One of the life experiences I credit most for teaching me about marketing was the five years I spent in sales. I came to that job in a roundabout way 鈥� a division of Wells Fargo Bank wanted a paperless office and asked me to make that happen. I knew nothing about technology (and ultimately failed to create paperless-ness) but I quickly fell in love with computers.

My boss at that company helped too, giving me some of the best career advice I鈥檝e ever received. He told me 鈥淵ou鈥檝e got to love the core business you鈥檙e in or you鈥檒l never get ahead.鈥� I hated the core business I was in (banking), so I cut bait and started trying to find a job as a salesperson in a technology company.

My first assignment was a sales 鈥渙verlay鈥� position that focused on winning more business from the current customer base. I loved it and grew revenue by 300%, but the reps weren鈥檛 happy that someone else was making money from their customers. Management didn鈥檛 want to irritate the reps, so they eliminated my position and offered me a job in marketing.

Fast forward ten years, and in another company I spent four years in charge of both sales and marketing teams.

So while I consider myself a marketer, those five years in sales helped me see that several aspects of the way we differentiate the two roles is illogical and costly.

Consider this:

1. Sales and marketing are both about persuasion. The sales person鈥檚 job is to persuade one buyer at a time, while the marketer鈥檚 job is to persuade markets full of buyers.

When I was in sales, it was marketing鈥檚 job to get a buyer to notice us, and then it was my job to persuade that buyer to choose us. This was a great division of labor, because it鈥檚 way more difficult to persuade a market full of buyers than one at a time. But today鈥檚 buyers have changed the rules, navigating 60% to 80% of their decision before they talk to a salesperson. Companies that haven鈥檛 made the shift to persuasive marketing risk elimination before the salespeople have a chance to do their job.

2. Salespeople have the opportunity, permission and training to listen to buyers before they build a strategy to persuade them. Marketers have none of these things.

As a sales rep, I learned to dedicate the first part of every sales call to listening to my buyer, gaining real insight into that account鈥檚 needs and expectations. Then it was my job to describe our solution in a way that established a perfect fit between that buyer鈥檚 needs and our product. Go tell sales management that you want their reps to stop listening to buyers before they sell to them, and they鈥檒l look at you like you鈥檙e crazy. But everyone expects marketers to do just that.

3. Sales people have to optimize their time to persuade buyers to buy now, but marketers have to optimize their investments to build pipeline for the future.

By the time I started running sales, I completely understood the importance of marketing. 聽However, it wasn鈥檛 long before all of my time and attention shifted to the salespeople. Faced with the urgency of meeting this month鈥檚 numbers, our longer-term investments suffered. I learned that it鈥檚 really difficult to balance short and long term priorities, and that marketing metrics need to focus on results that impact the next quarter or next year, even if this seems less tangible.

4.听 While there are dozens of things that every good sales person learns about each buyer, the ability to be persuasive hinges on just 5 key insights.

When I decided to help marketers understand their buyer personas, I knew that many of the things I learned about buyers in sales only worked when I had the opportunity to build a strategy to persuade one buyer at a time. It was easy to see that tracking all of these distinctions about buyers would cause a lot of confusion and far too many different strategies. So I started thinking about what really helped me to be a persuasive sales rep, and that鈥檚 how the 5 Rings of Buying Insight became the foundation of buyer personas.

5.听 Despite everything you鈥檝e heard about price, the company that wins the buyer’s trust wins their business.

The solutions I had to sell were invariably more expensive than our competition. So we didn’t win on price. We competed for the buyer鈥檚 business by being the best listeners and using our insights to persuade buyers that we were best qualified to meet their expectations. Now that buyers can avoid sales contact for so long, a lot of that responsibility belongs to the marketing team.

I think it鈥檚 fair to say that when I was in sales, we had a lot more impact on the outcome of a deal than the reps I know today. And because this change is driven by buyers who have ready access to the information they think they need, this trend is unlikely to reverse itself. It’s time for marketers to gain the deep buyer insights that have always been the foundation of successful sales.

The post The 5 Marketing Lessons I Learned From My 5 Years in Sales appeared first on 色花堂 Institute.

One of the hardest parts of bringing our 色花堂 model into practice actually comes after the project is completed.

We鈥檝e accomplished so much with the client, working with them to build clear, actionable buyer personas, and the results are spectacular. We just can鈥檛 share them with anybody.

Needless to say, marketing departments like to keep their successes close to the vest to make sure that their competitors don鈥檛 hop on board. There鈥檚 nothing I鈥檇 like more than to trumpet from the rooftops how Client X or Client Y improved their marketing content or sales results using the 5 Rings of Buying Insight, but iron-clad NDAs keep my mouth shut tight.

