For every 10 entrepreneurs or executives, who use the refrain “we are gaining great traction with [investors, buyers, customers]”, I find 9 have nothing meaningful to show for it yet [committed capital, signed agreements, cash in the bank]. Fact.
Let’s be clear, you cannot feed the family on popularity or acceptances of your idea, product or investment. It reminds me of the silly game social media influencers play in justifying their success by the number of “likes”.
To then use that as an excuse, as some do to withhold investment in improving their own skills in attracting and converting potential investors into actual investors, leads into buyers, and interest into cash is dumb. What are you “saving up for”, when your skills deficiency is such that you need to be spending now? Longer suffering?
When you invite a prospective client, investor or business partner to meet you, is the following visible:
Your meeting location is easily found without staring aimlessly at unmarked building entrances in the street or staring into a backlit screen.
Your office reception and the behaviour of those working there is representative of your desired first impression (warmth, professionalism, responsiveness)
Your office environment is consistent with who you are today, not overly consumed by your past glories (deal tombstones, portraits of the founders) nor achingly futuristic (think a legal practice in a WeWork building).
Your guests are treated like grown up adults, not children awaiting the headmaster. They are directed to the appropriate meeting place, offered common courtesies (drinks, facilities etc.), and the meeting starts on time.
Your meetings respect all parties time, objectives and competing priorities.
Meeting objectives are discussed, and agreed, at the outset.
Appropriate time is given to get acquainted (what’s your story), move onto important issues (relevant expertise), pivot towards areas of obvious and less obvious mutual benefit and agree on “next steps” (next call, next meeting, information shared) and appropriate follow up (accountability, timeline).
Both parties feel like they are in the presence of a confident peer, intent on building a trusting relationship with the other (offering immediate and relevant value) rather than merely rushing to get to a deal or to get the other party out of the room before their 10am conference call or executive committee meeting.
They are in the company of someone, who is demonstrably a peer of, and of interest to, a diverse and global group of impressive people, irrespective of their title, wealth or age. They have sort, and acquired, life experiences and relationships that leave you wanting to spend more time in their company.
They use humour and language intelligently. They don’t resort to crude or inappropriate comments.
They avoid “one upmanship”.
Although they do drop names, not to bloviate their own importance, but because it is relevant and in keeping with the conversation.
Points of agreement or disagreement, victories/defeats and viewpoints or opinions, however, contrarian are substantiated by hard evidence or strong anecdotal information. Not “blow-hards” pontificating or “passive-aggressives” seeking to assert their superiority (intellectual or material wealth).
Both parties feel the other, is leaving “informed” on the route ahead, the credibility they confer and with greater value than when they walked into the room. That doesn’t presume they agree on the value but at a minimum, they feel they have had a “fair hearing”, and a genuinely engaged party across the table. Not someone using the other person’s business card to pick their teeth (I have seen that happen!).
Basically, someone who you’d leave your company respecting your accomplishments (business and life), the way you work with others (ethics) and your value (results). Not necessarily, someone who they personally like or agree with what they have heard, although that may be a helpful bonus.
Follow up commitments are routinely adhered to, and accomodation is made for exceptional matters (illness, a promotion or competing business).
Whether there is immediate business or not, the relationship building process and value received doesn’t stop when they leave the building . With their approval, the guest is added to your mailing lists and other non-promotional activities where it is in their self-interest. Including “virtual” and hard copy communication with your firm and awareness of where you might be of greater and relevant benefit to each other’s future (ideal buyers, networking events, media, pro bono promotion activities etc.).
Most businesses think too mechanistically about their presence, physical or virtual, and way too little about the emotional and psychological aspects. How they behave and the attitudes they express, says way more about them than the shiny offices, the skills they teach their employees or the corporate gifts.
If you don’t think there are areas of improvement in your own presence that you can, and must, begin working on today, your competitors do, and they are waiting to pounce.
“Tim, Amanda has done some outstanding work and I think 30 minutes or a coffee with her would be time well-spent.”
When we are seeking a favour and an introduction to help us personally or professionally, keep it simple. Eschew presentations, attachments or detailed reasoning, it is overrated.
Enter “beach” in an Instagram search and you can expect to see the first 30 images stuffed full of perfectly lit, posed images of “influencers”, men and women in various swimwear, languishing on exotic beaches from Ipanema to Koh Samui to Byron Bay. A collection of largely anonymous characters paid to promote brands on social media. The giveaway, a link to the brand with some gushing “heaven” comment.
What started out, as a grassroots, guerilla marketing activity has become mainstream as the media companies and regulators exert greater transparency rules on the influencers and advertisers.
The medium in the rush for authenticity, fake or otherwise, is commanding huge time, energy and resource from small retail brands. Is this innovative or merely fixing a marketing problem? Is it really impacting purchasing patterns? Do the influencers possess real power and authority?
The answer lies in this question: if customers in a high-tech world can check the reviews, prices and quality of any retail clothing product 24/7, 365 days a year globally, do you agree the consumer now “owns” a brand’s marketing?
In other words, traditional sales and marketing teams, and resources are largely redundant.
If you do, the priority is “evangelism”. Highly credible and influential figures, who respond to innovative and creative brands not because they are paid to but because they are passionate about the product or service and see it is as mutually beneficial to promote the brand. So in one sense, little has changed for big or small brands in the 15 years since Tom Ford left Gucci? Perhaps not a lot. Other than who the consumer sees as someone with the power to have an effect, direct or indirect, on their style and purchasing patterns. Some are timeless like Julianne Moore, who is arguably as relevant today as when she first arrived in the entertainment business.
