer of marketing opportunities, you know what things costs, and that’s really good, because when your competitor is out there and starting to show up everywhere, you’re going to have a really good idea of how much they’re spending on marketing.

Okay, let’s bring it all home to you. What do you want to get out of marketing? What’s your business objective? If you’re like a lot of businesses there’s this bubble over your head right now, and inside the bubble are the words “Fill the pipeline with leads” Well, yeah. That’s a very laudable objective, but it’s really super tactical, and I urge you to think more strategically. So, let’s take that example, “fill the pipeline with leads”. What are you really doing when you pipeline with leads and you close them and you bring new business in? Well, if you’re doing it well and you’re doing it consistently, you are gaining market share. That is strategic objective.

Okay, that’s good. Think about what the value would be to take your company from sort of the middle of the pack to the position of facing number two, threatening the top person in your market place, the top competitor in your market place. Would that make you a really tasty acquisition target? Oh, you bet it would. And would that bring greater value to your company than just simply the bottom line sales number? Absolutely. That’s shareholder value. Now, think about, what are you willing to invest to get that value? That’s your number.

Now, prove your number out. Prove it against that 5% to 10% of gross revenue, is it closer to higher end of that number? Then okay, you’re probably in the right place. What about the market message saturation budget? Then okay, you have something to work with. Now, I’m not saying that this number is going to be perfect, you may need to make some adjustments. But, with those three metrics you have solid realistic guideposts that will get you to a number that’s meaningful to you.

Okay, you don’t have to do this alone, there’s a guide linked below, so please download it, and subscribe, click the bell, and follow on Facebook and LinkedIn. Until next time, have a great business day.

New Videos Every Monday