However, sometimes clients are so excited that they just can鈥檛 help talking.

色花堂 Masterclass alumni Samuel Williams, with his firm , was contracted by Deloitte Private, the division of Deloitte Consulting that specializes in families and small businesses, to develop a marketing plan.

The firm started by interviewing people who had recently evaluated solutions like theirs, modeling the buyers鈥� decision to uncover clear, factual insights about how they compared Deloitte to its competitors.

When Deloitte saw the details that these personas revealed, it was easy to identify the targeted messaging and marketing content that would persuade their buyers to choose them. And it was simple to help the sales teams see how to tell those same powerful stories to their customers.

Don鈥檛 take my word for it 鈥� watch this video from Deloitte head of marketing and communications Cassandra Worrall about the whole process.

Strong stuff, right? Here鈥檚 a more from Aamplify with even more data.

One of the key takeaways from their buyer persona research was that buyers had three key motivations for coming to Deloitte:

1. Help leveraging global business development opportunities

2. Heavy lifting to help solve specific challenges

3. Technology solutions to improve business processes

Armed with these insights, Deloitte Private pushed that messaging front and center to their home page, giving their digital strategy a powerful, clear call to action.

The best way to judge the power of a marketing campaign is by real-world results, and Deloitte got them. Using the tools and interviewing skills they acquired by attending the 色花堂 Masterclass, Aamplify gave their client exactly what they needed to connect with buyers without the guesswork.

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#10.聽 I鈥檓 under a lot of pressure to address high-priority initiatives and don鈥檛 want to hear about other problems that you think I should take on. I just don’t have the bandwidth.

#9. 聽 Your website has all the same useless information as your competitor’s does. So no, I didn鈥檛 spend much time there.

#8.聽聽 I鈥檝e done my research and know about many of the things that I must have to succeed. I want to know whether you can deliver on those before I go any further.

#7.聽聽 Yes, I have a budget and the authority to buy, but I鈥檓 not going to tell you that. I鈥檒l decide when I鈥檓 ready to talk to a sales person.

#6.聽聽 I鈥檓 seeing a lot of obvious stuff about value, but nothing that speaks to the way we plan to measure the success of this initiative.

#5.听聽 I can鈥檛 make this decision without persuading other stakeholders. I need to see something that helps me handle their concerns and priorities too.

#4.听聽 I will lose my job if I choose the wrong solution. I need to be convinced that you can address my specific concerns about this decision.

#3.聽聽 I鈥檓 testing your company to see if you fully understand my needs in this area and will be responsive if I do buy from you.

#2.聽聽 We won鈥檛 choose the least expensive solution; we鈥檒l select the one that is the best match for our needs.

And the #1 thing I want you to know: 聽 This decision is actually not about price or features. We鈥檒l go with the company that we believe we can trust.

Have you heard these before? It’s easy to see why companies that best address these buyer concerns have a major competitive advantage in this buyer-driven market.

Marketers are learning that they can listen to their buyers, and we mean REALLY listen, to gain the insights that drive the content those buyers want and need. They’re discovering that this level of listening can’t be done through a survey or social media, that marketers need to have a unique kind of conversation with recent buyers, probing beyond the obvious answers until they know precisely how, when and why buyers choose the solutions they market.

These marketers are building buyer personas that focus on the Five Rings of Insight about the buying decision, avoiding the simple demographic profiles that can result in too many personas or not enough useful information about them.

Do your buyer personas reveal the insights you need to address these top 10 concerns? I love to hear from marketers who have truly insightful buyer personas.

If your buyer personas are missing some of this critical information, take a minute to check out the 色花堂 Masterclass, the prerecorded training that shows you how you can become your company鈥檚 buyer expert. Or contact us to learn how you can schedule a private workshop for your team of four or more marketers.

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When marketers start with the objective to understand how buyers make the decision they want to influence, they鈥檙e building about half as many personas and uncovering insights that tell them exactly what they can (and cannot) do to impact those buyers鈥� decisions.

I think I understand the origin of the confusion. Companies have always segmented their markets by demographics (company size, industry, geography), so it鈥檚 natural to expect that personas simply extend that model to focus on the buyers in those segments.

Consider which of these data points would help you understand what you can do to persuade buyers to choose the solutions you market:

Demographics are a Dangerous Distraction
Countless blog posts and ebooks perpetuate the demographic approach to buyer personas. One marketer told me about a buyer persona training where they were advised to begin by choosing a name and a photo to represent their buyer. Other marketers are telling me about six-figure investments in buyer personas that contained endless demographic details but nothing they could really use.