For small, emerging brands, instagram and its’ band of influencers “get stuff out there” but do they really achieve anything more? How do you know who really is watching, reacting and buying? How can you easily capture the data, turn it into information, and information into powerful knowledge you can apply to key strategic decisions? Let’s be honest it is “guesswork marketing”.
Why wouldn’t you if you were a small brand focus on, who your ideal customers are, who they listen to, who they admire, what they read and where they hang out? Armed with that information raise your “voice” and embrace multimedia with stiletto-like marketing spend (word of mouth, networking, speaking, publishing and hosted events).
I mean how many times do you meet someone, who says in response to a flattering comment, “I saw this amazing product or service on the Instagram page of a nobody in Orange County, and thought that is cool, I’ll go and buy it?”
Just because Instagram influencers with fake lists of 5,000 or 50,000 followers convince you their medium is your priority, if you are a small, high-growth brand owner wouldn’t you want to maximise your control and power over engaging with your ideal demographic?
Accidental sales don’t count. Prioritising resource where real business lies with some degree of certainty does – “probabilistic marketing” – rather than relying on individuals with zero credibility. Just because it is “cheap” doesn’t make it a valuable use of your time, money and energy.
Lawyers always advise clients if you cannot win on “fact”, you must try to win on the “law”.
If you are an enterprise technology or “enabling” business, seeking growth capital fast, you may not “win” immediately in convincing the investor but there is no reason you cannot show investors why you are a “winner” in your ideal customer’s eyes. We are talking about “leverage”, and applying tremendous “normative or peer pressure” to the investor’s thinking. The more impressive the customers (BMW), and the scale of the future opportunities (global markets), the more power you have to exert.
Customer Opportunity Assessment (“COA”):
Grid A: How much will the opportunity cost to implement (set up, training, operation, licence fees, lease space, new hires, new expertise) vs. How much potential benefit does the opportunity provide (tangible improvements for customers, new products or services offered, self-financing or not, is the risk worth the benefit, how long until we see expected results and so on)?
Grid B: How difficult is it to implement your technology (customer understanding, reliability, dependence on support staff, physical space, users’ connectivity ease and experience etc) vs. How close is the improvement to your ideal customer’s current corporate strategy (building a stronger brand, faster innovation, stronger business model, current systems, procedures and methods, faster new customer acquisition, quicker new product/services offered etc.)
You are ideally seeking to be positioned as “low” implementation cost/”high” potential benefit on Grid A, and “low” difficulty in implementing/”high” proximity to your ideal customers’ strategy, on Grid B.
If your attitude is the investor must find this out for themselves or you are wary of asking your own customers, you are dramatically reducing the odds of a prospective investor partnership and committed capital.
When your passion, energy and focus is laser-like on a singular objective that is to be admired (building a career or a business). However, when it is applied to the total or increasing exclusion of all other interests, experiences and people, you are creating a personality of very limited interest or attraction to others.
The process of “change” required to move from the status quo, in those situations, to a more appealing one, necessitates a very sharp right turn (cultivating new and diverse interests, joining new groups, educating others and so on).
I love to ask people, “if I didn’t know you – why would I be drawn to you?” Most people find that a provocative or even uncomfortable question to answer, particularly those with high affiliation needs. It is an important question to consider because the ease of consciously or subconsciously shielding or cutting oneself off, increases exponentially with greater wealth and success (The “Howard Hughes” syndrome). Note age is not a factor.
If you are doubting me, take a trip to the Beverly Hills Tennis Club for lunch. A secluded retreat on N. Maple Drive, where silver-haired retirees gossip over their linguini mare, the cosmetic surgeons wave to their former playing partners (few play tennis), as they shuffle between tables, and the ageing Jewish ladies bemoan the lack of class on offer at the Met gala (“Lola, d’you see hurr? How could she, really?!”). I have been a fly-on-the-gilded wall. Dull, dull, dull!
If you are in a loving relationship, and your other half (your most passionate advocate) cannot explain to someone else, in simple words, what you do for a living (unless you are in the Security Services), how impressive are you really?
Breeders breed racehorses with a very simple task in mind, to breed the fastest horse between the starting gate and the winning line.
“Strength” in the form of stamina to sustain the strongest galop and “speed” to outrun the field.
Nothing is certain but breeding the best sires with the best mares is the least risky option.
Would an outsider recognise your sales and marketing “system” as the superior progeny of the best people with the best technology? If not, why in the hell do you think you can outrun your competitors and build a sustainable future?
If someone goes out of their way to help your business growth (facilitate an introduction, suggest an idea, resolve a problem), and you cannot show up at a pre-agreed time (call, meeting, email response), you are a “time waster”. There is place for those folks, it is not in your game.
How many unsolicited referrals or other surprises (invites to networking events, speaking opportunities, media/PR opportunities) have you received since New Year? Do you want or rather need more?
Ask yourself, when did you last meet or call the 25 best sources of new ideas for your business growth in the prior 3 years? I am not talking about email or reading and responding to posts on social media. I am referencing unfettered time spent together in a business or social setting. I bet for some reading this the response is weeks, months or even years.
Given the quantum of changes happening within your organisation and externally with your clients, is that wise? Make a note in your physical or electronic calendar, to call and set those meetings up at a rate of 10 calls per week.
My guess is that within the month of April, you will have more opportunities than the entirety of the first quarter of 2019.
