Stop Selling and Let Your Brand Sell Itself

This is for my small business owners who are out there doing it on their own or with a few partners or employees. If you are having a hard time getting new customers with your traditional marketing efforts, stop focusing on mass marketing. If you have poured time and money into print, television, radio, or even the Internet creating, producing and distributing marketing material and advertisements, but they aren’t working for you, change your focus. If you are disheartened or confused by all the new internet strategies, no matter how much I may preach or recommend them, refocus your strategy.

Focus On Your Customers One At A Time

That’s right if your marketing isn’t working for you try something else. This may sound funny coming from a guy who makes a living helping companies with thier marketing efforts, but if you aren’t finding success with traditional an new media marketing and you can’t fit a company like URBAN in your budget to help you be successful at it, why continue throwing money at it. I want you to stop spraying the market with your unwieldy shotgun and target in on your customers one at a time with a high precision rifle. Focus on building one relationship at a time. Let’s not call it sales because selling is not our initial focus. I am not talking about making a lot of friends on Facebook or Myspace and commenting back and forth with them about nothing. This is also more than attending a get together to exchange elevator pitches and business cards, or making cold calls. I am talking about getting to know your customers one at a time.

Build Trust In Your Brand

What you are going to do is prove what you can do, build trust. Trust is one of the biggest barriers to a sale so you are going to give a sample of the value you can deliver, show and prove. If you believe in your product or service, give potential clients a taste of your brand promise in action and allow your offering to sell itself.

Invest In Your Customers

It’s more than sending out product samples or giving away a free consultation or evaluation. This trickery has been exposed and customers getting wise to cheap gimmicks. What I am talking about is a true investment in your customers. So, there is a risk, but if you were going to invest any time or money in marketing, sales, or networking you may as well invest it in something new that may give you better results. Face it; you may not be the best at marketing or sales. You may not know the first thing about building and managing a successful online presence. Hobnobbing at a networking event may not be your thing, but you do know what you do best. You know that you have a good product or service and you know how to deliver it. So invest in employing what you know best as your sales pitch.

Plan Your Strategy

Don’t forget that this is an investment, just like an investment in traditional marketing and sales. This isn’t a magic formula, you have to work, you have to hustle, and grind. So, to lessen the risk of loosing your investment and your sweat equity you must have a clear strategy and planned tactics. You should sit down and see if it makes sense financially and can you realistically fit it into your schedule.

Build A Relationship With Your Customers

We all know that building relationships are built on give and take and an exchange of value between you and your customers. If this value exchange is not kept in balance, it will sour the relationship. So you have to know what a potential customer values and how you can supply that value and receive the value you want in return.

Let’s look at the motivation for this post. I go to the flea market sometimes and there is a booth that sells a jewelry cleaning product. They offer you a free jewelry cleaning as an enticement to purchase. The one time I was pulled aside I agreed to a free cleaning, I thought the product worked pretty good, but I interrupted the sales pitch, “thanks, but no thanks,” and continued on my way. In my mind, the value I received was not worth me giving something back to them. Not even my time to let them continue the sales pitch. The only jewelry I wear is a wedding band and I just couldn’t see where our relationship could go. I didn’t see a future between us. What am I going clean with this product? Maybe the product is good for other things, but the brand was already imprinted in my mind as a jewelry cleaner. The lesson here is they are finding some success, because they are out there every time we visit the flea market and there is someone standing there getting their jewelry cleaned and purchasing product. This tactic won’t work on every customer and you have to become good at recognizing what potential customers you can invest your time and money in. If I was selling the jewelry cleaner, I would scan people’s hands, wrists and neck for jewelry before they get close. If they “bling”, I know they care about jewelry. I already have the assumption that they are in the flea market to shop and to find a good deals. So, I have them qualified before I approach them with my offer and then I let the product sell itself.

Do you see it yet, take the time and money that you were going to spend on traditional marketing and use it to fund a value based relationship campaign. You know that relationships are built on give and take so begin your new customer relationship by investing in giving them something of value. In business, we usually want the money at the same time as the product/service delivery or sometimes we want a deposit before we delivered anything. I am saying change your approach and build trust by giving qualified potential customers a sample of the value you have to offer. Give them something and show them first hand why they should be doing business with you and not the competition.

For this to work, you have to provide something of value and the way you deliver it, how you service your customer, has to be great. After you deliver the first gift, don’t automatically jump on them with a sales pitch. Ask them about their needs in relation to what you offer. How are their needs being met? Begin a dialog with them to get to know their values so you can adjust your pitch to address their value. If it makes sense, use technology to help manage and track communications. Depending on your product or service, especially the cost, you have to adjust the time invested in this sales tactic to make sure it doesn’t become too much of a drain on profit. You want to be just long enough in your pre-engagement with the customer to find an opening to present an offer and find an opportunity to close a sale. Just remember that you are going to deliver value first and the way you deliver it is key to building the perception of your brand and a long-term value based relationship.

So you can look at the steps as:

• Identify potential customers
• Quantify potential customer to make sure she is a good fit for your offer
• Give the customer something of value and deliver with exceptional service to open him up to having a dialog with you
• Understand the needs and goals of the customer and align your offer with her expectations
• Make an offer, close the sale, and deliver in line with his expectations

The internet and mobile technologies have empowered consumers so much that they feel in control of the buyer seller relationship. They are fertile ground for a company that wants to cater to thier new found power. So, take some time devising a value based relationship strategy. Define your goals for the strategy, what do you want to achieve? Define the attributes of a good candidate for this approach, what will you provide, what are the costs to deliver, what is your return on investment? When you launch your campaign and get your first customer, ask yourself how much it cost you to plant the seeds and reap the benefit. Compare it to the costs to get one customer with your other marketing and sales tactics. Keep monitoring the campaign to make sure it is working for you financially.

Plant a seed and watch it grow, sowing then reaping, is the eternal principal that a value based relationship strategy is built on. Even so, it won’t make sense for everyone, but most can find something of value to deliver while maintaining a good return on investment. If you need help gauging the feasibility of this approach for your particular situation, let me know I will try to help you as best as I can and not as a gift to get you as a customer :), but as a part of my personal mission to help people and URBAN’s desire to help small businesses and non-profits.

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The knowledge of many is much stronger than the knowledge of one. Share your business problems with us to get the collective brain power of UMN invested in a solution for you.

Charles Bryant
URBANMarketingNetwork.com

Tags: Branding, sales, value based relationship

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