2020 Resolution: Get back to basics

Being on the Revenue Team is one of the most exciting places to be at a company. You are the closer to the customer than anyone else, you are constantly challenged with finding new ways to cut through the clutter to connect with your prospect in a meaningful way, and when you do and when you win - you are directly responsible for fueling the growth at your company. It's extremely stressful, there's a ton of ups and downs, gongs are hit, campaigns flop, you can stand at a booth for hours with not one visitor and you can have a day where all your dials are amazing connects. But rollercoasters are thrilling, and that's why we do it.

I wanted to try to get my 5year old, (Nolan) to understand what I do at work all day. Jobs he understands are truck drivers, fireman, police officer, garbage truck driver, doctor etc. I tell him I'm in marketing and it means nothing to him. So the act of helping him understand what I do, really helped me focus on what are the core areas of revenue generation and why there are so important.

Keeping a kindergarten kid engaged while explaining anything is a task within itself, so I decided to go the route of a full immersive experience. Nolan had been given a box of chocolate bars to sell as part of a school fundraiser. The year before we just bought the entire box and gave them away on Halloween, since we were a bit lazy/embarrassed to hit up family and friends. This year, the bars became the perfect "teaching opportunity".

So one evening after school we got out some paper and markers and started to work on our chocolate bar sales & marketing strategy.

Who would benefit from our chocolate bars? And where can we find them?

The first question I asked Nolan was who he wanted to sell his chocolate bars to. His answer was a lazy - "to you!" So I had to re-phrase it to "Who do you think would really want one?" We talked about people who were really hungry, and needed something quick and easy to eat. We talked about busy people, who were in a rush and couldn't sit down to eat. We talked about the benefits of chocolate bars - that they had a lot of energy in a small bar, and that they were wrapped up and easy to put in your pocket or bag.

So we need to find some hungry people that were in a rush. But not too much of a rush, that they wouldn't stop and buy from us. We decided on outside the subway station near our house, and right at the 5:30pm rush hour. In the morning people are generally late for work, but in the evening heading home hopefully they'd make some time for us. (and have a hungrier belly than right after breakfast)

Sitting down with your entire revenue team and taking the time (regularly) to talk about buying personas is something that even the most experienced growth marketers don't make enough time for. So this year, set up a quarterly meeting right now focussed on your buying personas. What has changed for them in 2020? How can your product/services help them overcome new challenges in their market? How can you better serve them? Just as you are faced with new goals and new hurdles to achieving them every year - so are they. Now is the perfect time to refine personas and ensure your marketing speaks to them.

How will you get their attention?

The next thing we talked about was how we were going to get them to stop. There's a lot of distractions on a busy street. People are on their phone, talking to friends, thinking about the next to-do they need to get done. One of my favourite marketing book is Made to Stick, and in it the authors say that for messages to be memorable and grab your attention they need to be:

• Simple – find the core of any idea
• Unexpected – grab people's attention by surprising them
• Concrete – make sure an idea can be grasped and remembered later
• Credible – give an idea believability
• Emotional – help people see the importance of an idea
• Stories – empower people to use an idea through narrative

So we started to build these elements into our marketing plan. Nolan came up with the simple name for his chocolate stand "Best Bar". Right to the point and easy to understand. Unexpected we helped him with - what if you put on your best suit? A 5yr old in a suit on the side of the street would for sure be unexpected. He also added a flashing, light-up fidget spinner to his poster for a little extra flare. We then focused on emotion and stories. How can anyone resist a little boy who is trying to raise some money for his school (and some lego on the side) By talking to people and sharing his story, he could make a personal connection that would for sure result in a sale.

How can you use the elements of Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotion and Stories in your next marketing campaign? Whether you are writing something as short as an email subject line or as long as a 45min webinar - these elements are key in creating a message that sticks. I always look back at what's I've written or designed to see if I've at least checked off 3-4 of these in each marketing piece.

How do you provide them with value? (While also maximizing your revenue)

Now standing outside for an hour to raise money for your school isn't an easy task and the hardest part of the work is getting that person to stop at talk to you. Once they've stopped and are interested in buying. you've done the heavy lifting - so how can you maximize your return on sales time invested? We helped Nolan come up with a few upsell opportunities. You could just buy the $3 chocolate bar, but throw in a dollar and you've got yourself a bar and a joke. For $5, a bar and a hand-drawn picture of a girl or a boy. We had 20 pre-written jokes ready to go for the person in a rush, and for those with more time blank paper and markers to take their drawing requests. It also helped to have these additional things for those that were trying to be healthy and didn't want the chocolate. There was something for everyone.

How much time have you put into your pricing and packaging strategy? Is it based on the needs of your customers? Giving people options and flexibility can actually increase your revenue per sale. Different customers value different things, and a one-price for everything strategy isn't always the most profitable one.

We've got to be honest.

It was pretty clear on the box of chocolates that the price was $3. So I talked to Nolan about making sure that his customers knew that not all the money was going to his school fundraiser. He was providing extra value for the extra charges, but to say that all funds were going to his school would be false advertising. And in his case the honesty would be entertaining and may even get a couple extra dollars towards his lego cause.

In 2020, try to think how you can be more authentic and honest in your marketing and sales. Even in the B2B world, we are people selling to people, yet with marketing automation, sales sequences and bulk mailers, we have de-humanized the connections we make with our buyers. We've reduced a person that we're trying to help, to an MQL that needs to be converted to a demo to become a SQL. How can we have conversations with more empathy? How can we build trust and credibility? It's not by spewing out speeds and feeds and trying to get in their calendar. It's by asking them how you can help. It's by sharing a piece of content that could actually benefit them (Not sales material disguised as thought leadership).

Keeping the team motivated

Getting to go and buy his lego with his extra profit was key in solidifying the reward for all his extra effort. He looked at the prices, and understood the work that it took for each of those extra dollars (He made $63 for school and $32 for lego) He was so excited for his new lego and spent the rest of the day making it. Little did he know, that the school had a prize for most chocolate bars sold - and that was a hover board! The winner sold almost $900 worth of chocolate to win, so it's for sure a bigger goal for another day!

What are you doing with your revenue team to celebrate the small wins? There's a lot of work that goes into in-process metrics such as dials, connects, email clicks etc. and having rewards that keep people working at these is just as important as the large ones for pipeline generated and revenue attained. You want your team to keep an eye on the big prize, but also have fun in all the activities that get them there.

So I think now my son has a better idea of what I do every day at work. But then again, the other day I did hear him telling his friends that his mom "heals wounds at work". I guess that's content for my next blog: Tying each position to your company's higher purpose. Clearly my 5yr son has already connected the dots between my revenue team's work selling a product and how our product changes lives!