Business901 » Marketing Funnel

What will your workplace be like in 2020?

business901 — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 03:16:40 +0000

Jeanne Meister, co-author of The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop, and Keep Tomorrow’s Employees Today discusses how online technologies and the advent of digital and social media are changing the ways in which companies source talent, customize employee development, and promote agile leadership.

In this video Jeanne connects 2020 with TODAY!

The 2020 Workplace is a book that I believe is a must read. Key points are made about having 5 generations in the workplace, reputation management and the role that social media will play internally and externally at your organization. I think one of the key takeaways from the book is the authors’ description of the social learning ecosystem. This chapter alone is worth the price of the book.

Many of the items mentioned are being used in forward thinking companies already and I believe that you need to be preparing for them now. The authors do outline a strategy on how you can do just that.

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Change Education, Change the Sales Cycle

business901 — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 02:30:00 +0000

Though this is a well documented Ted Video, I ran across the RSA Animate video version of Ken Robinson’s discussion on education. Funny thing about it was that it really hit a chord when thinking about the typical Sales Cycle or Marketing Funnel. Not the part on Attention Deficit Disorder but when he talks about standardization and divergent thinking. It starts around the 6 minute mark.

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Changing the shape of your marketing funnel!

business901 — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 02:30:00 +0000

These five terms form a hierarchy of value in which data have the least value and wisdom
has the most. I first ran across a similar description in the The Experience Economy an article published in 1998 by Joe Pine which I discussed in the blog post, Does your Value Proposition speak of the Customer Experience?. Though this chart has taken a fair amount of abuse over the years, I like it because it plainly depicts the hierarchy of what a customer is willing to pay for and therefore the customer’s perceived value.

In the book, Idealized Design the authors used a similar hierarchy for the key terms involved in describing organizational learning. They are as follows:

Data consist of symbols that represent the properties of objects and events. They have little value until they have been processed into information Data are to information as iron or is to iron. Little can be done with iron ore until it is processed into iron.
Information consists of data that has been processed to be useful. It is contained in descriptions, answers to question beginning with such words as what, who, when, when, and how many.
Knowledge is contained in instructions, answers to how-to questions.
Understanding is contained in explanations, answers to the why questions.
Wisdom is concerned with the value of outcomes, effectiveness, whereas the other four types of mental content are concerned with efficiency. Efficiency is concerned with doing things right; effectiveness is concerned with doing the right thing.

Looks like a marketing funnel. Your budget probably looks the same way. You spend the vast majority of your marketing resources (time and money) on data or noise which may be the more appropriate term. I tend to believe a larger investment spent in understanding and wisdom will reap greater rewards.

It at first is counterintuitive. But when you think about it – an increase in knowledge, understanding about your customers and wisdom that your customers impart on you turns into:

Upsells
Referrals
Word of mouth,
PR Opportunities
Innovation

Just by the nature of the process, it should make you more effective and efficient. It goes back to the Pareto Principle or as Dr. Juran put it, “identify the vital few and the useful many,” in practice leave the top of the funnel (useful many) for automation, website sales, etc. Invest the majority of your resources (time and money) in the vital few. Work on delighting that segment of your business as Steven Deming, author of The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management writes Is Delig hting your Customer Profitable?

One of the areas that we find out through better knowledge and understanding of our customers is the mistakes we are making as an organization. In the marketing sense, that blurriness of customer and marketing identification becomes much more apparent. The important critical to quality factors that are important to them and make them choose us drives our internal improvement efforts. Just as importantly, since we have a better relationship with the prospects/customers at the bottom of the funnel, we find out what mistakes and why others were chosen. This will help us tremendously to evaluate our shortcomings and improve on them.

Choosing this perspective will probably reduce the size of the opening of your funnel. However which end of the funnel is important to you?

