It’s not that defaming marketing people that work directly for companies will be of any sales benefit to those of us on the other side. Each company makes their decision to hire firms based on many different reasons. However, understanding why outside firms are almost always more effective having not come from industry specific experience may help to tell whether or not is a good idea to do marketing in-house. To simplify, here is a very specific list of reasons that will probably apply to most companies and maybe help marketing companies better understand what companies need despite what they think they need.

1. “Inside Baseball”

• Knowing the intricacies of a product or service and the dynamics of a competitive market often blinds marketers to the real reasons people buy. In other words, a firm grasp of specific differences can cause people to ignore the things that matter to the buyer and replace it with technical differences. This is a very common occurrence and is very damaging to the ROI of a campaign.
• The longer someone has participated in a given industry, the more likely they are to rely on personal knowledge in place of real time data. Natural tendencies play a part in all of our lives but in marketing, they are killers. As markets evolve so to must the tactics used to engage them. Operating from a base of knowledge that is rooted in years of experience is counter-productive. New résumé tag: I know nothing about what you do!!!

2. “Personalities over Performance”

• Let’s face facts; it is much easier to fire a “firm” that under performs than it is to fire an employee we see on a daily basis. Most CEO’s I deal with tell me in private that working with their company will be a challenge specifically due to their staff. Translation; they are bad and I know it so good luck. Final approvals for things like copy will usually flow through these people. There is no better illustrator than reviewing the changes they recommend. It becomes easy to see why their marketing efforts have failed when copy changes are written so poorly, you wonder if they are just giving you a hard time. Oh, the stories I could tell!

3. “The internal struggle”

• People that excel in marketing do not bend to the will of internal pressure because they trust their own skills. Unfortunately, this is almost never the case. Most internal marketing departments are given “direction” or “advice” from department heads that still think the “where’s the beef” ads are cutting edge marketing. They take this direction to appease co-workers in order to maintain the appearance of being a “team player”. While I am all for being a team player, I do not think that Tom Brady listening to the tall boy is a good idea. Not that the tall boy is without his own merit but throwing a deep pass into a zone defense may not be his area of expertise. Experts don’t allow novices to dictate behavior.

4. “Pedigree over Instinct”

• It is the natural inclination of executive to hire people that posses a certain level of education and sometimes from a certain school. What we know in the world of sales and marketing is that good instincts and serious talent will outperform pedigree every day of the week and twice on Sunday. As performance fails to meet expectations, the assumption is that peripheral forces must be to blame. When obviously overmatched, these kinds of people go into CYA mode and make it very difficult to pin them down. This is a sure way to lose. Fearless pursuit of performance based facts will often bring things to light.

5. “Put up your dukes”

• Once inside of a large company, it is easy to see the things that would have been helpful from the beginning. MOST PEOPLE DON”T HAVE A CLUE! The best way to illustrate this is with a short anecdote. One of my clients had a new product that they wanted to take to a specific target market. We did our homework and put out a direct mail piece. I sent it off for approval and got back a flurry of questions. My response was very detailed and went something like this,”83% of people in this job were promoted from…… 91% of people that did that job were democrats. Over 65% of democrats feel that when government gets involved in an industry, prices go down. It is for this reason we felt it necessary to show them that prices will go up after the pending legislation passes and therefore it would save them money to act now.” Her reply? “Here at ……we don’t demean our customers!”
What do you say to that? We make no judgments about the facts; we simply incorporate them into our piece to ensure we hit the buying objections and the buying triggers! The point is that using real data was completely foreign to her. Appearing right is exponentially more important than actually being right in a lot of these cases. Had we known that their marketing department had never incorporated any real data, we would have signed a contract in 10 minutes. The lesson here is that you should assume nothing!

The bottom line is that as we delve into our prospects and their internal marketing departments, we do so at our own peril. Approaching this with the knowledge that rarely will we find a well oiled machine, prepares us to face the impending challenges that lie ahead. It should also serve as a guide as to why our services are needed whether they know it or not and how to best illustrate this to them. Either way, the knowledge that most companies have a totally ineffective or all together dysfunctional marketing department allows us to forge ahead confident in the knowledge that every conversation we have with prospects will only have one expert in them.

        

It may seem as though I am simply parsing words, but nothing could be further from the truth. The intellectual laziness of some sales reps, makes it difficult to even have this conversation. Prospecting is a phrase used to describe the act of contacting people/companies that may have a use or a need for your product and/or service. This process seems to be standard everywhere we look. I mean, why not? Sales reps are paid to sell so making the initial contact behooves them right? What if I told you that having your sales reps prospect is like having your dentist operate on your heart? After all, they both went to medical school.

What if I told you that I can prove that this age old paradigm is predicated on a false premise?