I鈥檓 determined to correct these misperceptions.

Until recently, 色花堂 Institute has primarily trained marketers whose companies scheduled one of our customized workshops for their teams. Today, we鈥檙e announcing that the 色花堂 Masterclass is available on demand to any marketer, in two parts:

• Five pre-recorded modules for viewing on our website at your convenience (total viewing time is 2 hours)
• A 90-minute live interactive session that includes coaching and mock interviews

I look forward to hearing from those of you who want to become the buyer expert marketers that stakeholders trust for persuasive marketing strategies.

The post Building B2B 色花堂s? Focus on the Buying Decision … then the Person appeared first on 色花堂 Institute.

Some believe that buyer personas, which are helping to shift the B2B industry鈥檚 attention to the people who make corporate buying decisions, will have the additional benefit of blurring the distinctions that have locked so many marketers into their original career path.

If this attitude helps marketers expand their job options, this is probably a good thing. However, I believe the logic is faulty.

That鈥檚 because a marketer鈥檚 role and contribution is not distinguished by the company鈥檚 focus on B2B or B2C solutions, but by the degree of 鈥渃onsideration鈥� a buyer gives to the decision the marketer wants to influence.聽 For the most part, B2C products are 鈥渓ow-consideration鈥� decisions, where branding plays a major role in the buyer鈥檚 choice, while B2B products tend to be 鈥渉igh-consideration鈥� decisions where buyers need specific information before they commit.

The fact that levels of buyer consideration so frequently align with industries might explain the longstanding divide between B2B and B2C marketing. But there are exceptions, and the interest in buyer personas is amplifying the need for a more nuanced view.

A simple example of a low-consideration decision is the B2C buyer鈥檚 impulsive purchase of a new type of magazine or candy at the checkout counter. 聽On the opposite end of the consideration scale, however, B2C buyers make relatively high-consideration decisions when they invest in a home, major appliance, retirement plan, or private school for their children.聽 A mid-range B2C buying decision might involve planning for an upcoming vacation.

Note that this same person may have a job where she invests weeks, months, or even years on a team that is evaluating a new technology solution for her company. She also makes relatively low-consideration B2B decisions about sending members of her team to an industry conference.

I鈥檓 not saying that brand is irrelevant to buyers of high-consideration solutions, or that information is unimportant to buyers of low-consideration products. Instead, I am suggesting that there is an enormous difference in the weight that buyers give to these factors, and that this has a huge impact on expectations and investments in marketing.

By thinking about the following two factors, it is fairly easy to understand where your product, service or solution fits on your buyer鈥檚 continuum of 鈥渃onsideration.鈥� Think about:

• Your buyers’ investment in weighing alternative approaches and making a choice
• Your buyers’ opinion about the financial, operational and/or personal consequences of making the wrong decision

This distinction is important for buyer personas because marketers of low-consideration products can improve their marketing and branding decisions by identifying 鈥減ersonal鈥� buyer attributes such as gender, age, hobbies, marital status, income levels, commuting patterns, and so forth.

However, marketers of high-consideration products, services, and solutions are justifiably perplexed about how to use buyer personas that focus only on the buyer’s personal or demographic details. These marketers, whether B2B or B2C, need insight into the information needs of a targeted group of buyers as they make the decision to purchase their product, a competitor鈥檚, or to do nothing at all.聽 That鈥檚 where the Five Rings of Insight are essential to the marketer鈥檚 success.

Levels of buyer consideration also impact the marketer鈥檚 options for building buyer personas. Because we know that buyers of low-consideration products cannot reliably explain their own choices, these marketers will need to invest in sophisticated research by third-party professionals.

On the other hand, buyers of high-consideration products can and will tell you exactly how and why they made a recent decision. Marketers who learn how to conduct a uniquely structured but unscripted conversation with these buyers can uncover critical details that the buyer has not yet shared with anyone.聽 These invaluable insights are the foundation of competitive and effective messaging, content marketing, segmentation and sales enablement for high consideration solutions.

I鈥檒l give a brief overview of the buyer insights that are essential for marketing high-consideration solutions at an upcoming free webinar, , with Janet Driscoll Miller, President and CEO of Search Mojo, on November 15, 2012 at 2:00 p.m. ET.

The post What’s Different About B2B vs. B2C Marketing? appeared first on 色花堂 Institute.

A: What color did you choose?

B: How did you choose the color?

C:There are great apartments for rent right now. Have you thought about moving?

