PetesWeekly

Most firms have a fast process to handle incoming sales enquiries. And some have a fast process to respond to email enquiries, or enquiries that come from a form on their website. But most firms drop the ball when it comes to the Internet.

A phone call, by it’s very nature, is urgent. An email, which is the way most web enquiries gently flutter in, is much less urgent. (Most website forms will end up in an email.) And that email, like a newly born turtle, has to endure a hostile voyage before it reaches safe harbour.

You may have heard of Spam? This is the word we use to describe  commercial email that we did not ask for. Most of us think of Spam as the daily flow of emails we get to improve our looks, our size, and our chances of winning big.

ISPs (the firms that host websites and email boxes) tend to be a little more assertive when dealing with Spam, and in doing so tend to dump a lot of valid email into the bin, often without telling you about it. So if you ever get an angry message (or Lord forbid, a rabid phone call) telling you that you never respond, then that is probably the problem. Hint: Don’t try and explain that to your newest enemy because sympathy will be in short supply.

If your prospect works for a large bank, then there is a strong chance that their email will not even arrive in your inbox. Spam filters are very sensitive to email addresses, especially those of bank staff. This is because some enterprising web anglers, also known as phishermen, are getting great returns pretending to be ABSA and harvesting your PIN codes.

Some firms assume that a solid response by return email is the right thing to do. They bury the prospect in detail. This might be a huge price list, a PDF document extolling their virtues, and, of course, reminding you that they are committed to excellence. It seems that we all are committed, including the SA govt, every municipality, ESKOM, TELKOM, and every other parastatal.

That does not work. Imagine that you’re relaxing one evening at your local pub, sipping a cool Hansa while watching the sun burn an orange hole in the ozone as it slowly slides across the horizon towards Brazil. You’re young, single, and don’t need medical help as offered by the many emails you discard each day.

A delightful woman sits next to you, orders her own Carling, and turns to face the setting sun.

“Isn’t this heavenly,” she asks rhetorically? Hint: She is a prospect, and she’s just made an enquiry.

There are two responses to her question.

The first is gentle, not overwhelming, simply letting the conversation flow. You might offer something like “It’s idyllic, and that’s why I come here as often as I can. I haven’t seen you here before?”

The second is the personal version of a company response.
“Thank you for asking. The temperature today averaged 31 degrees. The sun is 8 light minutes way, which is about 150 million kilometres away, or 94 million miles if you live in the UK. That red sunset is caused by the light having to flow through more atmosphere which scatters the blue rays. I was captain of the Michaelhouse first 15, chairman of the chess club, and matriculated in 2001 with 8 A’s. I am single, heterosexual, and own my own house. I am very vigorous and, of course, committed to excellence.”

And then you turn back to your drink in the hope that you have earned enough points for her to pay for dinner tonight.

Chances are you will be doing MacDonalds again. Alone. And you won’t be getting much exercise to work off the 1000 calories in your Big Mac, Fries and Coke.

Relationships are like dancing. They need a touch of choreography to make them work. ‘Efficient’ is almost always in the way of ‘effective’ when we humans are involved. And like dancing, personal contact is very, very important.

It’s not efficient to pick up the phone and respond with a call. But it is effective. It builds legends. And it feeds the kids.

Before I offend you, let me explain. I use the word “selling” here in an American context. When they say “selling a client” they mean “making a sale to the client”. That headline sure is tempting, though, isn’t it?

This is a personal story with a business context.

The last time I found myself without a partner (and I sure hope that it is the last time) it seemed a good idea think carefully about what I wanted in such a person in future. I am a little shy to admit that I built a mind map (what your kids will call a spider man) detailing this perfect woman. At least, for me.

I spent some time thinking about what had gone right and wrong in each of my relationships, and made a lot of notes. Most of these were about me in fact. It turned out that the product on sale needed a lot of work.

But, by and by, I built a mental image of my ideal partner. I started with basics. For instance, I would prefer a woman. Then I thought through the detail. She would most likely be between 35 and 45. She would probably have young children. She would have a very gentle manner. She’d enjoy seeing new places. She’d laugh a lot. And so on.