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Kill the Sales and Marketing Funnel

business901 — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 04:45:00 +0000

The Sales and Marketing Funnel is a theory that needs to be laid to rest. A linear approach to predict, plan, and proceed is a precarious way to advance. This approach prematurely foresees a solution for the customer without ever understanding their problem. And if you consider addressing the application of social media, it does nothing to support inbound marketing. As we work our way down the funnel, it is just as likely evidence will mount that the proposed solution is wrong. However, we have so much invested we attempt to sway the course of action in our favor. Linear planning will increase the risk for a customer to engage in an inappropriate course of action.

A more correct way of customer introduction is utilizing a problem solving cycle such as PDCA (Deming/Shewart – Plan/Do/Check/Act Cycle). PDCA should be repeatedly implemented in spirals of increasing knowledge of the customer’s situation and converge towards the correct solution. Each cycle will become closer to this goal than the previous. This approach is based on the belief that both our customer and our knowledge and skills may be limited at the beginning but continuously improving.

It is very common as a customer goes through a decision making process that their minds will change. At the start of a project, key information may not be known. The PDCA provides feedback to justify our hypotheses and increase our knowledge. This allows both the customer and us not to be perfect the first time. It allows us flexibility in our course of action and with improved knowledge, we (also meaning the customer) may choose to refine or alter the needs. The rate of change or the speed of the improvement is a key competitive factor in today’s world. PDCA allows for major jumps in performance not through massive breakthroughs but through frequent small improvements.

Another approach recently popularized is the OODA Loop introduced by Colonel John Boyd that describe how combatants observe a situation, orient themselves, decide what to do, and act, before observing the changed situation and moving through the entire loop again. Viewing combat as a series of successive loops underscores the importance of reassessment and readjustment as circumstances change, and the cumulative benefits of many small wins in successive iterations. Boyd’s OODA loop is a vivid example of an iterative loop to guide action under uncertainty and much can be learned from its study.

I am not advocating thinking of your customer in the sense of a combatant as the OODA Loop suggest. However, the strength in the OODA loop is the series of successive loops and small wins that is introduced. Few homeruns are in the market place today. It is more of a singles and doubles game. In fact, few of us can afford the strikeouts and must maintain a high enough batting average to survive.

PDCA is the fundamental concept behind Lean thinking. It is not just a problem solving method but a holistic approach to knowledge creation and improvement within an organization. Establishing a PDCA culture within your company will enable you to embrace this way of thinking with your customers and prospects. It will develop an outside-in approach to your organization that will allow you to really understand your role with customers and in the markets they participate in.

Seldom do you find a competitive advantage or a real break through in a service or product. If you do, it is only short-lived and commoditized rather quickly. The leverage it brings is an influx of innovative customers that are willing to be risk takers, the early adaptors. People that you can learn from and develop new knowledge and new products. PDCA allows for them to enter your cycle of learning easily and allows you to maximize that new knowledge.

The only competitive advantage that you have is in how quickly you develop new knowledge. Maximizing that through the use of PDCA is essential for your business survival.

This is why I believe the Future of Marketing is Lean!

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The Marketing Knowledge Spiral

business901 — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 14:00:00 +0000

When most think of a marketing funnel or Marketing with PDCA, they tend to think of a stage by stage progression. I contend that the successful processes operate in a more spiral like progression. You would start with an identified product/market and some type of interaction from a prospect to identify them at the entry point of a cycle. As we go around the PDCA circle, we improve our knowledge relationship with the customer to a point that they either continue down the funnel in quicker and tighter iterations. If the increase in knowledge and collaboration does not take place then momentum is lost and the customer/prospect drops out of the existing funnel. Repeated use of PDCA makes it possible to improve the quality of the communication, the methodology itself, and the results.

Once set in motion, this process should be an ongoing one, allowing constant interactions between the parties involved. In a learning arena, individuals expand their own knowledge through a “knowledge spiral” (Osterloh and Wubker. 1999). This process has the
specific intention of fostering a collective vision among the participants. This vision can assist the development of new solutions for problems in specific subject areas – in this case, the ways in which we deal with the problems are customers are facing and are ability to adjust lo new goals and objectives.

