Shut up and take my money....said nobody ever.
“It was great to meet you at last week’s event”… Nope you didn’t come anywhere near me and now I am getting several emails a week from you. Grrr.
“Why Indecision IS a decision”... I never said I was indecisive, nor did I give you my details in the first place.
“Is your business a B2B business? I just started a referral group on LinkedIn specifically for B2B businesses to learn better skills, find more work and give/receive referrals?”... Umm, if you are selling to me why don’t you do some research about me and my business you wouldn’t need to ask me.
“It’s a shame we didn’t get to chat at the event last night. Would love to see how we can collaborate in the future.” ... Did you just get a list of the attendees and copy and paste that to every attendee as I am not feeling the sincerity.
“Want to learn more about (insert topic here)? Download our whitepaper (then we will get your details and start cold calling you every day)”... No thanks.
Messages like these and so many more is what I receive on a daily basis from a variety of sources. For the people sending me these messages, this appears to be their way of acquiring new customers and for the most part, appears to be part of their way of approaching funnel marketing or attempting personalisation. In my opinion, it’s just lazy sales.
There is so much buzz talk around low cost acquisition (funnel marketing), personalisation, customer experience and retention, however, I am yet to see any business succeed at an integrated and ethical approach that really drives long term success.
What I am seeing, are plenty of businesses growing really quickly and then falling flat. Why? Because they are too focused on the now and instant sales and not playing the long game. That and they are falling prey to “wealth coaches” and the poor advice they are giving.
The Urban Dictionary says the long game is having a long term plan, long term goals, or doing things now that set you up for the future. Living alongside the long game, is patience and plenty of it.
In business (and in life), care has to be your number one priority. Care for yourself and your reputation as a business owner, care for those that you work with and ultimately care for your customers.
Without care, it doesn’t matter what sales and marketing technique you employ - if you aren’t putting care for all involved at the forefront of every decision you make, then you are failing your business, your customers and potential customers.
Asking questions (lots of them), listening and learning to what their needs are (because they are constantly changing) and actioning those learnings to create solutions that will not just help them now, but in the long term is what builds true advocacy (not the number of followers loving your social posts).
Good old fashioned, care and action.
That’s true personalisation and true personalisation is what creates long term sales.
It’s then the care that is taken once the sale is made (and going above and beyond, always), that leads to trust, advocacy and ultimately, retention.
So to all those people who have contacted me clearly lacking care (refer to the examples above for a guide), when you take the time to get to know me, what my needs are and how I like to be communicated with, you will have an advocate for life...and a genuine referral source.