Answers vary on this selection (more on that later). But it’s clear that the question needs to follow the woman鈥檚 lead, that we would never script our conversation in advance of the social interaction. Imagine the confused, annoyed or bored response from this woman if we asked 鈥渟o what do you think about that new play that just opened?鈥�

Most people are perplexed when I ask them to conduct unscripted buyer persona interviews. These are the same people who will happily show up in any social situation, listen for threads of topics that others find engaging, and guide the conversation to mutually relevant topics.

Why not take this same approach with buyer interviews?

While it is definitely more taxing to develop questions in real time, the pressure to do so keeps us listening intently. And each time we base a question on a point that the buyer has recently made, our rapport with the other person builds. The buyer might even tell me, a perfect stranger, something he hasn鈥檛 told anyone else.

Pre-defined questions can only address topics that we found interesting before we started listening to the buyer. Worse yet, we are unlikely to learn anything new, having missed the opportunity to probe deeply on an interesting point..

This approach is especially critical for win/loss interviews. We need to get buyers talking at length about their decision criteria and process. We aren’t going to discover any actionable insights by writing down the buyer鈥檚 short answer — that we lost the deal on price and features, or won it because our sales rep is such a great guy. We need much deeper insights into how and why the company made this decision.

For instance, if the buyer told us that one of the triggers for this decision was that our solution was easiest to use, we might follow up by asking the buyer to describe what, specifically, they found to be easy. Or we might ask what level of user would find it easy to use, and what training they expected that user to need. Another line of questioning might reveal details about how they assessed the solution’s ease-of-use.

Returning to your interaction at the party, if you selected question A (what color will she paint her apartment), you have just learned that your new acquaintance likes light yellow, which might be interesting if you are selecting colors of paint to carry in your store, or what colors to feature in a marketing campaign for paint.

Question B (how did she choose the color?) is a great follow-up question, or likely your best first question, as this should trigger a story about the way this person thinks and makes decisions. This question will probably get you the answer to the color too.

Question C (did you know there are some great apartments for rent?) is changing the subject, a terrible technique when you need to build rapport, and one of the major reasons that interviews should never be scripted.

Unless you鈥檙e marketing home improvement products, you shouldn’t care about anyone鈥檚 choice of paint 鈥� buyer鈥檚 decision processes vary dramatically based on the products, services and solutions they’re considering.聽 But we want to have an agenda, perhaps three-to-five topics that we hope to explore, and not a structured questionnaire, if we want buyers to tell us what really persuades them to make decisions about our category of solutions.

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Here is an excerpt from an email sent by Bonnie Rind of (thanks, Bonnie, for giving me permission to use your questions in my blog).

• Chris feels he is floundering a bit in his job, but does he feel that his job at risk, now or in the future, if he continues to flounder?聽 Bonnie says that “if a PMM thinks he is floundering, he is 鈥� if only because people sense that he isn’t in charge.”
• His personal finances are tight. What of his company鈥檚? Do they invest in people? All people or just special people?聽 Bonnie says she鈥檚 “hoping to get a peek at how he might get some training or support to improve his chaotic work situation 鈥� if that鈥檚 of interest to him.
• Another question Bonnie asks “I always like to know a bit more about the home-life situation because I think it is very telling. Did they buy a new house or a fixer-upper?聽 Do they keep their house immaculate?聽 Does his wife do all the repairs? Do they use a dog walker?”聽 She says, “I’m looking for something that emphasizes Chris’ character in a way that is 鈥� by implication 鈥� meaningful to your company鈥檚 product.”

Bonnie and I have never met, but I went to her after I got her email and learned that Bonfire is in the business of developing personas, with an emphasis on the personas that developers rely upon for direction on product design.

Bonnie鈥檚 questions got me thinking about the depth of information that is needed in a buyer persona, and the extent to which the need for information varies depending on what we want to market to Chris.

For example, I鈥檝e always been focused on buyer personas in the context of targeting messaging and program strategies for technology products, so I hadn鈥檛 thought to pose the second question in my evaluation of Chris. Now I see that this would be a great insight for my purposes.

I鈥檓 less clear about how I would use the information in the third question, but I鈥檓 interested in discussing this point and any others. As I said to Bonnie, I鈥檝e purposely avoided some of the psychographic insights about buyer personas, hoping to stay away from topics that people might perceive as soft and fluffy. I鈥檓 concerned that we will pay a high price with our internal audiences if we stray into areas of persona information that aren鈥檛 directly tied to a decision about marketing business-to-business solutions.

Any thoughts or observations on Chris, or on the amount of info we should have about a persona?

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