Barbara Giamanco

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I’ll Be Honest, This Isn’t Another Sales Pitch

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

Another laughable piece of email spam hit my inbox today. As a result, I feel compelled to get right back up on my soap box. I’m begging all sales and marketing folks to listen up, but more importantly, I am appealing to sales management. Random content and poorly constructed messaging is NOT helping you achieve your numbers.

Sooo…let’s start with the email I received and go from there. By the way, I don’t call people out so names and video link were removed.

“Hi Barbara,

I’ll be honest, this is not “another sales pitch” from Sales 🙂 Instead, I’d like to send you a 2-minute demo video of XYZ’s Customer Success Management solution.

We are VC backed ($9M Series A) by Battery Ventures and our key customers include Marketo, DocuSign, Xactly, Jive, Informatica, YouSendIt, etc.

One of our core value props is “Success for All” and we would like to offer everyone a 1-on-1 with our Customer Success experts to simply discuss best practices (reducing churn, structuring your customer-focused team, increasing up-sells, etc).

Who is the best person to speak with about Customer Success? Let us know if there’s someone else who heads up those efforts.

-Signed…Clueless Account Development Manager”

WAKE UP!

As a sales leader it is time to start addressing what I consider to be a pretty serious sales problem. Intentions don’t matter, but your prospects perception does. This spam email approach doesn’t further a sales opportunity, it cuts it off at the knees.

Let me break down the problem for you by assuming that this account development manager works for you.

Not another sales pitch from sales? Really? This is a pitch even if it did not come from sales. Prospects see through this kind of communication. They are not going to drop what they are doing to watch a demo video that came from a stranger. Why should they? They merely hit delete without giving it a second thought. As for the smiley face…uh, I just can’t go there.

Clever girl says that your company is backed by VC money. That is important because…??  Is that an attempt to convince someone that the company is stable? Lots of companies backed by VC money fold. I don’t think I’d use that as a benefit statement.

Key customers are mentioned. Are you sure they helping your sales cause? Are they even relevant to the receiver of the email?

One of your core value props is “success for all”…what the heck does that mean? Why in the world would your prospect even care?

You want to give your prospect the gift of a 1-1 call with an “expert” to discuss best practices and that’s it? Your prospect isn’t stupid. They know your rep is trying to book a sales call. At least be honest and admit it. If you are serious about educating without expecting anything then host a webinar. Bring a panel of experts together that educate and challenge your prospects to think differently about their business. Wow them and earn the right to move to the next step.

Who is the best person to talk to? If you don’t know who the right person is then why send the email in the first place? I know why. It is a fishing expedition. Nobody is taking the time to properly target the messaging. Confusing activity with effectively driving a sales result is a big mistake and costing you time and money.

I am an ardent supporter of using social media and other technologies as part of the sales process. It is the people behind the technology that worries me. When your prospects can tune you out faster than you can say boo, shouldn’t that suggest to you that some changes are in order?

Wake up…fix your messaging…your revenue and pipeline is suffering!

Filed Under: blog Tagged With: email marketing, sales, sales enablement, social selling

I'll Be Honest, This Isn't Another Sales Pitch

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

Another laughable piece of email spam hit my inbox today. As a result, I feel compelled to get right back up on my soap box. I’m begging all sales and marketing folks to listen up, but more importantly, I am appealing to sales management. Random content and poorly constructed messaging is NOT helping you achieve your numbers.
Sooo…let’s start with the email I received and go from there. By the way, I don’t call people out so names and video link were removed.

“Hi Barbara,
I’ll be honest, this is not “another sales pitch” from Sales 🙂 Instead, I’d like to send you a 2-minute demo video of XYZ’s Customer Success Management solution.
We are VC backed ($9M Series A) by Battery Ventures and our key customers include Marketo, DocuSign, Xactly, Jive, Informatica, YouSendIt, etc.
One of our core value props is “Success for All” and we would like to offer everyone a 1-on-1 with our Customer Success experts to simply discuss best practices (reducing churn, structuring your customer-focused team, increasing up-sells, etc).
Who is the best person to speak with about Customer Success? Let us know if there’s someone else who heads up those efforts.
-Signed…Clueless Account Development Manager”
WAKE UP!
As a sales leader it is time to start addressing what I consider to be a pretty serious sales problem. Intentions don’t matter, but your prospects perception does. This spam email approach doesn’t further a sales opportunity, it cuts it off at the knees.
Let me break down the problem for you by assuming that this account development manager works for you.
Not another sales pitch from sales? Really? This is a pitch even if it did not come from sales. Prospects see through this kind of communication. They are not going to drop what they are doing to watch a demo video that came from a stranger. Why should they? They merely hit delete without giving it a second thought. As for the smiley face…uh, I just can’t go there.
Clever girl says that your company is backed by VC money. That is important because…??  Is that an attempt to convince someone that the company is stable? Lots of companies backed by VC money fold. I don’t think I’d use that as a benefit statement.
Key customers are mentioned. Are you sure they helping your sales cause? Are they even relevant to the receiver of the email?
One of your core value props is “success for all”…what the heck does that mean? Why in the world would your prospect even care?
You want to give your prospect the gift of a 1-1 call with an “expert” to discuss best practices and that’s it? Your prospect isn’t stupid. They know your rep is trying to book a sales call. At least be honest and admit it. If you are serious about educating without expecting anything then host a webinar. Bring a panel of experts together that educate and challenge your prospects to think differently about their business. Wow them and earn the right to move to the next step.
Who is the best person to talk to? If you don’t know who the right person is then why send the email in the first place? I know why. It is a fishing expedition. Nobody is taking the time to properly target the messaging. Confusing activity with effectively driving a sales result is a big mistake and costing you time and money.
I am an ardent supporter of using social media and other technologies as part of the sales process. It is the people behind the technology that worries me. When your prospects can tune you out faster than you can say boo, shouldn’t that suggest to you that some changes are in order?
Wake up…fix your messaging…your revenue and pipeline is suffering!

