Knowing your audience

I was recently part of a panel discussing “empathy in tech sales”.? I was asked “Should tech sales pros learn to code?”.

I replied: “Only if they keep missing quota”.

If that made you smile, it’s because you’re in tech sales and are aware of the challenges sellers and leadership face.

If it didn’t, it’s likely because you’re not in tech sales and this has already been a valuable lesson (in destroying one’s credibility).

Welcome to Part I in a series where I unpack key ingredients to crafting humor to impress powerful business points upon your target persona and hopefully give you the tools and/or inspiration to craft some of your own.

With that said - these posts ain’t no magic bullet. I’ll give you what you need to think about, and do my best to share hands-on stuff you can do to assemble messaging that gets prospects saying “that’s funny because it’s true”...

…but there’s no way to give a clear roadmap over posts like these. Took me years to understand how to write decent jokes (aka “short form humor”), and it requires a lot of trial and error.

Besides - this is how I earn my living :).??

With that said, I’ll share what I can, and see if I can help you put puzzle pieces together.

Who’s in the crowd?

Years ago, I was on a stand-up comedy show at a club in another city.? This was a booked show for paying customers. All the comics were booked for their experience. It was not an open mic where anything goes.

One of the comics who performed before me came onstage in a stylish, well-fitting suit.?

His entire act consisted of carefully-crafted, insightful jokes about 90s Britpop bands (like Blur, Oasis and Pulp). Each was brilliant. I laughed HARD.

Only problem was the audience wasn’t full of me and clones of me. The paying audience consisted of recent college grads and senior citizens - the two demographics least likely to know who any of these bands were.

While I died at the back of the room, he died onstage. Hard.?

And as much as I loved his jokes, I thought it was really weird that he was doing material about bands - a couple of whom were never really mainstream, that hadn’t been relevant in 20-plus years - for a paying audience.

Even weirder was how he didn’t check out who the audience was before deciding to deliver this material.

In sales, this would be like calling up the VP of Human Resources at a bank to talk about manufacturing software.?

Or like Bert from Sesame Street delivering pigeon jokes to Ernie.

Fred Armisen put out a special called "Stand-Up for Drummers"which I discussed in an old blog post.

At the beginning of a show, I always watch the MC warm up the crowd. Part of their job is to help the performing comics understand who’s in the audience.??

While crowds are never homogeneous, I’m able to understand if the crowd skews:

• Older or younger

• Local or visiting from out of town
• Singles or couples
• Etc.

By listening to the first ten minutes and even the first act or two, I’m also able to gauge their sense of humor and the kinds of material they’re appreciating - or not appreciating.

It gives me the opportunity to swap out jokes or material that isn’t likely to land before I take the stage, and increase my odds of success.

And any revenue team worth employing will always have a clear idea of who their audience is.?

When it comes to understand our target persona, I like to know:

• What’s their role?
• What industry/industries do they work in?
• What are their objectives?
• How do they spend their days? What are their duties & responsibilities?
• Who are their top 3 internal stakeholders?
• Who are their top 3 external stakeholders?
• What are common roadblock prevent them from achieving their objectives?
• How are they measured?

I also like to know what triggers various emotions. What makes them:

• Frustrated
• Angry
• Nervous
• Anxious/scared

What do they:

• Need
• Want
• Love

As a seller, sales developer or marketer, your mission is to go on a metaphorical stage and deliver a short, quick message to an audience full of only your target persona - and elicit an emotional reaction that’s relevant to them, and that earns you a) attention b) more of their time.

So, step 1 in your process is to map out the answers to all those questions I asked above.

When it comes to the stuff you sell, we've covered the "Who cares?".

Next week, we'll get into the "So what?" And it should be shorter than this week's post :).

Planning any kind of summer team-building and/or skills development? If your team could benefit from standing out AND becoming more effective, consultative communicators, DM me, or snag some time on my calendar.