“How did it go? I said. “Well only about a third of the folks
that signed up showed up.”

“Remember, this is Oregon,” Kate pointed out. “It was
sunny and warm that day and you can’t expect folks that have been given a hall
pass to actually show up at a workshop once they are outside and dry.”

Gail asked, “You did your usual full tilt presentation
though, right?”

“Oh yes,” I said. “I did the full two hours including the
planned 15 minutes of Q and A”.

Most of the attendees were amazed by the numbers I presented and glad to hear
an expert’s opinion about the whole social media elephant in the room.”

“Numbers?” Chris asked.

“I pointed out that even though smart phone and tablet
sales are going through the roof that a good 20% more of the US Population own laptops
and netbooks and that even more importantly laptops and desktops in terms of
use beat
smartphones 5 to 1 and tablets 6 to 1.

Then I showed them the differences between men and women
in how they use the internet for inspiration and evaluation in shopping.
Surprisingly, men are heavier users for both purposes.

Rob drawled, “Scuse me ol’ son, could we go back to the
elephant?

“Okay,” I agreed. “What I asked them to do was a simple
exercise. You can do it on a napkin. Write down the top five social media sites
you are aware of. The group had a list of about seven or eight. The most common
were: Facebook, Twitter, Linked in, Pinterest and Google Plus. Then I told them
to write down next to each the amount of time you feel you would have to spend
on it each day to get some results in your business. There was a lot of
complaining at that point but I asked them to guess. The average was 24 minutes
for each or just about 2 hours a day. Then I asked what else they might do in their
business with that two hours a day and what that could be worth to them. It got
very quiet in that room.

They all began to say that it was obvious that there was
no value to Social media.

The pendulum had swung too far. So I showed them some
more statistics…how you can get more attention and better SEO with the right
kinds of posts and how to decide whether you should use one or another and once
that selection was made how to optimize the use for your company. By simply cutting
the activities to one or two social media sites the savings in time are
immense. Becoming more knowledgeable in one option allows you to increase your
efficiency even more.

Suddenly, the elephant was less like a stampede and more
like a stuffed toy. Get the picture?”

That was just the first third of the presentation. I also
included:

• 15
  Web Site lead generation tips

• 3
  Rules to change Contacts into Contracts

• 7
  ways to generate Nonstop Referrals

• How to
  put it all together with Contact Relationship Magic

• 2 “AutoMagic”
  Marketing Campaigns— Consultants and Cupcakes

Rob said, “Sounds like it was grits and all. Was there
any dessert?”

‘I told them I would sit down for an hour at no charge to review their marketing plans with any one that asked. I’ll make the same
offer in Marketing Rain.”

Stick around. Jerry has been asked to do some webinars so
he is going to take a look at how to maximize outcomes in that approach with
advice from the Lunch bunch and an expert special guest.

www.JerryFletcher.com
is Jerry’s consulting web site. Take a look on a smart phone, a tablet, a
laptop or a desktop. It works on them all.

www.NetworkingNinja.com
is where you can find information on Jerry’s speaking programs plus video of
some of his best known signature stories.

“So, troops,
what did you learn last Saturday at Product Camp?” I asked.

“Empathy,”
said Gail. “Those folks have a really tough job in the high tech arena. They
are subjected to timing requirements and asked to deliver with, at best,
partial information and often are stressed out by management that doesn’t begin
to understand what they are asking.”

Kate said,
“True. But part of that is because sales types like me are getting too much of
a say in the development of the products.”

Rick paused
in shock and said, “Too much! Did she say too much? Did the super sales woman actually
say those words?”

“I sweah
thas what I heard,” said Rob. “She allowed as how sales were getting too much
say in product development.”

“I was in
that session, too and she is reporting accurately,” I said. “One of the
problems with some of the new processes is that the door was opened to sales
for their input but once they got their foot in management didn’t understand
how it was impacting the development teams.”