The whole system is designed around one central idea. Sales reps are good at talking to people so therefore they should do all of the talking. There is a fundamental flaw in this logic. Talking to people is a very small part of this process called prospecting. It takes diligence, follow through, attention to detail, and patience. Are those attributes that you can attribute to very many sales people? The simple truth is that the very same psychological attributes that make sales people good at closing, run counter to the attributes required to be good at prospecting. Closing is an art of reading and reacting or qualifying and closing. Prospecting is a numbers game despite what anyone says. Follow up, follow up, and more follow up. Not exactly the same thing as driving conversation or the power of persuasion. In fact, the tendency of good sales people is to try and persuade at all times. That is our nature. That is exactly opposite of extrapolating details and creating customer profiles. The only reason sales people are even capable of any prospecting is that we have told them they must do it. It’s simply a function of adaptation. That does not make them good at it and even more to the point, why would you put a skill set conducive to closing deals in a far less profitable dynamic? Just because you have a pitcher that can hit ok, doesn’t mean you make them your designated hitter!

That brings us to Targeting. Companies that want to get to the next level must create a sales dynamic that allows particular skill sets to flourish. By doing so, you allow reps to sell, managers to manage, and people good at creating “purchasing profiles” to do so. Everyone wins and the company grows, NOW! The difference between targeting and prospecting is all in a word; homework. Doing a little homework on prospects is the easiest way to know how to sell them. Simply making blind contact may develop some business but it will also burn a lot of leads. Targeting is the act of finding out some basic things about a prospect before a sales rep gets involved. For example, are they using a competitor? Are they under contract? Do they have a need for your product/service? If not, can we create a need? These are just a few examples but I think you get the point. Armed with this information, reps can go out and focus on hitting targets!

All of this requires a much more in depth look at sales and requires real analysis. The other day my kid came from school with a backpack full of books and asked me why he had to do so much homework. I told him that it was so that later in life, he wouldn’t sound like an idiot! I was right then, and I am right now! When the goal is revenue, shouldn’t we do a little homework?

        

It often seems to be the case that we are most impressed with reps that can talk the talk. That is, reps with a good grasp on industry vernacular often leave the best impression. A “country club” persona seems to fit into our corporate paradigm so we accept that as the best way to go. The thinking is really quite simple. If reps come of as being on the same level or of a similar caliber, then they will relate to clients better than other reps that seem inferior. The flaws in this thinking are as numerous as they are obvious.

First of all, the word “seems” is a huge factor. Many people can hold it together for an interview and hiring process but often times do not hold the values and/or status they put forward. This can be a big problem for companies. After hiring people like this we often find out that not only do they not posses the intellectual prowess that they once appeared to posses, but that they also do not posses the skills that they first appeared to have. I mean, I can tell you how to hit a 95 mile an hour fastball from the standpoint of batting fundamentals, but getting in the batter’s box is a whole other story. Similarly, many people read enough to recite the fundamentals of prospecting, but getting on the phone and in front of people can be a whole other story. What are needed here are people willing to put in the time and effort regardless of talent or vocabulary and make it happen. A touch of blue collar in a white collar job can often be the difference.

Secondly, anyone that seems perfect is almost always the most flawed. People that recite clichés are hiding their real thoughts and are redirecting your attention. Genuine people tend to revert to past experience and relate conversation to actual events from their past. Someone that says they know all about “dialing for dollars”, is almost always less qualified than a rep that relates prospecting to a time in which they were charged with the task of developing new contacts. It is not about experience, it is about real life application. What does your organization need more; reps that have and will get it done, or reps that want to “dial for dollars”?

Thirdly, the “pinky off of the glass” and the country club mentality are reserved for those that have already made their fortunes. Everyone else is just lying to themselves and to you. There is nothing more damaging than a team full of reps that employ a fake façade in order to engender clients. People see right through this and are turned off by these people almost every time they encounter them.

Lastly, potential reps that walk in with a mouthful of these euphemisms are telling you from the start that they know what needs to be done regardless of your sales dynamic. The inability to shape and mold reps to your sales dynamic can damage the overall effort. If you have reps that sell their way regardless of a bigger picture style plan (like a systematic sales system) they quickly become counter productive.

The bottom line is that selling, when done right, is hard work. Not like digging a ditch, but diligence can pay big dividends. What your sales team needs are people that understand what it takes to be successful and are willing to put in the work. A blue collar work ethic coupled with white collar skills will create the perfect mix. As you add staff to your team, ask yourself this question; “Will this person put in the time, effort, and energy?” Rolling up your sleeves to make sales happen is not done accidentally. Instead, it takes a very deliberate and concentrated effort. What kinds of people are best suited for that dynamic? I would love to hear your feedback. Please feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you think.