During the first stage (Plan) of the PDCA Cycle, the participants interact to appraise the customer needs and information on the subject is made available lo all participants, who add it to their own knowledge and experience, and alter this in the light of the new information. During the Do Cycle second stage, the “influence stage”, participants make critical analysis of their own products/services in the light of the new knowledge they have acquired, This broadens their understanding of each others needs and abilities. The aim of this stage is to make individuals receptive to new ideas and action. This is maybe the most difficult stage because you have to be receptive to each others views and be willing to accept a fresh understanding to solve problems in a new way. The third stage (Check Stage) is the intimacy stage. An explanation or demonstration of participants’ new level of understanding is essential. The results that are produced actually can be used and adapted in for other situations. The fourth stage (Act) is the act of either continuing down the spiral to another iteration of tighter focus and a more intense cycle or deciding that moiré knowledge is required at this level. Many times it can be determined that at this time the proper fit for this particular value stream does not work for the participants.

Think of the Marketing Spiral as a continuous puzzle of interactions building through PDCA the knowledge of each other – customer/supplier.

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Online collaboration is leading the way for Lean Marketing

business901 — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 04:38:00 +0000

Businesses and individuals are becoming exponentially more productive and efficient thanks to the innovations that connect them. Between email, Skype, and telecommuting, the landscape of business communication and collaboration is vastly different than it was even a few years ago. We will see just how many of these technologies are helping businesses today, and how quickly people are now able to collaborate and innovate together.

Our organizational structures are getting flatter every day. Technology is not making us less personal, we are getting more personal through technology. We buy less from companies every day and more from people.

Technology actually has evolved to a point that it is becoming anti-technology. The new business models are about communities and organizations must understand what makes them tick. In the book The Hyper-Social Organization: Eclipse Your Competition by Leveraging Social Media, the authors discuss the 4 pillars of Hyper-Sociality:

Tribe vs. market segment
Human-centricity vs. company centricity
Network vs. channel
Social messiness vs. process and hierarchy

The funny thing about all of this is that there will also be a rapid increase in exceptions, more of the anti-technology stuff and more people interactions. This change has invaded both customer service and marketing. Traditional print media, PR and advertising are gradually fading out. Even referrals have shifted from word of mouth to more of a tribal type relationship. If your organization is not already part of the tribe you are overlooked.

Just having a great product is not enough. Sure Apple looks like they are banging out innovation after innovation. But are they? Or is it more of the “Apple Tribe” that devours each new innovation with Steve Jobs as the head of the kingdom.

The next facet of business to change will likely be innovation, if it has not already. Co-creation is upon us and as our tools get better there will be more and more interactivity with our customers. Those exceptions that many of us dread will even become more normal and part of everyday innovation.

Sound like a lot of fun! Learning to market and innovate through iterative cycles is what Lean Marketing is all about. Using Lean on a project to project basis to reduce waste and make marketing and innovation more efficient is hardly effective. Empowering our people for a more human approach within the tribes we choose to network or participate in is the differentiation Lean provides. Lean provides the structure we need to provide value to this social messiness. Without, we lose our relevance and speed that is needed in the collaborative world that we are entering. I look forward to the great journey ahead.

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Marketers must understand the systems they manage.

business901 — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 05:58:53 +0000

During the past several years, I have seen more marketing efforts geared towards increasing prospects at the top of the marketing funnel. This has resulted in increase spending, greater efforts in innovation and jumping on the Social Media bandwagon. Few will attribute greater profits or increased revenue to these efforts. My contention is that the top of the funnel is the least effective and most expensive method of generating leads. All of these methods will increase variation and can be demonstrated by Deming’s funnel experiment which illustrates the effects of "tampering" with a process and increasing variation rather than decreasing it.

Video courtesy of Rumba Training Ltd -

It is not enough in this day and age to just increase marketing efforts. The reason the pellets miss the target is because of the inherent errors or causes built into the system. Attending to you Value Stream (Marketing Funnel) will decrease variability and create significant improvements. Why would you need to take the riskier methods of innovation and product improvements?