This is what I had spent most of the previous two decades doing, but then it had been about building images of my perfect clients. I had had a lot more success finding them than finding the right marriage partner.

And then I went back to writing CrashProof your Business – which has since become South Africa’s best-selling book on surviving business closure. And, it turns out, South Africa’s only book on the subject.

As I thought about each attribute (her age, for instance) I could imagine many of the challenges she would be facing. At my age I was more interested in how she was handling those challenges than how she looked.

As I sat answering emails in my favourite bistro a few weeks later a showstopping woman walked in to chat to the owner. I had no idea who she was. But, she ticked a lot of the boxes on my list and a few that I hadn’t yet thought of. She was, in other words, a great prospect.

Because I had spent a lot of time thinking about her before I even knew her, I had a head start. Rather than rush up and use some corny line (“Can I help you?” would be the commercial equivalent), I did a little research.

Actually, I walked up to Sonja (the owner of Taste, the fine coffee shoppe where this happened) and asked her for the name of my future wife. Then I found out where she worked. It turned out she owned a business as well, and that gave us a lot of common ground. And then I sent some flowers with a note.

Of course, you know the end of the story. I sold a woman, as the Americans might say. Or, more properly, I sold me to a woman.

The key to the story is this: Your product doesn’t much matter until after the first sale (or date). Until then, it is all about the prospect. Get that right, and you get your foot in the door, as it were. In my case, the shared coffee at Fego. Only much later did she share with me that when she arrived she almost turned back because all she saw was a hunched old man in front of a PC.

Yet I find that most of us devote all of our time to the product. As a person that would be the focus on your body, or your degrees, or your car. And then we hope someone will notice. (If we build it, they will come, we think.)

I think it is much easier to build a picture of the folk that will fit you, and then approach them rather than wasting a life waiting for others to find you. They won’t. They’re too busy. You must take that first step. It helps a lot to have thought about what you’re stepping into.

PS I use Freemind for most of my mind maps nowadays. It runs on Windows, Apple, and Linux.

Each time I return to SA I am stunned. It is so much better than the publicity leads one to expect.

The newspapers do a fine job of unravelling all the dirt in SA, and sharing it with the rest of us. And we, over a braai or twelve, have no shortage of doom stories. From the outside SA looks close to the Apocalypse. But tourists don’t care about our fears for the future (and we have always had them). They just want a good time, and SA offers tourists that in abundance.

I think that most folk in SA don’t realise quite how tough it is to make a living anywhere else.

I have been a marketer all my life. For me Marketing Rule #1: Sell what you have now.

SA scenery is, of course, wonderful. But not unique. You’d battle to compete with Norwegian fjords, Mauritian beaches, English castles, anywhere in Tasmania, or the road from Vancouver to Whistler – all of which are gorgeous.

But…

Right now, SA has superb, world class airports. Right now, the air connections are superb, cheap, and friendly. Right now, the roads – at least those that tourists like me use – are better than most in the world. Right now, all the accommodation establishments are superb value for money. Right now, where else on earth can you get an award winning 2006 Shiraz for less than £5?

(Hint: Nowhere that I have found, but right now Mooiberg farm stall on the R44 between Stellenbosch and Somerset West has a bunch of them, as well as a ton of great wines for less than £2.)

Right now, the restaurants are not just superb, but very cheap compared to any of the countries I have visited. And, wait for this, people actually serve you at restaurants. My Norwegian wife swoons.

My personal chef (as I have come to think of him) at the new Gateway Hotel in Umhlanga, for instance, crafts a chilli, bacon and cheese omelette with so much care you’d think his life was at stake. After that first ‘Durban mild’ version, my life was, but fortunately I managed to lose three kilograms by lunchtime.

We’ve since agreed that the best way to add chilli to an omelette is to grasp one slice firmly with a tweezer, wave it gently across the top of the pan above the simmering contents so that the fumes mingle, and whisper a Zen type prayer before putting it back in the bowl with its family. And that’s plenty hot for this Cape Town gent.

