Why Most Marketing Fails

"Every CEO should go listen to their customers." - Bob London

All of us have had the unpleasant experience of receiving a phone call or an email from someone trying to sell us something. But what makes it so unpleasant? Typically it's because the person writing or speaking to us is focused on what they want to give us and what they have to offer, an approach that doesn't work.

On this week's Grow My Revenue podcast, Bob London joins us to explain why so much of marketing still uses this approach even though it fails, a few great examples from his life and how to show your customers that you really are different. Listen in to hear Bob's humorous insights that will shift your marketing perspective immediately, for the better.

Listen to this episode and discover:

• What technique helped Bob double his business without putting in more effort?
• Why being on Inc. 500's Top 5,000 list is a double-edged sword.
• Is the term "full service" useful or simply an empty, meaningless phrase?
• Why does Jeff Bezos have an empty chair in every meeting?
• Email automation gone terribly wrong: an example from Bob's life.
• And so much more!

Episode Overview

If you've listened to the show before you've heard me mention the concept of "the elevator rant", and today's guest is the inventor of that phrase. His name is Bob London and he is the Founder and President of London, Ink, a firm that helps businesses understand and speak to their customers' greatest needs and wants. He has an incredible track record doing so, and he shares his wisdom today.

Because he's a man with his finger on the pulse of the marketing world, I asked him for a few specific examples he has seen recently. He gave me several great illustrations, including one that highlights a highly common marketing mistake and one that shows how marketing can have an incredible impact when done right. We'll start with the marketing mistake.

Recently one of his clients, a law firm, took out a $25,000 newspaper ad. The ad's headline read: A better law firm experience in D.C. The remainder of the ad was generic copy about what makes them different from other law firms. The copy focused solely on the firm itself, rather than the benefits of working with them. They missed the opportunity to actually show what makes them a better law firm experience.

Bob had suggestions for them that you can apply to your business. He says if you really want to show your customers how you are different, start by marketing to them in their own words and solving their problems (the concept of "the elevator rant").

For example, this law firm could have said things like: our partners do 75% of the actual work, not everything is farmed out to a junior associate. We don't have new business quotas at our law firm. Our client-facing team averages 95% more experience than other law firms. Several of our partners actually have real-world experience working in X industries (fill in the blank). We don't bill you for every phone call.

Those are actual pain points Bob discovered in his research. Those phrases are real words used by C level executives about their experiences working with law firms and are prime examples of how to market to someone effectively.

Another example of a company using marketing properly is John Legere as CEO of T-Mobile. When he was hired, he said he wanted to listen to live customer calls and hear what the customers were actually saying in their own words. He thought he'd hear a lot about network coverage, dropped calls, bad technology, and the like because his competitors' ads were all focused on those things. But instead he heard complaints about the carriers' contracts and he heard it over, and over, and over again.

He knew he had found a pain point and launched a four-year "air raid" on the industry. T-Mobile became the provider with no contracts, and they even paid people's fees to break contracts and sign on with T-Mobile. In short, he addressed the customers' elevator rants when no one else would and he continues to do so today.

It has worked brilliantly: T-Mobile's share prices have tripled, profits are through the roof, as is revenue. They are a great example of why it's vital to intentionally and deliberately listen to your customers' perspective and issues.

Bob has several other great examples on the show today, including an email drip list he is on that will show you exactly what type of content marketing does NOT work! It's a funny story that will both entertain and illuminate, listen in for all of that and more on this edition of Grow My Revenue.