This is were many think that I would discuss the typical Lean theories of reducing waste, improving cycle time, and managing your work in process. Though that is not a bad thing to do but you have to innovate and improve or you will fall behind.

This is what the new wave of Lean Marketing solves. It is an effective way of staying on the leading edge. It is a way improving the way you sell and market through tightening those inherent errors in your system. You cannot predict the future. However, you can build a process that adapts quickly to the changing environment and quicker than you competition. The Future of marketing is Lean!

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Value Stream Mapping your Sales Team

business901 — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 13:15:00 +0000

In my Microsoft Newsletter this week, I received the following enticement:

Find, Keep, and Grow Customer Relationships with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. Start Your 30-Day Free Trial Today!

Today, businesses are asked to do more with less. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online delivers exceptional value because it combines your everyday Microsoft Office applications with powerful CRM software accessed over the Internet to rapidly improve marketing, boost sales, and enrich customer service interactions. Try it now for 30 days! (This is not an affiliate Link).

I am trying it this week but what I wanted to share is a piece of the collateral information, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Power Couple. In this PDF, MSN highlighted the Customer Decision Making Process aka Mirror Marketing( Your Marketing Funnel from your Customer’s Perspective.) but extended the concept to show the process from several other points of view.

I have always been an advocate of seeking Sales and Marketing’s response to each of the customer’s decision steps but MSN (they are selling software), highlighted the technology enabler and a team response to the Customer Value Stream process. This simple exercise utilizing a high level Value Stream Map can really get your individual departments on the same page!

In my recent work, I have been advocating breaking down the Sales Silo and making Sales a team effort. In most organizations, I have been met with strong resistance to this concept. Most sales people look at as another silly initiative and most internal people see sales as a vehicle to customer data. As a result, sales resist and rightfully so preventing themselves from becoming an extended clerk. However, the approach really should be about how to increase face time with the customer. The #1 enabler of increased sales.

Create your own sales team by reviewing who responds to your Customer’s Value Stream Map. Start having a few meetings, similar to a daily standup meeting which may not be feasible. I would recommend at first error in having the meeting to often, just cut them short. In a spirit of true collaboration, don’t automatically exclude your customer from the team. This concept really could increase face time!

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Your Marketing Funnel from your Customer’s Perspective.

business901 — Sun, 30 May 2010 13:58:57 +0000

The Mirror Marketing eBook describes an alternative way of looking at your marketing funnel…from your customer’s perspective.

Mirror Marketing

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Agile, Scrum, Kanban, or is it just a Marketing Funnel?

business901 — Wed, 19 May 2010 17:30:48 +0000

Do you think it is Scrum? Do you think it is Kanban? Do you think it is a Marketing Funnel? …or is it all three? Or maybe Agile? This is an empirical view of Value Stream Marketing.

The drawing is reflective of a Scrum sprint. Scrum is an iterative, incremental framework for project management and agile software development. The sprint is typical a two to four week process with the large loop representing the overall process and the smaller (top) loop representing a twenty-four period and the daily scrum meeting. In the Value Stream Marketing Process, I use the loops to demonstrate a higher level of intimacy with a prospect. The top loop is for existing customers to nurture an even stronger relationship.

The three separate areas of the diagram will have their own Kanban board, if there are separate teams working on them, or you could visualize each as a separate swim lane. Separating these three processes apart allow you to better identify the process steps and the tools needed to facilitate the value stream flow. And, of course, using a Kanban board for this process will help you identify where the process is not working or where the bottleneck is occurring.

The Kanban board is where the actual work gets done. We want to limit unnecessary work in process to be no higher than it needs to be to match the control point or pacemaker of the process (bottleneck). We will use these boards to limit Work in Process into each stage and as a result create a smoother work flow(Heijunka) with a goal of eliminating what Lean refer to as the 3 M’s, Muda (Waste), Mura (Unevenness or Inconsistent) and Muri (unreasonable). This way we maximize your marketing efforts to the fullest extent.

