Ten Tips for Selling to Business

As I mentioned earlier, I recently did a talk on "Selling to Business" and I decided to dispense with the PowerPoint slides and just (as Guy Kawasaki is fond of doing) put it all into a top ten list.

I'll expand on all ten in this forum--I really invite your feedback.

Tip 1: Get your anchor down.

I've got a 35 lb CQR anchor on Southern Cross and it lets me sleep at night but that's not what I'm talking about. Anchoring is the well-documented effect whereby your initial impression flavors all future thoughts about something.

A classic example of anchoring is the sign in the produce section that says "Lemons: 4 for $1.00". In this case, studies have shown, the quantity 4 becomes an anchor for deciding how many lemons to buy, and average quantity per purchase goes up over this: "Lemons 25 cents each."

In short, your Mother was right: first impressions are important.

Whatever gives your customer his or her first impression about your product, service, or company will anchor all future interactions. If the anchor is positive, you get a little boost on everything they think about you in future. If the initial anchor is negative, you get a little handicap from that point on. Psychologists have found that anchors last a long time, so it pays to make sure your's is a good one.

What are the anchors in your company? It might be the way your phone gets answered, your home page on your web site, your product's packaging, the way your dress, your company name and what your business card looks like, whatever the first point of contact with a prospect or customer.

I recently saw a ragged piece of cardboard taped up to an office window for people in the street to read. It was a medical office building in the suburbs, and the scrawled on the cardboard was something like: "www.reallystupidchiropractor.com." They thought putting their web site URL up where everyone could see it was a piece of brilliant marketing. "Hey, Joe, flatten out that box the beer came in and write our web site address on it so we'll get more clients." Of course you will. And they'll come in knowing that you like to sweat the details.

So remember, anchors are powerful, and they last a long time.

[Click here to listen to the audio clip in a new window.]

Immutable Laws: Are you kidding?

Have you read this book? Don't waste your money. In this blog I'm going to tell you why a lot of what they write is nonsense. I can open this almost at random and find something truly idiotic.

But let's start with chapter 1: The Law of Leadership. They maintain that the first mover in the market becomes the market leader. Examples? Heineken, Miller Lite, Gatorade. They really should stick to drinks, because when they stray far from that category they really get out on thin ice:

• "USA Today is the first national newspaper but it is unlikely to succeed... In a television era, it may be too late for a national newspaper."
• "Jeep was the first in four-wheel-drive off-the-road vehicles. Acura was first in luxury Japanese cars. IBM was first in mainframe computers. Sun Microsystems was first in workstations. Jeep, Acura, IBM, and Sun are all leading brands." [ Well, IBM still leads in mainframes, not that anybody's buying them anymore.]
• "...until it positioned the Amiga as the first multimedia computer. Today the Commodore Amiga is a big success, with more than $500 million sold annually." [I had to jump to chapter two for that one.]

The so-called "first mover advantage" has been exploded time and time again. Who had the first PC? Altair. Where are they now? Gone. Who had the first DOS-based PC? IBM. Who owns the category now? Dell, a copy-cat clone.

Oh, but wait. Chapter 3 makes it all clear. They even start with the Altair example--if first to market = success, then where is Altair now? True true. Their answer? It's not first to market, it's really first in the mind that counts. So now it's out: that famous marketing bugaboo "mindshare." As in "mindshare equals marketshare." I'll take that idea apart later...

Chapter 3 can be summed up as follows:

1. Market leadership requires mind leadership.
2. You can't buy your way into mind leadership.
3. Once a mind is made up, it can't be changed.
4. You have to "blast" your way into people's minds. How do you do that?
5. You need a clever name. Proof: Apple had a simpler name than all it's competition so the Apple II beat all the other little goofy CP/M machines. Because people who can master CP/M are so lacking in brains that they can't remember the name "TRS-80" they flocked to the stores and Apple IIs flew off the shelves. Hmmm, sounds highly probable to me.

And all this time you thought it was about features and benefits? Silly you!

The blog that came in from the cold

I see coincidentally that it's been a year since I last blogged. Well, we're restarting in earnest.

In the past year, Workpump has grown significantly, and that's a lot of why there hasn't been much happening here. But we need better ways to share new ideas and thoughts with our clients and friends, so we've returned to the blog.

From now on, I'll use this as a replacement for the newsletter--so don't expect to get that in your inbox. If there's something really hot, I'll send you mail with a link to the blog.

I'm going to begin with a look at a famous book: The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, by Al Reis and Jack Trout. Also upcoming: I recently did a talk on "Top Ten Tips for Selling to Business" at the Columbia Tower Club and it was so well received that I realized I needed to expand and capture some of those thoughts. So look for that here, as well.

Cheers,

John Browne