Kate drew
herself up to her full six feet, surveyed the table, sighed and then said, “If
you clowns would have let me finish I was going to say that in a later session,
it came out that the best development teams were the ones that had sales input
because the sales force is always closest to the customer. The trick for the
great product manager is to sort through all the sales input at hand, then go
to the field when it makes sense to listen and learn.”

Chris piped
up, “I was in that session, too. The product manager if he or she is really
good uses that field experience to get a deeper understanding of what the
customer really wants and needs, an understanding that goes beyond the product
currently in use or being developed.”

Rick picked
up the thread, “All day long it kept coming back to one skill that was more
important than any other. The best product managers all had it. So did the
sales people they worked with, marketing and management as well. That skill was
communication. They described it in a lot of ways…empathy, listening,
diplomacy, understanding, contextual understanding, ability to persuade
executives and on and on. But it all comes down to communications skills.”

“I’ll go
along with that,” Gail said. “I spoke with a number of the attendees during the
breaks and over lunch. None of them were the tongue-tied types of engineers you
so often run into. The conversations I had ranged over topics from analytics to
math to decision-making processes to using assessments for hiring.”

“My experience
was the same,” I said.

“So, why did
you take us all to that event, Fletch?” asked Kate.

“Because one
of the people that put it together wanted to include the views of a bunch of
people who are in the marketing and management arena. Your comments were heard
in the course of the day, in part due to the open structure of the event but
also because you guys are not bashful. You speak out in your areas of expertise
and you have working knowledge across a spectrum of businesses and processes
sufficient to know when to advise and when to refer the matter. My friend was
right. You fit right in and were welcome guests.”

Join us for
lunch again next week. The topic will be Marketing for the Little Guy. Fletch
has agreed to report on his upcoming speaking engagement and what the people
that attended were most interested in.

Jerry
Fletcher www.JerryFletcher.com is a Marketing Consultant that works
with start-ups, professionals, and small businesses to take their businesses up
a notch.

Jerry speaks
professionally on three continents. Learn more at www.NetworkingNinja.com

“You started this argument and now you have to prove your
point,” said Kate.

“What argument?” asked Rick.

“What point?” Said Chris.

“It’s that old long copy versus short copy song,” Gail
explained.  

Rick grimaced and said, “I know more verses to that song
then you can imagine. Every time I take a long copy approach to a client I feel
like I was forced to walk the plank and wound up in the deep.”

Bubba smiled, snaked a roll and began slathering it with
butter. “Y’all know,” he said, that it don’t make no never mind how long the
copy is. If you’re gonna sell suthin you got to paint the picture of what those
with the cash be dreamin’ about.”

“That is what I was trying to prove to our former basketball playing
sometimes dread head here. The internet hasn’t changed things. In fact,
an outfit called Express Writers did a study that shows that search engines
prefer long content, I said.”

Chris jumped in saying, “I saw that study. One of the top
internet writers and researchers, Neil Patel, tested a long copy home page
against one with short copy. The long copy converted at a rate 7.6 % better and
the leads were of better quality and on top of that he got better search results.”

Kate looked over her glasses, harrumphed and said, “But
how do you dive into the deep end of the pool and stay interesting?”

Gail said, “The same way you deal with a difficult sale.
People buy from those they know like and trust. So the first thing you have to
do is get on their radar and then you have to have a reasonably pleasant
personality and you have to be consistent. Once you get over those hurdles you have
to stop selling and start listening.

Listen to:

Everybody that knows about this specific kind of
customer. All your cohort and even the marketing people.

The people you are trying to sell particularly when they
talk about what is keeping them from buying… what you and Rick call objections.

Competitors… not just the ones that have a product or service
like yours but all the ways the prospect could solve the problem.

Then you have a decent writer put your arguments for your product or service  together.
Not everyone can write copy that keeps people engaged. You need someone with
empathy, some one that can dream along with them…in full living color.”