Scratching your head a bit? We will develop our Kanban Boards in later posts which will clarify things a bit. Don’t get hung up on process. All you really need to do is break down your present marketing systems onto a Kanban board and start.

Related Posts:
Pull: The Pull in Lean Marketing
Value Stream = Involve-Influence-Interaction- Intimacy-Commit: Value Stream Marketing and the Indirect Marketing Concept
Marketing Kanban: Marketing Kanban

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Turning your Marketing Cycle into a Kanban

business901 — Wed, 05 May 2010 15:43:15 +0000

One of the first steps that I recommend in developing your Marketing Kanban is to create a Value Stream Map of your Sales or Marketing Cycle. Many people struggle with this concept and in a workshop I asked them to create their best known channel without really discussing their marketing tactics at all. I ask them just to define how many clients they need in this Value Stream to be successful. For illustration purposes I use a common internet model that is recognizable to most of us. A typical Value Stream may look something like this:

Google Ad
Website
Auto-responder
30-day trial
Purchase
Upsell
Buzz it up

Of course there are numerous ways someone may reach your website such as Referrals, Search, Social Media, PR, etc. You could include them all, but if you do not measure them individually it will be difficult to improve them as time goes on.

I am going to take just a section of the above Value stream and define an Entry and Exit point to the Kanban(see Bootstrapping the Kanban). The Entry point will be Google Ad and the exit point will be the Purchase point. This will simplify my explanation.

When we discussed the Marketing Kanban before, we discussed creating Work in Process (WIP) limits. The above diagram will demonstrate a very important beginning point for the use of a Marketing Kanban and how we go about determining the basic structure. Start developing your WIP limits by asking these questions:

How many prospects do you engage with?
How many become prospects?
How many are qualified prospects?
How many use the Free Trial?
How many become clients?
How many repeat?
How many are referred?

I have already confused myself, have I confused you? This is where the Kanban becomes so effective.

This simple structure is easily adjusted and can be used for just about any channel you wish to develop. How do you determine these numbers? Well first, if you don’t already know any of these numbers or just starting out, look at what will be your constraint or control point. Where are you limited?

Maybe, you can only handle 30 clients? Start with something that you know or fill in the blanks with your best guestimate. If you can only complete three of the five examples, complete the others by considering the conversion rates that you have between each. Don’t overly worry about accuracy, especially if you have not measured these before. You can even create a best and worst scenario to the Value Stream.

Are you limited by the dollars you spend on Google ads? Take a known number and plug into your Kanban and just multiply it across. Can you see what happens? Is a client worth $500? Are you Google ads effective enough? Do you need to increase conversion rates thru your free trial?

This particular Marketing Kanban is just a starting point. You may not even use your clients as the basis, you may prefer total sales for the month. However, when you visually display it in a Kanban it does create a very easy observation point, especially for small business.

The next step is to consider the other entry points to your website, for example and/or completely different distribution paths. More than likely these other channels (paths) will have different cycle times and budgets. Do not try to fit one Kanban or Value Stream to everyone.

Technorati Tags: Value stream Mapping,Value Stream Marketing,Marketing Kanban,Marketing Cycle,Marketing Hourglass,Marketing Funnel,Kanban

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What happens when the factory goes away?

business901 — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:10:00 +0000

The other day Seth Godin had a post titled , The factory in the center. He said: Old time factories had a linear layout, because there was just one steam engine driving one drive shaft. Every machine in the shop had to line up under the shaft (connected by a pulley) in order to get power. I really enjoyed the chocolate factory video of Lucy and Ethel that he included with the post.

I liken that to the Marketing Funnel or Hourglass concept used by so many Info Marketers. When you look at that concept you will see people placing marketing products next to the different stages of the funnel. Each one depicting the opportunities that they have or the marketing action they use in that particular stage. An example is included in a previous post of mine. It is the way I was taught. The marketing funnel concept is just a step by step progression through the marketing process. When you review that concept, does it not seem dated? Is that not just another way of pushing products?

