by Chris Waszczak | Aug 17, 2017 | B2B Outsourced Sales, Brand Marketing, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation
Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!
I am going to teach you how to create ads that suck more than a five-story vacuum factory. In truth, most of the ads I see are monuments of major suckitude that virtually ensure their own avoidability. They are either so dull and unimaginative that they become invisible, or so obnoxious that they have people trampling one another to get to the mute button. These kinds of ads have no chance of pausing the scrolling thumb on the social media newsfeed, unless it is to tap the even smaller downward digital thumb of disapproval.
Follow any of the following suggestions and you’ll be sure to be unfollowed; follow all of them and watch your business go down faster than a fat kid on a seesaw. (By the way, using terms like “fat kid on a seesaw” falls under point #3.)
- Look like everyone else.
In middle school, being the same as everyone else is “safe.” But in the world of advertising, being the same is death. Most businesses think that their ads need to look and sound like ads. The truth is that feeling safe is the least safe position for an advertiser.
For instance, almost every Realtor I’ve worked with has gone into a fetal position when I’ve suggested not using the ubiquitous headshot. I once had a professional photographer take fun, personable images of a firm’s Realtors. One agent’s photo in particular was fantastic–she and her dog, a very photogenic weimaraner, were both smiling into the camera. It was adorable. Everyone I showed the photo to had the same comment: “I’d work with that realtor!” Unfortunately, she opted instead for the boring, overused formal look because she felt like people wouldn’t think she looked “professional enough.” (Hint: Nobody likes your glamor head shots except you. The rest of us just roll our eyes.)
So, to suck, make sure your ads look like ads, especially like everyone else’s.
- SHOUT!!!
Use bold, ALL CAPS and multiple exclamation points as often as possible!!!!!! Roy H. Williams, the “Wizard of Ads,” says that “Every beginner’s solution is to put an ‘attention getter’ into the ad. Bright colors, loud noises, exclamation marks, and crazy stunts are the sad little attention getters most often used. The effect on your beautiful customer is much the same as sneaking up behind her and shouting, ‘WATCH OUT!’”
Cheap tricks like this are just…annoying. As the Wiz says, “Is that any way to start a relationship?”
- Cross the line
There’s a fine line between humor or impact and just plain offensiveness. Cross the line. Go boldly forward like a raging bull in a china shop. If you think it’s funny, go with it! Don’t give it a second thought, consider the sensitivities of your audience, or run it by diverse sources for feedback, and you’re on the superhighway to Sucksville.
Don’t get me wrong, there is an art to provoking enough controversy and reaction to benefit your business, but it’s risky and it requires a very skilled and experienced professional to pull it off (and sometimes even professionals fall flat on their faces.)
Damn the torpedoes…and watch your reputation sink.
More tips on ads that suck to come in a future blog. For now, these three points, properly applied, will produce spectacular failure.
Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.
Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.
SalesFish Net of Sales Services:
- B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
- On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
- B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
- Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
- Online Presentations and Webinars
- Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
- Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
- Experiential Event Marketing
- Pre and Post-Event Calls
- Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
by Chris Waszczak | Aug 10, 2017 | Brand Marketing, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation, Outsourced Sales
Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!
There are right and wrong ways to go about marketing, and the pitfalls are many. A lot can be learned by seeing how not to manage your marketing. This original blog series weaves together an entertaining story that will help you navigate 21st-Century marketing with a view from “the dark side,” as “Screwtape” teaches his apprentice “Wormwood” via email how to sabotage your marketing. Enjoy…
PART FIVE:
To: Wormwood
From: Screwtape
Subject: The “Know it All” Deception
My dear Wormwood,
I’m going to lie to you.
“The businessperson is the best person to sell their service or product…”
This falsehood is so burrowed into the minds of businesspeople that it’s often considered a point of common sense. The thinking is that it takes expert, intricate knowledge to effectively reach the consumer. Keep this delusion strong in the Patient and we can sabotage his sales.