“Hear! Hear!” I said. Whether it is short or long copy you
have to have empathy to reach the masses. And you do that by understanding
their dreams and concerns and then responding to them individually and all
together in bright shining words and phrases that fit their interests and moods
and desires.”

How do you make sure your long copy moves your prospects?

Jerry Fletcher and his merry marketing band will assemble at their favorite
restaurant for lunch next Friday. Jerry will report the key conversation topic
as usual.

Jerry just reworked his web site so that it can be easily
seen on smart phones, tablets and desktops. A lot of the information there is
new particularly some of the videos. Take a look at www.JerryFletcher.com

Jerry’s speaking site www.NetworkingNinja.com has all the
information you need to bring this international keynote speaker to your
organization.

As Chris and Gail approached our table by the window he
was saying,” So I need to better understand how to get to personas that sell.”

Rick looked up and said, “Ask.”

Gail scolded him, “You’re a big help!”

Rick replied, “That is the way you build a
persona. Talk to someone in the target audience and listen to how they describe
themselves, the problems they are trying to solve and how they see your product
or service. Find out what objections they had ot it initially and most
importantly why they bought.”

Y’all gonna have to parse that posie to find out how to
be convincing though,” said Rob.

“Rob,” I asked, “ By ‘parse that posie’ do you mean
figure out the differences between the problem, their objections and the reason
they bought?”

“Sho nuff, Fletch. The best brands all know what those
differences are. They may not be able to state them as clearly as I like but they
know. Mo’ importantly, they never stop asking and listening.”

“For example,” said Chris.

“I saw one the other day that is right up your alley,
Sgt. Friday,” Rob said with a wink. These good ‘ol boys were introducing a new
on-line meeting product. The intro was doing well, making them six figure
income overnight. They looked at the results and realized they were selling
almost 5% of the folks they connected with via e-mail.

Yeah, I thought that would impress you. But they looked
at that success and asked themselves why they didn’t get more of the folks that
had clicked through. So they did a survey. They asked suspects that had made
contact why they didn’t buy. Twarn’t fancy. Just a single open ended question.

What they found was that the suspects that had become
contacts couldn’t be prospects because they only met two of Fletch’s criteria
for a prospect:

          They had a
problem that the product could solve.

          They were
the ones that could authorize the purchase

          But they
didn’t want a single lump sum payment

Over a third of the survey respondents told them that.
Many of them suggested keeping the same price but allowing payment in three
installments.”

Kate said, “Don’t tell me. From that survey they figured
out the additional potential prospects, even thought they were successful had
tight cash flow and were really concerned how quickly the ROI would kick in.”

“Give that chile a kewpie doll,” Rob said. “Those good
ol’ boys went back to that bunch and increased their sales by 30%!

Chris said, so the best way to build personas that buy is
to listen to what they have to say and that includes doing surveys?”

“Right” I said. “And like Bubba said, ‘Parse them
Posies’. I’ll bet the test he was talking about uncovered some other things as
well.”

“And that is the posie,” said Rob. As much as we talk
about being singular it is just as important to understand that people’s
opinions about our products and services are just not a single blossom but
rather more like a bouquet. If they are early on in the romance the bouquet has
multiple flowers but as they become brand advocates the bouquet becomes one
variety or one color or a single dominant bloom.”

Can you describe the differences between your suspects,
contacts, prospects and clients? How do you “parse the posies”?

Rick sat down shaking his head muttering “Marketing
Automation.”

“What’s the problem?“ 
Kathy asked.

“Marketing automation for clients with small budgets,” Rick
said.

“Not easy,” Gail said. “I’m one of those little guys and
between being told why I can’t do something and that it is going to cost me a
bunch more every time I want to do something has made me come to the conclusion that it is not possible on a tight
budget.”

That’s when I jumped in. ”Guys,” I said, “Let’s sort out what
is wanted, what’s needed and what can be done for what sized budget.”

Gail said, “That’s easy for you to say, you understand this
stuff!”

