Author: David Brock, president, Partners in Excellence
Not long ago, I was talking to the CRO of a sales technology company. We had a passing acquaintance, I had been a guest on a webcast a couple of years ago; we’ve had a few conversations and emails since then. I was, relatively, a fan of the tools they provide.
I contacted this person, saying, “Can we have a heart to heart?” He suspects he was surprised and perhaps a little confused, but he agreed.
We jumped on a Zoom call, I said “Can I share my screen?” I showed the marketing / sales emails I get from his company. Two to four a day, every working day, for two years. Each of them addressed to “Hey you…” Each of them totally irrelevant to me, my interests and my business.
We have read the last four emails I had received. I asked, “If you were me, what would you do with these?”
He swallowed hard, “I would have spammed them!”
I said, “OK, done”. I took all four of them and sent them to my junk folder with an unsubscribe.
Sending spam to the trash
We continued our conversation. I told him I was a fan of the products; I thought they created good value for the sellers who used them. I said, “I know what you and your team ‘preach’ in your webcasts and content about how to target customers; involve them with relevance and intuition. But your people aren’t doing it in their engagement approaches. “
It was a bit of an awkward conversation, and he was embarrassed and apologized. I reassured him: “Don’t worry, 95% of sales / marketing technology providers do the same thing, so you are not alone. But you have to change, and if you do, you will stand out from those competitors. “
We talked a little more about the recommendations; pretty simple ideas. Better targeting, editing messages, at least a little customization, “Dear Dave”. I asked: “Why do your customers / prospects need to hear from you two to four times a day, even if you are addressing and messaging them correctly?”
Finally, I asked, “Are you on your company’s mailing list / prospect list?” Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t. He was totally oblivious to what his team was inflicting on their prospects. He said, “I have to do it, but they won’t recognize me? Won’t they look at my LinkedIn profile? “
I said, clearly they won’t. “After all, your team knows that I’ve been to your webcasts, that you post some of my articles and who I am, but I still get this junk. They are not doing the work you preach your customers’ salespeople should do. If they were, I wouldn’t have received at least 80% of these emails! We agreed, however, that he would sign up as [email protected], and he would start looking at how his company markets and sells to him. He asked, “How do I get on the list?”
“You will be hit by everything”
“Download any white paper, you will be impressed with everything,” I replied.
Once again, unfortunately, he is not alone. 90% of the research emails I get are from sales and marketing technology companies, sales / marketing consultants / gurus, and other related organizations. 90% of those messages are irrelevant to what I care about, even if I care what those companies do and how they could be exploited.
Are your people doing what you want them to do? Are they engaging people the way you want them to engage? Are they targeting the right people with impactful / relevant initiatives?
It’s easy to find out.
Contribution blog courtesy of Partners in Excellence and written by David Brock, president of Partners in Excellence. Read more blogs with contributions from David Brock here.