Filed Under: blog Tagged With: email marketing, sales, sales enablement, social selling

Sales Leaders – Are Your Reps Sending Email Like This One?

By Barbara Giamanco 2 Comments

Dear Sales Leaders,

I posted my thoughts yesterday about what social selling is and is not. And now, I have another perfect illustration of how focus on technology while ignoring the basics of creating relationships, earning trust and selling value is a big problem.

For the first time, I’m leaving in the person’s name and the company, although I got rid of their email address.

“On May 10, 2013, at 4:47 AM, “Marry ” wrote:

Hi – I hope you don’t mind the direct contact, however, I have an offer I thought might be of interest to you.

This is Bryan Blair; I handle the pre-package list division of my company Realbase Marketing Group. We specialize in B2B marketing lists that will enable the growth of your company by adding new contacts to your marketing database.

Regards, Mary”

I couldn’t help myself and responded with…

“Actually, I do mind. If you had bothered to do a little homework, you would know that in the work I do, I rail against these horrible approaches to trying to sell something. This is SPAM email that doesn’t even conform to federal law regarding email marketing.”

In case it isn’t painfully obvious, let paint a picture of what is wrong with this sales message.

  1. It comes from Marry. Her name is Mary. Can’t even ensure that her own name is spelled right?
  2. Not personalized and addressed to me.
  3. Hi. I hope you don’t mind? Stupid.
  4. I have an offer that might interest you. Really? What is it?
  5. I’m Bryan Blair. Hum. Well, which is it? Are you Mary, Marry or Bryan? I’m getting confused.
  6. You specialize in B2B marketing lists that will enable the growth of your company by adding new contacts? Sure. You spammed me. Is that what you encourage your clients to do? You are breaking the CANN-SPAM Act rules of email marketing folks.
  7. Regards, Mary. Again, who is sending this email? Bryan, Mary?

Honestly, you may read this post and think…no way, my sales people do not do that. Are you sure? Do you really know what you sales people are saying and doing?
I wish that I could say that this email was an exception. It isn’t. I receive messages like this every day, several times a day.This is why I fervently believe that if you hang your hat on the technology (think CRM), as the way to increase sales without making darn sure your sales people are sending relevant, targeted, customer focused messages, you have a serious problem on your hands!

 

Filed Under: blog Tagged With: email marketing, sales, social selling

Make Your Sales Messages RELEVANT!

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

I was pondering what to write today, but then several spam sales pitches showed up in my inbox, and I thought, perfect.

Look. I get it. You want to sell something. Anything. But slinging hash up against the wall hoping that it will stick is a pretty lousy strategy.

Here is a great example of what NOT to do. I’ve removed the name to protect the clueless, but otherwise, the email is as it came to me with grammar errors and all. My commentary is after the email.

“Hi Barbara,

My name is XYZ, and I’m with XYZ company. Given that companies in the Entertainment industry are constantly hiring and back-filling positions, I thought you would be interested in what we offer. Do you happen to know who evaluates recruiting tools at Talent Builders Inc, if not yourself?

XYZ company has over 10,000 small business customers, many of which are looking for the type of candidates that exist on our site or visit our job board aggregator partners. In short, our software gets your jobs out there, organizes, and speeds up your hiring process. You can be up and running in minutes.

Features:

  • Unlimited users
  • Unlimted job posts that syndicate to 20+ top job boards including Indeed, SimplyHired, JuJu and more
  • Automated re-posting to your social media accounts
  • Access to XYZ’s extensive resume database
  • Pre-screening and filtering ability with video, audio, multiple choice and more
  • Interview scheduling and applicant tracking
  • Share application link – for hiring managers
  • Dedicated account support

Largest package is only $99/mo or $800 for the year

Do you or the person who oversees your hiring strategy have 15 minutes next week for a quick call?

Still in the dark? Check out the video on our homepage at whatever.com

Thanks in advance!
XYZ Sales Rep”

Where do I begin?

At least he got my name right, but the email is one that has never existed, so somebody just tried making it up.

I’m NOT in the Entertainment business. Talent Builders, Inc. is my corporation and we DBA as Social Centered Selling, an LLC that Talent Builders owns. It is not uncommon for someone to think that Talent Builders is in entertainment or recruiting, but we are not.

He gives me all the pricing. Why do I even need to talk to him? I can just simply file this away in the “maybe I will get to it someday”, but then again, probably not.

Do I know who oversees hiring? Of course, I’m the owner.

Still in the dark? Well, actually, I didn’t know that I was in the dark. Thanks for insulting me. But I get it, you want me to do your job for you and go figure out for myself why I should bother spending any time with you.

The problem I have with this email, beyond the fact that it is unsolicited, is that the sales rep is just lazy. I’m guessing his marketing team cued up this email and he just blindly sent it out. Or, maybe he came up with this piece of genius on his own. Whatever the case, it is a classic example of what too many sales people are cranking out there. Why would anyone bother to waste time getting back to you if you send these sorts of messages?

If you want to engage a prospect, and it is important to you that you get a sales appointment, STOP – take 5 minutes to THINK about what you are sending before bothering to hit send.

That is all.

 

Filed Under: blog Tagged With: email marketing, sales, sales spam, social selling

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