Rob drawled, “I’m with Gail on this one. I feel like that
cartoon cat starin’ through knothole in a fence one moment and bein’ pulled
through it the next!”

Kathy said, “That smarts just thinking about it! “

“Tha’s why I want Fletch to explain himself,“ said Rob.

I responded, “Let’s make this simple. For starters you have
to have a web site that establishes credibility and makes it easy for folks to
understand what you do. And includes some easy way to contact you.

Next you need to have some sort of contact management system
so you can keep track of clients/customers, prospects, connections and
suspects.

Without any other stuff you can automate your marketing.

First you have to figure out how you get the business.

Every small business has two
sources of additional revenue: Current clients and new customers. Current
clients can be as much as 60% of revenues. New customers get more attention and
they can come from two sources, referrals and new business development.

The simplest automation is you.
Here’s how:

1. Split
your contact records into three lists:

• Clients/Customers
• Clients/Customers
  & Referral sources
  
• Prospects

2. Plan
and implement regular contacts with each based on where they are in your sales
funnel

3. Upgrade
the status as needed based on their latest actions

The first level of digital
automation you may want to add is an ability to do e-mail marketing which
allows you to send out individual e-mails that are personalized with the
person’s name to a list of folks. You can prepare it in advance and schedule to
go out when you want. Some contact managers (Big Contacts) include this
capability. Most low cost ones do not.  You can get it for free (Mail Chimp) or for
relatively low cost (Constant Contact). But if it is not part of your system
you will have to handle all the synchronization of names and e-mails.

The next level requires a layer of
sophistication that most folks are uncomfortable with. You need a way for folks
to make choices and based on those choices to receive different information or
content.

That requires landing pages with
capture forms and auto responders. The landing pages provide a way for people
first to give you their name and e-mail. In some systems the addition of that data
to your contact database can be automatic. But, depending on what you use, you
may have to enter the data manually.

If people are subscribing to a
newsletter or briefing or any kind of report that goes out regularly they can
be put on the list for that specific publication or subject area or however you
have defined it. At this point, you can handle that manually. (But it can be
automated)

Landing pages can also be the
indicators as to what the prospect is interested in. Let’s say you responded to
an offer in my blog. The link takes you to a landing page with a form to fill
out if you want to get the item I offered. When you click submit, the auto
responder sends you a link to the requested item. (A Weber is one of the best
known providers of auto responders and an e-mail marketing capability.)

The sophistication of CRM systems
and synchronization between the various parts gets better every day. Prices are
coming down. The top of the line can be subscribed to for under $250 a month
these days.

I’m currently testing a solution
that will cost me under thirty bucks a month and do just about everything I
want. E-mail me Jerry@Z-axisMarketing.com and ask for a copy of my Contact Relationship Magic review.”

What products have you found that
can help automate marketing for the little guy?

The marketing lunch bunch will be
back next week. Pull up a place, order a beer (we’re Portland based) and learn
about Marketing Without Money TM.

Jerry Fletcher works with
solopreneurs, small businesses and professional service organizations to bring
Contact Relationship Magic TM to their business development. Learn more at www.JerryFletcher.com

Jerry speaks professionally on three continents
(he is just waiting for an offer from Australia) on the power of Trust to build
your business. See videos of signature stories at www.NetworkingNinja.com

“It can be
done,” I said.

“Not easily,”
said Gail. “It takes to much technology if you ask me!”

“Would
somebody please send a cab to 1980, pick up Gail and bring her here?” asked
Rick.

Chris came
to her defense saying, “Hold on. I do more on line work than most of you and I
have to say that it’s difficult to keep up to date.”

Rob said, “I’m
with you theah partner. I got one of those new tablets and my pointin’ finger
is fagged out.

Kathy leaned
in and said, ”So what is this personalization stuff?”