Reviewing many of my own writings from yesteryear (I have always liked that word), I notice the lack of customer pull that I think is required for successful marketing. The marketing process was based on continuing funneling a person through stages to get to the ultimate buying stage. After that, referrals and up-sells were initiated. Though the concept makes it easier to explain, it really serves little purpose in defining what works in today’s marketing and is in fact downright misleading. I use an hourglass as a way of demonstrating a constraint but as an extension of the marketing funnel, I find it is misleading as referral strategies should be introduced much earlier and often in the typical marketing cycle. Think about it, how many of your referrals come from customers? Most come from people that you associate with that may never be a customer.

I really prefer looking at marketing in a much more cyclic fashion and somewhat more of an iterative process. Spending time defining your customer needs and how your organization reacts to those needs is the essence of marketing today. This approach can make your marketing more effective and reliable by reducing your marketing variability. Marketing is simply becoming more about problem solving and addressing customer needs, not what I call the caveman approach; “You need to buy this!” Instead I like to use the term Value Stream Marketing!

Back to Seth Godin’s Post: Now it doesn’t matter where you sit. Now it doesn’t matter whether or not you’re adding to the efficiency or productivity of the machine. Now you don’t market to sell what you made, you make to satisfy the market. Now, the market and the consumer and idea trump the system.

Suddenly, the power is in a different place, and the organization must change or else the donut collapses.

Is your Marketing Funnel or Hourglass working?

Related Category:

Value Stream Marketing and the Indirect Marketing Concept

Marketing Funnel

Technorati Tags: Marketing Funnel,Marketing Hourglass,Value Stream Marketing,Problem Solving

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Work in Process is Wasteful even in Sales and Marketing

business901 — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:19:29 +0000

One of the tenants I am convinced of is that Work in Process is wasteful and unproductive. If you look at this from a Sales and Marketing Process it basically says that the more people you have in your sales and marketing funnel the more unproductive you are. A blog recently by Jim Benson of Personal Kanban said this (and more) in a recent post Inventory makes Work:

Inventory lowers organizational effectiveness because the time and money spent taking care of the inventory could have been spent making the company more successful. Therefore, Lean organizations tend to receive the things they need to operate at the last responsible moment, this is called “Just in Time” (JIT). A JIT organization does not take on inventory until the moment they need it and therefore spends as little as possible maintaining inventory, greatly reducing the risk of having overstock.

But inventory isn’t just “stuff.” Inventory for us as individuals includes anything we have that requires maintenance or on-going attention. We have responsibilities, they aren’t going away. We will have a yard, it will need to be mowed. Dishes need to be washed. Children need to be raised.

Inventory for sales and marketing is prospects! As you think about what stops your marketing from being effective it is all about trying to appeal to the masses and as a result losing effectiveness both in time and money. As Jim said above, you should be taking the time making your company more successful and working on ineffective or wasteful leads is not going to do it.

The past several years the buzz word has been Inbound Marketing. Though I am a advocate of the basic approach and an advocate of using Social Media I have found that it really has resulted in a failed marketing strategy for many companies. Though it has increased the number of prospects it has done little to increase qualified buyers. That is why there has been push back from many organizations. It just has not been effective as the principle seems to indicate. Just because we automated the process does not mean we are managing Work in Process better.

So what happens if we limit work in process or the numbers of leads that we receive? Marketing to a targeted audience results in a cost savings and time savings. Would you need to hire more salespeople? Would you be able to use more experienced people at the right time and in the right place more often? Would you nurture and promote to a better qualified prospect? I believe the most important part of limiting Work in Process is that your message would simply be better. Not only would your information packet be much more targeted and information rich, it would also have a better chance to be delivered on time or in other words when a prospect is ready for it. Giving a prospect what he needs, when he needs it and how he wants it is a pretty important factor in today’s market. If you look at what vehicles prospects and your customers use to acquire the information they need, you will notice one important factor: they are just about all different. Multiplying that number by the number of prospects should certainly give you reason to start narrowing your field.