That’s the great stuff you sell if you want buyers. They’re not interested in why it works, or how it works, or what the experience next year will be. They don’t want to know that the waiter dropped some food in the kitchen or that the receptionist is building a R16 million home in Verulam on her R5213 per month salary.

They want to know if the R150,000 they are investing in a three week family break in November is going to be better value than anywhere else. (It will be if they come. It won’t if they don’t arrive because our fears for the future send them to Cyprus, Crete, Spain, Australia, Canada, or any one of 120 other not so nice destinations.)

Cape Town over the last 15 winter days was warm enough to be a heat wave in Oslo, and on each day the temp has been higher than Oslo which is in mid-summer.  Yet each person I spoke to warned of the looming storm because such fine weather could not last. When we hear tourists wax lyrical about the joys of the country we feel the need to balance their happiness with our own view of reality.

As I see it, tourism can bring immense amounts of money into SA. This is money that is already being spent elsewhere. It is simply a matter of guiding it here. And you won’t do that by selling the problems. No one cares when they are on holiday.

Sell the hope. And sell what you have now. Worry about next year when it comes. And if enough tourists come, next year will be a lot better than you expected.

Things change when you have a steady flow of enquiries. I can say this because I have spoken to 50 small firms over the past two months who have found such a steady flow.

Firstly, you get lots of practice. When you are confronted by a live person once each month, maybe, it’s very easy to panic. You are so worried about losing the sale that you lose it. When you have two leads  (or five) arriving each day, without fail, you know that you can mess today. And still, two new prospects will arrive on Monday, and Tuesday, …. So, you don’t take life so sternly. You have more fun.

And with that fun you improve your sales approach. You relax and begin to listen, rather than fighting to close each sale. You no longer care too much whether this one prospect doesn’t become a client because you know that the next one will.

Number two, you get lots of new ideas. This only applies to the owner of the firm, I’m afraid. In the superb book Rework, the fine team at 37 Signals point out something that I at first thought insane.

When one client suggests something, they say, ignore it. Don’t even write it down. One person suggesting something is an anomaly. But if you are the owner you will soon notice when a few people start suggesting much the same thing. And that happened with about 10% of our clients. They have enough new requests for something that they didn’t offer at first that they have rejigged their sales model. In all cases they have doubled the profits from each sale by adding something to the sale that their prospects suggested.

Thirdly, of course, you get lots of sales. A few weeks ago I mentioned Frank Betger`s maxim: “If only I can tell my story to enough people, no matter how bad I might be at it, I will make sales.” That’s what we have seen as well.

Many of us spend our days with our backs to our clients, focused on making stuff, pushing paper, and chasing banks. It’s so much easier to just avoid clients. No tough questions to answer, awful choices to make, or mistakes to say sorry for.

But, the owner is by far the best salesperson in a firm. She can decide quickly; her passion shines through; she `feels` the problems that clients face because she has a lot of skill in dealing with those problems. This is  why she is in this field.

Contrast this with a salesperson who is in this firm just because of the paycheque, and on June 1 will start selling used cars, , or frozen chickens because the pay is better.

Just so that we are clear on this matter, I have nothing against selling used cars, passports, or frozen chickens. Although I am little bothered by those that are three months past their sell by date, and returned to the factory for a solid chlorine rinse before being declared fit to eat again.

There is one last thing to think about. When a firm has a steady flow of prospects, that venture no longer relies on the owner as much as before. Each of those prospects is, at first, a stranger. And this means that a new owner can take over on June 1, and the prospects arriving after then won`t know that the old owner is taking a break in the south of France.

In other words, it’s much easier to sell a venture when the owner is not the only source of sales. This occurred to me as I was thinking about the number of my friends facing retirement. They`re not able to sell their stake because their firms are so reliant on their contacts, some of whom go back to van Riebeeck`s birthday.

Apart from word of mouth, and that word of mouth is almost always about the owner and never about the firm, their firms have no other way of finding sales. This means the owner can’t retire. This might not be an issue for you, but there are some jobs that have a 14 to 80 age restriction. Plumbing, for instance, is not the kind of day job one wants having already spent 60 years  dealing with other peoples` shyte.

The people that buy what you sell pay for your future. The more you have the merrier it is.