I would, if only my head weren’t about to explode

Follow up is key to all good marketing, especially in the 1:1 environment of expos. As you know, my company is an exhibitor at some events, but we also attend the same conferences so we appear on the attendee list as well.

I returned and waited a few days before dropping a line to anyone let alone picking up the phone. I assumed that my new contacts, like myself, were up to their teeth in unchecked email, telephone messages, and sticky notes from their bosses.

Meantime, in a single week I’ve been deluged with prospecting emails from companies I did not meet, along with (God bless the list trade industry) dozens of invitations to exhibit yet somewhere else totally irrelevant, because I do after all exhibit. Maybe I do so without any plan at all!  The marketing director seems to hope.

Whether it’s because I am a marketer, so always curious about other people’s tactics, or because I am an optimist who believes there are even more good ideas out there than I can carry in my head…I dutifully open every email, letter, and prospectus. Sometimes I chuckle and toss or hit delete. Other times, the company proposition sounds really interesting.

And I would respond, if only my head weren’t about to explode.

This is an important thing for sales people to understand. In Mark Kuta’s excellent book, Think Like A CEO, he describes the process of getting into the minds of business leaders in order to close a sale. Understand their problems. Position yourself to solve them. Do you really have the answer to a business problem? If you don’t, find someone else and stop bothering me. This is the answer for reaching decision-makers of every level.

Of course if you’re busy my company can help. But you need to have time to breathe and think about what you want to have done. We understand that. A salesman who jumps in the moment you’re back in the office…now-that-we’ve-met (if we did) let’s-talk-about-my-product…is missing the big picture.  

The big picture is a working relationship.

Not sometimes, but always.

Think of dating. Are you picking up a chick or looking for a mate? Chances are, the person you’re trying to pick up is looking for a mate, and is considering the hundreds of options closely, right? So with sales.

I would recommend anyone, in any type of sales–whether it is for conference management, advertising sales, trade association membership, electron microscopes, or automobiles– read (over and over) Jeffrey Gitomer’s excellent series of Little Books. The Little Black Book of Connections will probably do even more for your sales than The Little Red Book of Selling.

Gitomer emphasizes the giving side of the sales relationship: learning, understanding, sharing information, building friendships, getting into the head of this other person whom you hope is going to buy a car or a house or a software subscription from you. This is different from a drip email campaign that says the same thing to everyone…like the one from Ford that lies and says they’ve been trying to call me about the car I emailed about (no calls received). “We’d like to know what you’re looking for” it pleads, even though I visited the sales person onsite and told him exactly what I wanted. Subject: unsubscribe.

This is also different from the organization that I asked about sponsorship opportunities, which immediately offered me an advertising buy. There were no sponsorships for the event I was interested in. However, I knew (because I’m good at this, after 25 years) that a space ad would be the lowest possible return on my investment…that’s why, despite receiving their journal every month for years, I have never wanted to run an ad. The ad would reach thousands of professionals, about 20% of whom are my prospects. Those 20%, like me, are too damn busy to rip open the polybag and read the journal on 6 months out of 12. So why would I pay 10k to reach 2M people at the outside, who have barely time to skim the pages and then run out to the next deadline? (Yes, I know my prospects are that busy. When I email them at 10 p.m. they reply. I think they should unionize.)

By contrast, I can pull together even a fairly pricy direct mail package and reach the exact same people…the list is commercially available…for half the cost of advertising. And I can personalize and segment my message in a way that space advertising cannot. Ah, yes, that is why I love direct mail even after spending my first career in advertising. What I am looking for is my business solution: How to reach key targets in a practical, cost-effective way. I will hear out the salespeople who can show me the solutions, not the product.

This sales message is just as important for nonprofits. Don’t think Major Gift cultivation is not selling…it most certainly is. If you do it right, you are giving people an opportunity to buy back their own souls. Likewise, you may be selling membership in a trade organization: Are you not offering them a golden road to their own better future? Nobody wants a membership. They want a better future.

And that is the most important thing to remember when selling, whether in person or by campaign: People don’t buy what they need. They buy what they want. If you don’t believe me, go to the city where you’ll find people who can’t pay their rent, but they have tattoos and order pizzas. Tattoos are a decoration; take-out anything is a luxury, when for under $2.50 in most of America you can make a modest meal for 4 (eggs and toast–a nod to the American Egg Board for promoting what is still the best nutritional value on earth). This, to me, is living proof that people will buy what they want, not what they need.

So getting back to my in box: How about an email that says, “Let’s touch base when the dust settles. I’d love to hear more about what you do. Maybe there is even a way we can work together. But most of all, it was great to meet you.”  Because what I want right now is time to breathe before I decide.  If you give me that courtesy, I might like your brand just a little better than the next one.