5 minute read
CHANGED WORLD
I’ve worked with hundreds of marketers over the past dozen years, and there is one important thing I’ve learned. Everyone benefits from coaching, and yet almost everyone lacks the sales and marketing skills for 2022 and this new decade. Most are caught up in trying to do it the way it was done in 1990 or 2000, (or even 2015). The world has dramatically changed and so have marketing strategies. What salespeople and marketing reps did – and did OK ten years ago – is NO LONGER an acceptable or effective process.
THE WEB AND GOOGLE
About 12 years ago, (ok maybe 15), websites were designed to provide lots of good technical and product details. Marketers provided critical product and service info and the better they were, the more they sold. You can now throw that entire strategy out the window. Today, the marketer isn’t bringing volumes of technical info – the consumer has already Googled the info, read it, and researched it.
Marketers now must understand the customer’s pains, speak to their emotions, tell stories that make the consumer the hero and actively engage them on social media. It’s now important to segment your client and prospect base in your CRM so that you can reach people and engage them on their terms. Your CRM data is now unbelievably valuable. Social media plays a huge part in the new selling world, so don’t overlook it.
COACHING
What we have learned over the past dozen or so years is that as the consumer changes, as a society and buying culture changes, so must the 
marketers trying to reach that audience. It was recently stated by a national research group, that 75% of the workforce will be Millennials within the next few years! Those older are often struggling with “doing it the way it needs to be done today.” It’s no surprise, almost everyone reading this is reluctant to make changes. We get comfortable. We’ve been taught a certain way 15 or 20 or 30 years ago, and it’s EXCEEDINGLY difficult to adapt a new selling approach – but it is vital to your continued success.
As we coach several dozen marketers weekly, one thing that’s obvious to us; millennials are far more willing to learn and apply new sales processes. Maybe it’s because that’s how they do things, so it’s easier to embrace today’s selling methods.
TRAINING
It constantly amuses us when we hear about the “rah, rah, rah, – boom, boom, boom pump it up – fist in the air – motivational seminars. They may get the adrenaline flowing during these seminars, but we’ve learned those experiences don’t last. A week after they’ve attended some high-energy emotional event – they are back to their old self.
We don’t provide “motivational training” for this very reason. It doesn’t last. Our approach is to start with the basics of today’s marketing and sales strategies and build upon those, as we add in additional powerful selling techniques that work today. Below is a short list of the kinds of topics we teach in our training classes:
- Ways to prioritize and qualify prospects
- How to get to the decisionmaker
- Understanding and using a Summary Move (elevator pitch)
- Storytelling as a powerful strategy
- Listening and repeating prospect comments
- Why and How to ASK for the job
- Create a strong personal brand
- And much more for the millennial
Since most of our class attendees are marketing to Insurance Agents and Plumbers, (also GCs and Carpet Cleaners) much of our focus is on helping the marketer take advantage of this new-world mindset. It’s far more important to do it effectively with quality, rather than the shotgun approach of quantity.
We also teach a separate class for those selling a pre-disaster plan (PREP™) to other verticals: Nursing Homes, Schools, Hotels, Factories, Banks, and Property Management) to name a few. There is an extremely specific, strict selling process to effectively sell a pre-disaster plan to these verticals. Most salespeople barge in the front door, leave a brochure and their business card, and roll back out the door. STOP DOING THAT! You are destroying your best opportunities for repeat commercial work.
Want to learn more about our coaching? Want to attend or send staff to our classes? Call us now! 419-202-6745
By Dick Wagner, Co-Founder The CREST Network, LLC
Nationally recognized coach, consultant, trainer, and speaker
Creator of the renowned PREP™ pre-disaster program
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