The disgusting truth is that the opposite is often the case—the business owner or specialist not the best person to connect the product with the people. Why? Because the expert is almost always too close to his or her subject matter to effectively sell it. For one thing, they have an inherent bias toward their own business that can come across as less than sincere. Secondly, an owner or expert will almost always use jargon the average person doesn’t fully understand or—closely related—not understand which specific knowledge their audience lacks. Conventional wisdom is to write at the 6th-grade level to keep it simple and understandable. (You must convince the Patient the opposite: that people will be impressed by fancy words and displays of deep product knowledge.)
So, who is best to sell a product or service? In a word, an outsider. Specifically, someone with sales skills, but not an expert in the field.
When casting the lead antagonist for the 6th Rocky movie, Rocky Balboa, Sylvester Stallone chose a real boxer over an actor. He explained that he’d rather train a boxer to act than trying to teach an actor to box. In like fashion, it’s easier to inform a salesperson on the essentials of a business than trying to teach a businessperson to sell.
The main advantage to the outsider is that he or she will see the product or service from the point of view of the consumer, by default. The salesperson will have to “dumb it down” to learn it and in the process, will develop the perfect approach to sell it to consumers. (Of course, the salesperson will have to rely to at least some extent on the knowledge of the client to verify accuracy in the message.)
The upshot of all this, my dear Wormwood, is that you must at all costs lead the Patient into the “know it all deception”: to believe that he who knows the best sells the best. In this way, the marketing and sales professionals who actually have the training and experience to best connect the business with the consumer, will be disqualified.
Teach the actor to box, and neither the acting nor the boxing will be good—pretend boxing isn’t boxing. But teach a boxer to act, and they won’t really have to act at all, because they are doing what comes naturally.
Keep this analogy to yourself, for obvious reasons.
Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape
Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.
Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.
SalesFish Net of Sales Services:
- B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
- On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
- B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
- Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
- Online Presentations and Webinars
- Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
- Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
- Experiential Event Marketing
- Pre and Post-Event Calls
- Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
by Chris Waszczak | Aug 2, 2017 | B2B Sales, B2B Telemarketing, Lead Generation, Outsourced Sales, Telemarketing Services
Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!
A.I.…A.I.…A.I., has anyone heard this acronym recently? Anyone, anyone? (LOL!) Yep, there certainly isn’t a lack of conversation and enthusiasm when it comes to the new “outer space” of A.I. and Virtual Reality. Like most business professionals, we appreciate new technology when it adds to the productivity and profitability equation, without miring us in extra useless activities.
I’m sure you can relate, but I sat in on a A.I. sales support Webinar last week, and for 45 minutes the presenter droned on about the features (not really benefits) of how their A.I. product could serve a sales professional. OMG, talk about being stuck in the weeds! The presentation could have been twenty minutes instead of an hour. The presenter used very eclectic terms, and seemed to think his product was some sort of “magic bullet,” rather than a helpful sales tool.
Early on in my career, I used to succumb to the ether in the room regarding new technology products. In time, I stepped back to take a second look and ask the question, “is this REALLY going to serve us and our bottom line?” Eight times out of ten, the answer was no. It all seems great at first glance, but we don’t need any more distractions in the sales cycle from what should be a simple, pragmatic process. I’m not trying to diminish those who enjoy a sophisticated sales cycle, but more often than not, a tenured sales team will pull away the minute they see added sales steps that waste their time.
Here’s the key takeaway: People buy from people they like, not robotic transaction-driven sales professionals, which is why at “The Pond” we always keep relationships #1 in mind.
What are we really doing in this life if we take the whole human relational factor out of sales? Yes, we love and use A.I. here at SalesFish, but we also recognize it’s a tool, not a magic bullet. The magic bullet is the people in our not-so-ordinary day-to-day work life who drive us crazy, but at the same time make us laugh—the people who are here to offer kind and encouraging words. Without that human interaction, life is empty.
Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!
Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.
Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.