“We were
talking about digital body language and how folks think the way to respond to
it and max out sales. You guys weren’t here and…”

Kathy cut me
off mid-sentence saying, “I know about that fantasy and Gail is right. It takes
too much technology or too much time for small operators!”

Rob handed
her one of his home made pralines and said, “Munch on that while I redirect
your insensitivity.”

She snorted,
looked over her glasses at him and bit into the goodie.

He
continued, “That will slow y’all down. You’ve got to remember that if you have
the right tools and the sense that the good lord gave a goose you can make it
work for you.

The most basic
personalization is to use somebody’s name. I don’t mean their formal name but the
one they respond to—like Fletch calls me Bubba and a couple of you are
pickin’ that up.

Y’all have
to remember that it is context based. I was over at Kathy’s home for dinner
once and the phone rang as we were opening some wine in the kitchen and she was
nervously checking the oven. She hit speaker cause her hands were full. It was
some telephone sales type that asked her for her first name. She slammed the
oven door and said, ‘Missus.’ Then she hung up on him.

So use their
name, the first if it makes sense, a pet name if they are okay with you doin’
that and Mister or Missus with their last name if that is appropriate.

It’s like
one of my darlins use to say, ‘Don’t y’all go gettin’ familiar until we are!’ Y’all
might want to think of that as Bubba’s personalization rule.”

Chris said, “there’s
a lot more data commonly used but most of it is really subject to Bubba’s rule.

What cautions
would you add?

Bubba, and
the rest of the Marketing lunch bunch are reported on weekly when Fletch can find
the time. Sign up now so you don’t miss an episode.

Jerry
Fletcher is a Trust-based Marketing Consultant that knows how to build
businesses. He specializes in Professional Practices, Solopreneurs and
Start-ups. You can learn more at: www.JerryFletcher.com

Fletch is an
international professional speaker. His best known keynote is The
Trust Goldmine. Learn more at www.NetworkingNinja.com

“Wheahs the rest of the Wild Bunch?” Rob drawled.

“Both the ladies called to say they couldn’t make it,
today so it’s just you and me and Chris to solve the world’s marketing
problems,” I answered.

Chris said, “I talked to Rick earlier and he suggested a
topic.”

“What’s that?“ I asked.

“Digital Body Language” he said. “It used to be that
salespeople could read body language because they were right there in the same
room but today sales has shifted to the telephone and the only cues come from
the digital engagement of the prospect. Companies that can afford the services
are looking at data that tells them where people are in the buying process and increases
the probability of landing a sale. They look at all kinds of things but the
most common are:

          Lead
Source

Drip e-mails opened

Forms they filled out,
frequency and data requested

Web site behavior (Visits,
pages and downloads)

Social media interactions

What is happening is a shift from Brand Centric to
Visitor needs.”

“Hold it right there, boy! Thems fightin’ words,” Rob
growled. Thas the trouble with you on-line types you don’t really understand what
brand is so you think your bright shiny objects can replace it. You ever play
any poker?”

Chris, taken aback said,” Sure, mostly back in college.”

“Were y’all any good at it?” Rob said. Doesn’t matter. Do
you know what a tell is? It’s a kind of body language thing that lets you
understand what an opponent is thinking based on his or her actions. All the
young geniuses get their clocks cleaned by players that can read tells.

But the really good players will explain to you that a
tell is situational. In one situation it means one thing but in another it can
be the complete opposite. So you need at least two data points to know what it
means. And the good players may look as deep as three or more conditions that
control the situation.

Branding is not one dimensional. Done right it is full of
depth. The beauty of branding when it is done right is that it doesn’t require
arduous personalization. It is a way of positioning your product or service in
a unique way for a specific kind of person with a specific need use or
occasion. A brand doesn’t try to be all things to everybody. The homework is
done before the web site gets built. The target is identified before any sale
is attempted. And the trigger is known before the prospect hooks into it.”