Why is now, the best time to convert to this strategy? The market itself has caused a constriction for most companies. This constriction has narrowed your market that should enable you to readily identify your target market. What are the last minute adjustments or concessions you make (JIT) to capture the sale? These are the present value drivers of your business. Are these the value drivers that you are willing to live with in the long term? How do they help you in identifying your present and future market?

Work in process is wasteful. It is wasteful in your personal life when not managed well, it is bad in manufacturing, it is bad from a sales and marketing perspective. Quit marketing at the top of your funnel. Instead learn how to manage your Work in Process!

P.S. By the way, I don’t even believe in a marketing funnel anymore. I will tell you more about that later!

Improve throughput, cut your customers in half!

Lean your Marketing thru Segmentation

Technorati Tags: Lean,Sales Cycle,Marketing Funnel,Work in Process,JIT,Inventory,Prospects,Kanban,Agile Marketing

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Are you in your Prospects Circle of Trust?

business901 — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:15:47 +0000

In the movies, Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers the soon to be Father in Law, Jack, so brilliantly played by Robert DeNiro had a Circle of Trust that Ben Stiller, Greg, so desperately tries to become accepted into. Greg just keeps stumbling as he tries to penetrate that invisible barrier. As you sit back and look at the different things that happen; the cat’s tail, the truth serum and the babysitting adventure you may be able to create an analogy of your own trust building attempts with prospects. Have you ever tried being a little more than you are? Have you ever attempted to disguise the truth? Probably not, but have you ever told a prospect what you really thought of them?

We many times talk about partnering; being close or a term I like to use is to be intimate with our customers. In essence, we are really after gaining their acceptance, exactly what Greg Focker so valiantly tries. Have you ever felt like your prospects are checking you out in their own control center and sometimes even unfairly? No matter what size of sale though, you do have to crack that circle of trust. Fortunately, seldom do you have to gain the trust of such a skeptic like Jack.

I find it interesting that many of us struggle in this area; I certainly do on just defining what trust might mean to our customers. That word “Trust” how do you define that? Do you believe trust emerges from meeting obligations or just being open with a prospect? That’s probably part of it. But these alone will not build trust. To leverage the power of choice in interpersonal relationships, trust must be built into the fabric of the relationship through continual reinforcement. It must be focused, manage, nurtured, and rewarded. Before someone decides to grant trust in a working relationship, a calculation goes on in the mind. The person granting your permission into their Circle of Trust can be simplified around these four dimensions:

Confidence: Does the person have the skills necessary to accomplish the past?
Reliability: Does the person deliver what is expected, when it is expected and in the form it is expected?
Open/Honest communications: Is the person forthright in his or her dealings?
Caring: Is this person willing to defend the interests of the other, even when that interest may affect his or her own interests?

According to the book,The Strongest Link: Forging a Profitable and Enduring Corporate Alliance, if the person scores are low on any one dimension, trust is difficult to achieve. The higher the person scores in each dimension, the stronger the trust. If someone is confident, reliable, honest, and willing to risk their career for you, what’s not to like about them? Ask anyone about these dimensions of trust, and they usually place confidence, reliability, and honesty on the list. However, caring is a different issue. We asked people in a business relationship how they show caring for their counterparts, he had some interesting answers. Typical responses you should listen to the prospects views, think about issues from their perspective, and include that person in all decision-making. But that answer does not go deep enough. Carrying in a business relationship means taking risk even risks that threaten one’s own standing in the firm. That is where true trust lies.

It would be great if your salespeople could develop this kind of trust. However, stop for a second and ask; does your organization build this kind of trust, internally and externally?

Technorati Tags: Sales Cycle,Marketing Funnel,Value Stream Marketing,Trust

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