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Get status meetings back on track the VIA way

Posted by Aldwin Neekon

Sales and marketing status meetings, regular ones that happen every week, for example, are designed to test the caffeine content of your favourite drink. Can your double espresso keep you awake through a status meeting? Is a double helping of Trucker’s Choice Stay Alert Capsules up to the task? No. The answer in both cases is no.

A status meeting is a room full of people taking turns trying to remember what they did last week and fumbling to describe it in a way they hope sounds more impressive than it was. Everyone else nods, checks their phones under the table, and waits for their turn to do the same.

But there is a way to get value out of status meetings. Just remember VIA:

V = Visibility

I = Input

A = Action

When it’s time for you to share your story of how you spent the last week, consider if the purpose of each piece of information you’re sharing is to:

V = Give visibility into what you’re doing

I = Ask for input into a decision you’re about to make

A = Request that someone else take action

Then, make it explicit.  If you’re sharing 10 items about what you did last week as an FYI, then just say “For the sake of visibility, here are the 10 things I did last week.”

But if you need someone to do something, say “Elaine, I’m going to need some help from you on this next item.”

This has a few benefits:

  1. By being explicit about why you’re sharing what you’re sharing, it helps you organize your thoughts
  2. If you leave it to others to figure out how they’ll help you, you’ll be waiting a long time. This way they know exactly what you need from them
  3. It triggers people to really pay attention to your updates. When they hear their name along with “I need some input” or “I’ll  need some action on this” next to it, they’ll wake up long enough to find out what they’re being signed up for.

Now imagine the last few sales or marketing disasters that could have been avoided through the information shared in your status meetings, but were not. Could things have gone better if each person had made it clear whether they were sharing simply for the sake of visibility or if they needed someone’s input or action?

Pair this with the classic Harvard Business Review article describing 4 kinds of meetings, and this shorter Brian Tracy article on how to run an effective meeting.

Note: This post is in no way affiliated with VIA Rail, although they offer a great service, and if they’d like to make me an honourary train engineer for life, I would humbly accept.

Two steps to better marketing content faster

Create better marketing content faster by following these 2 steps

Posted by Aldwin Neekon

Here are the two steps for creating better marketing content faster:

  1. Slow clarity
  2. Fast creativity

We tend to get this backwards. We’re in a big hurry to start creating something for the sales team, or the website, or the conference booth. Someone in the executive suite gives us the topic. Maybe it’s that last customer win, or maybe something that just happened in the industry, or a feature we just released. Then we’re asked to iterate. So we start giving form to the half-baked idea, the result comes out equally half baked, which is when everyone in the company starts giving their ideas on how to improve it. And that’s when things really go wrong.

Every single time it’s a disaster, and we never find our unique voice. We never say what we really mean. We never really reach our customers.

Why does this happen? Because we rush the first step and we draw out the second one. We don’t spend enough time figuring out what we’re saying, and we take too long to say it.

If you want to create quickly, be very very clear about what you’re trying to say, and then let a trained artist just say it. This applies to your writers, graphic designers, video editors, software developers, everyone.

This is slow clarity:

Spend as much time as you need to become very clear about what you’re trying to say.

This is fast creativity:

Then say it as quickly as you need to. Don’t draw it out with endless options and iterations and opportunities for everyone to ruin it with their opinion.

I’ll find time to write more about how to do each of those two things better.

For now, try this.

  1. Whatever it is you’re about to start working on, figure out how long it usually takes you to do it. Include everyone’s time. If ten people each spend half an hour throwing in their two cents, then that’s an extra 5 hours. Count all of it.
  2. Now plan to spend 50% of that time getting very clear about what it is you’re trying to say – this includes interviews, research, point form outlines.
  3. Spend 30% of the time creating – this step includes extensive editing and re-writing by professionals, not just senior people with an opinion.
  4. Use 20% of the time taking slow walks in the park.

For the history buffs, this is not a return to the old pre-lean, pre-agile days of specifying everything into paralysis. It is a return to the good old days of having something to say, and then saying it.

Pair this with Fast Company’s article on Einstein’s Problem Solving Formula and this 5-Step Technique for Producing Ideas circa 1939.

Sympathy for the B2B Buyer

Posted by Aldwin Neekon

Your Customers don’t want to buy from you

It’s not your job to buy the things vendors have to sell.
And it’s not your customer’s job to buy from you.

Not only is it not their job to buy from you, it’s not even remotely close to being one of their ambitions.

Unless you’re selling a Ferrari to a long-time admirer of Enzo’s marriage of power and design, buying from you is not what motivates any of your customers.

In fact, if they could avoid their problems while also avoiding Read More →

Why being at 30% in your sales funnel means nothing to your B2B leads

Posted by Aldwin Neekon

Do you know marketing executives who are proud to have content ready for every stage of their sales team’s sales funnel?  If their salespeople have B2B leads set at 30% in their CRM, the marketing team sends them collateral custom made for leads at 30%.

Does that make any sense to you, or to your potential customers? Read More →

How Do You Discover Your Customer’s Buying Process?

Posted by Aldwin Neekon

If you know how your customers do business, you’ll be more successful selling to them.

That’s my assertion.  I have no infographics to back it up, and your experience may vary.  But it makes sense and matches what I’ve seen happen at the companies I’ve worked with.  For a few more words on this, I refer you here.

How do people in your market segment want to buy what you’re selling?

Here’s a start: Read More →

Should Your Customers Care About Your Sales Process?

Posted by Aldwin Neekon

It’s good that your company has a sales process. It helps you track your progress. But don’t expect your customers to care.

Put yourself in their place. Do you care that your vendor has tagged you as a “stage 3 prospect pending champion identification”?

No, of course not. You care that you need a solution to your problem. And because you’ve done this before, you know that you have to get your requirements sorted out, check out the vendor’s credentials and references, get engineering to sign off by having them use and test the solution, make an ROI case so your CFO issues a PO, and so on.

In other words, you have a buying process, and so do your customers.

Just like you, your customers prefer to work with people who make their lives easier. Who help them succeed faster.

When it comes to buying something, your customers prefer to work with people who Read More →

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