I said, “I’m with Bubba on this one Chris. He knows
branding and I have feeling he’s played a little big league poker. I know the
argument from the on-line service guys is personalization but the reality is
that you have to do the work of finding out the objections before you begin to
build the content. I know because I get paid to build it. You can’t make this
stuff up as you go along and be successful. The hard part for most companies,
especially the little guys is focus. They always feel they are losing something
until they settle in on the primary reasons people buy from them and stick to
them.”

Chris asked, “what do your readers think about this issue?”

Readers, what do you think?

With luck the entire crew of marketing mercenaries will
be at lunch next week. Why don’t you and a friend join us.

Jerry Fletcher brings his strategic marketing consulting viewpoint
to these gatherings and provides a glimpse of his capabilities at www.JerryFletcher.com

Jerry speaks about
practical solutions to marketing problems to associations and companies across
the Americas and Europe. (He says he will make someone a great deal to appear
in Australia or South Africa) More at: www.NetworkingNinja.com

“Folks, “I said, “This is Ben. He’s setting up a
non-profit. I told him you might have some ideas for him. Ben, meet my brain
trust:

Kathy, our sales
consultant

Gail, the
writer

Rick our
resident Direct Marketing expert

 Chris, who
deals with all the on-line stuff

And Rob,
our southern fried branding Bubba

Tell them what you’re looking for Ben.”

“Like Fletch said, I’m starting this non-profit to help
folks get through a couple of tough spots in their lives. I’m going to bring in
experts to meet with them in small groups several times a month. I’ll charge
$10 a month so they’ve got some skin in the game and they can come to as many
workshops a month as they want and they’ll have access to all the web site information,
too. And I’d like to do it all with minimal staff”

Gail asked for clarification saying, “So you need a web
site and an on-line store that can handle subscriptions and a way for people to
register for events, right?”

Chris waded in, “you’ll need landing pages to build a database
of contacts and a secure database to keep their subscription information which
should be linked to the store.

Rick said, “It might be wise to have some way to capture telephone
inquiries as well.”

Ben said, “And Fletch said something about auto responders?”

Kathy said, “That’s like having a smart assistant that
automatically sends out stuff to the right people as they let you know they are
interested. It makes you look like a hero. But before you can do anything you
have to have a way to build the list of possible subscribers. How are you going
to do that?

Ben replied, “I didn’t tell you that the services are for
women that are divorced or widowed or find themselves having to go back to work
for whatever reason. I have a lot of ministers, lawyers and CPAs and others
that provide services for these women that are going to send them to me. I’ve
even had some companies volunteer scholarships.”

Rob drawled, “Yall need to careful as a long tailed cat ‘round
Grannies rocker. Tha’s some tender moments they’re goin’ through so you got to
be sensitive. And you got to be sure none of the women, the senders or the
sponsors see this as just a way to get in their pocket.  You have to build this brand on trust from the
git-go.

I said, “That’s why I told him he needs a little Contact
Relationship Magic TM. He has to maintain contact
with all his list development resources plus the subscribers and the companies
that have talked to him about providing scholarships. And all of it has to be
easy to manage and the more it deals with individuals in a thoughtful honest
way the better it is going to be.

So I told him the only way I can see to do what he wants
to do is with an integrated CRM system, one that can handle all the different
groups of names and easily sort them out for notifications on an individual
basis even in groups. In addition, he needs to be able to automate the entry of
new prospects into that database and provide them with his e-mail nurturing
campaigns and invitations to attend. An integrated CRM system. with the right
messaging and scheduling becomes auto-magic marketing. “

What system would you recommend for Ben?

Jerry Fletcher and the lunch bunch will be coming your
way again next week. Invite a friend to the repast at
blog.JerryFletcher.com 

Jerry’s Trust-based Marketing strategies for “little guys”
from solopreneurs to small businesses, allows them to compete with Enterprise
level organizations

Jerry speaks professionally about Networking, Marketing and Contact Relationship Magic on three continents . Learn more at www.NetworkingNinja.com