One Newsletter, Two Lessons

Bad news: I've been pretty sporadic with creating and sending you my newsletters.

Worse news: I'm fixing that.

Worst news: A bit of self-deprecating humor is good. It demonstrates your humility and vulnerability as a human.

But - too much undermines your credibility and I've gone overboard with it early.

BUT - I was willing to sacrifice my entire reputation to ensure you learn from this important lesson.

That said - I'm proud of writing those opening two lines AND for delivering a valuable lesson on humor in sales - all before finishing my first cup of coffee.

Still with me? Great. Onto a SECOND topic for sellers and marketers to think about...

Too many sellers & marketers struggle to ID hyper-specific consequences associated with NOT solving a problem (aka "cost of inaction").

There's often a chain reaction that follows bad/dumb decisions/behavior.

FOR EXAMPLE:

Thomas Wlazlowski 's company helps marketers with their trade show strategy and presence.

For companies investing to exhibit at trade shows, poor engagement is a PROBLEM.

We were discussing how booth staff blindly scan anyone and everyone's badges (damn vanity metrics!). BAD!!! But...why?

Not only is it a poor use of booth staff's time & prospects are leery of them doing it, because......no matter how unqualified the lead is, it sends sales down a rabbit hole following up with useless leads. FIDDLESTICKS!!!!

BUT ALSO... ...once the badge is scanned - they're added to a nurture campaign. Not only are you annoying recipients who end up resenting your brand - they unsubscribe.

Enough unsubscribes damages your domain (I'm guessing there's mitigation strategies for this, but I'm making a broader point).

Me being a dummy aside, damage to a domain is a terrible (potential) consequence associated with this problem - which I hadn't even considered.

Keep unfurling those impacts. Get granular with prospects (in sales AND marketing efforts).

The more you do, the more credible your outreach, discovery questions and demos will be. And the less useless marketing emails I'll unsubscribe from.

Oh, and speaking of weak trade show engagement, that screen grab up top is from a Linkedin Live I recorded this week with my friends from Gen City Labs ( MK Granados , Mike Schaiman & Eric Arvai ) where I shared how trade show marketers can use hyper-relevant humor to engage attendees to their booth and spark meaningful, qualified conversations.

Have a watch or listen HERE.

Hope you enjoyed. Thanks, and hopefully, I can dole out this stuff more regularly.