SalesFish Net of Sales Services:
- Outsourced Sales
- B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
- On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
- B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
- Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
- Online Presentations and Webinars
- Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
- Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
- Experiential Event Marketing
- Pre and Post-Event Calls
- Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
by Chris Waszczak | Jul 20, 2017 | B2B Sales, B2B Telemarketing, Lead Generation, Outsourced Sales, Telemarketing Services
Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!
The corporate landscape has changed dramatically in the last decade, including perspectives on what “best business practices” really means to an organization.
In 2017, we are operating in a business ecosystem that is considerably different than that of just six years ago. Companies have become much more agile with the adoption and progression of cloud-based technologies. If you were relying upon a LAN, WAN or telecom system based on some sort of legacy system, poof, those days are gone forever.
Every productivity tool that a world-class sales professional would need to be successful in their job today is now readily available through a variety of cloud-based applications. This means sales availability and connectivity are real-time…anywhere…at any time.
This accessibility also plays a significant role in the recruitment of talent. Accessing and utilizing talent is not limited to a specific geographical location. Progressive organizations are flourishing by casting a wide net and not limiting their operation to the confines of “brick and mortar” facilities. This is all made possible through major advances in sales tools and technologies.
These technology advances are also causing companies to change their paradigm on expanding outsourcing sales activities for various “touch points” in their sales cycle. And in some cases, even considering outsourcing the whole sales cycle.
At SalesFish, we embrace the fact that companies are in business to increase profits, and in some cases, stock valuation. This drives our unapologetic insistence on a strategic approach to maximizing your internal resources as well as efficient and productive outsourcing. For us, the end game is always lowering the operational cost necessary to produce sales.
Reducing costs is one of the more attractive advantages of outsourcing the sales function. We receive dozens of calls from senior executives every week looking at the concept of outsourcing sales because they’re frustrated with trying to maintain a performance-driven sales force. Our encouragement to them is that if they can’t maintain a performance driven sales culture, then that’s a green light to seriously consider outsourcing some portion of their sales process.
The only caveat we would add is: DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE! There are dozens of sub-par, smile-and-dial telesales organizations that are willing to take your credit card over the phone while promising you the world. The problem is that often they are more interested in your credit card number than they are in fulfilling their promises. Remember, sales is the lifeblood of your company’s success, so don’t be penny wise and pound foolish. The best value is always going to be a partner that is committed to performance and delivering results…
Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.
Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.
SalesFish Net of Sales Services:
- Outsourced Sales
- B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
- On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
- B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
- Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
- Online Presentations and Webinars
- Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
- Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
- Experiential Event Marketing
- Pre and Post-Event Calls
- Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
by Chris Waszczak | Jul 18, 2017 | B2B Sales, Brand Marketing, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation
Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!
There are right and wrong ways to go about marketing, and the pitfalls are many. A lot can be learned by seeing how not to manage your marketing. This original blog series weaves together an entertaining story that will help you navigate 21st-Century marketing with a view from “the dark side,” as “Screwtape” teaches his apprentice “Wormwood” via email how to sabotage your marketing. Enjoy…
PART FOUR:
To: Wormwood
From: Screwtape
Subject: Data Obsession Disorder
My dear Wormwood,
The most effective marketing and sales regularly evaluate data, insights and feedback and then adjust their tactics accordingly. This is sometimes called the “Feedback Loop.”
Wormwood, this presents another threat to our mission of sowing chaos and disorder into the patient’s marketing & sales. It also presents an opportunity…
They say the danger is in the extremes, and every road has two ditches. We can steer the Patient into whichever ditch and achieve our aims—either is a perfectly pernicious as the other. Here, then, is how we can use data to our advantage:
- Convince the Patient that data and analytics are cold, dead and meaningless, and that “gut feelings” or unguided intuition are all you need.
- Convince the Patient that data and analytics are the only things that matter, and that intuition amounts to mere “guessing.”
What a lot of people may not know is that science is about both data and intuition (sometimes called insight). Without the intuition of a living, breathing scientist, data is dead; without data, one is left primarily with “hunches.” (And, yes, the marketing or sales professional needs the ability to market scientifically.)
David Ogilvy, the “Father of Advertising,” was big on data. He said, “Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.” And, “Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.”
But he also said, “I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination.”
Again, you see the two extremes. So which is it? A focus on either to the exclusion of the other is where we want our Patient to land. But should he combine the two concepts, our cause will suffer and we may have to abandon this angle.
Here is the secret, which we must never let out to the Patient or the public: Data informs intuition. The best sales and marketing professional takes in all the left brain data, and then his or her right brain produces insights and judgment calls. The human mind has an incredible capacity to see the forest for the trees—to transform data into higher-level intuitions, insights, plans of action.
This, my ward, we must avoid at all costs.
Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape
Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.
Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.
SalesFish Net of Sales Services:
- B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
- On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
- B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
- Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
- Online Presentations and Webinars
- Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
- Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
- Experiential Event Marketing
- Pre and Post-Event Calls
- Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
by Chris Waszczak | Jul 12, 2017 | B2B Sales, Brand Marketing, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation
Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!
There are right and wrong ways to go about marketing, and the pitfalls are many. A lot can be learned by seeing how not to manage your marketing. This original blog series weaves together an entertaining story that will help you navigate 21st-Century marketing with a view from “the dark side,” as “Screwtape” teaches his apprentice “Wormwood” via email how to sabotage your marketing. Enjoy…
PART THREE:
To: Wormwood
From: Screwtape
Subject: Disconnection
My dear Wormwood,
Disconnection, division, dismember, divorce—Ah, the beautiful chaos of breaking things apart! As you know, we are destroyers, not creators; deconstructionists of all that is built.
In this case, your assignment is to disengage sales and marketing. By no means must we allow the Patient to see these two as mutually-dependent (or “symbiotic,” as is the biological term). Any organization works best when sales and marketing work together as an organism. Think of the human body’s relationship with bacteria, such as those that aid in digestion: There are more bacteria in a body than human cells! Or think of lichen, a symbiosis of fungi and algae. Take away the bacteria, and the human cannot survive; take the fungus or algae out of lichen, and it can no longer thrive in its environment.
Encourage the patient to compartmentalize sales and marketing into two separate silos. Have the sales team view marketing as “fluff” and essentially money thrown away. Convince the marketing team that their craft is superior to sales, and the sales team is essentially taking credit for marketing’s months of work. Never—I repeat—never allow these teams to collaborate! If they do, our cause is sunk!
Perhaps a military analogy will enlighten you. Often the most effective way to achieve a military objective is for the Air Force and Navy to begin taking out strategic targets—ammunition depos, fuel tanks, runways, troop concentrations, and such—through bombing. This prepares the way for the ground troops (Army & Marines) to finish the job. Without the Air Force and Navy, ground troops will meet with stiff resistance; without the ground troops, ground cannot be taken nor total victory achieved.
It’s marketing’s job to prepare the ground for sales. Their main functions include building brand awareness, touting the benefits of the products and services, initiating meaningful relationships with prospects and stirring to action (which we often call leads and conversions).
Now, of course the sales team can and will “cold call,” but without the brand awareness marketing builds, they are going to meet more resistance. You might say they will have an uphill battle! Having leads brought to you through inbound marketing is far superior to chasing them down! Marketing can utilize email drip campaigns, blogs, PPC and social media advertising and have generated leads fed directly into Salesforce or other sales CRM programs. Done right, it’s seamless and combines the best of personal touch with automated lead generation.
See the danger to our cause if sales and marketing unite? If your Patient achieves this unity of disciplines, then…hmmm… the word “discipline” will apply to you in a different context. Dissolve, deter and sow dissonance. We are watching.
Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape
Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.
Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.
SalesFish Net of Sales Services:
- B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
- On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
- B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
- Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
- Online Presentations and Webinars
- Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
- Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
- Experiential Event Marketing
- Pre and Post-Event Calls
- Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
