The Secret to Enticing Prospective Customers

Ever agonized over what to say to get a client to call you back?  How about what to include in that follow-up email or PowerPoint presentation?

I sure have. I've written and re-written my phone scripts, emails and presentations trying to find just the right wording that will get my clients drooling. I've used superlatives like "leading edge" and "unique methodologies" to describe my offerings, then tossed them out again.  I've re-ordered and re-structured my approaches a hundred different ways, trying to increase the temptation quotient.

But all I end up doing is confusing myself.  With all those iterations to chose from, my mind goes into overwhelm and shuts down. I have no idea which one will be most effective.

That is, until I discovered a little know secret that literally changed the game: I am now able to get inside my prospect's brain and think like they do. Then, from this position I evaluate my messaging for its effectiveness and revise as needed.

You're capable of doing this too. It all starts by creating a buyer persona - which is essentially describes the person I'm trying to reach. (Note: The idea for today's article came from Drew McLellan's Marketing Minute excellent blog post on "Write for Real People.")

Recently we (Ardath Albee & I) created a persona for the woman I'm trying to reach with the Sales Shebang - my upcoming conference for women in sales. Her name is Heather.

Heather, 35 years old, has been working steadily to build her career in sales. She's come a long way, but knows there is more to learn if she wants to be at the "top of her game." She's looking around at various options and charting a course for her future that will let her achieve the level of success she aspires to reach. She knows she needs to expand her network and gain expertise, but there are only so many hours in a day.

Heather reads Shape and Self for leisure. The Wall Street Journal comes to her home address, where she might find time to read it and she has feeds from Business Week and industry news dropped into her email every day. She reads several blogs by leading experts, but doesn’t have much time for more, with the ever-increasing demands of her job.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. The Sale Shebang website was created to attract the Heathers of this world - as well as other women who resonate to this message.

As we were developing web copy, we asked: "If I were Heather ... Would this appeal to me? Would it sound valuable to my career? Would it provide me with what I'm looking for - both personally and professionally." If we couldn't say yes from Heather's perspective, we went back to the drawing board and revised our message.

Another persona I use in my work is Eric. He's the VP of Sales in a firm that sells to the corporate market. Eric is in his mid-40s, father of 2 kids and a busy man. He's on the road 2-3 days a week meeting customers, traveling with reps, attending trade shows. He works long hard hours, getting into the office at 7 am so he can get some work done before the chaos of the day hits.

This year, the sales organization is expected to bring in 18% more business than last year, while at the same time reducing expenses by 22%.  His existing customers are putting lots of pressure on his reps for better pricing, citing competitive bids that can't be possibly be priced profitably but are on the table none the less. Eric lives in fear of losing a couple big accounts; replacing their revenue would be extremely difficult because his reps are struggling to get into other companies.

I listen to my voicemails from Eric's perspective asking, "Would this entice me?" If not, I craft an new message and test again.  I do this till I know that Eric will say, "C'mon in. We need to talk."

Creating a persona enables you to evaluate the effectiveness of your sales messaging PRIOR to actual execution. In short, by getting inside your buyer persona's head you'll always be enticing.

Comments

[John Windsor]

Great ideas, Jill. And, similar to what you did in this post, it helps to put up pictures that might represent these personas. Makes it easier to carry on a (figurative) conversation with them.

JILL's response:

I'm not normally a visual person and would typically leave off the pictures. It helps to be reminded that it's valuable for others who don't think like me.

Thanks!

[Drew McLellan]

Jill,

I think one of the reasons this technique is so powerful is that it serves as a very vivid reminder that regardless of the medium (a phone call, web copy, a radio spot) we are really speaking to one individual.

We naturally talk differently to one person as opposed to a big group. Using personas helps us to craft our copy/message to the individual, not an entire demographic group.

Thanks for hat tip.

Drew

[minnesotawildman]

Jill

Many thanks for your insight. Why don't you start a company that gets through the clutter and secures a phone appointment? Just a thought...

Stan

[Mou Mukherjee]

Hi Jill,

I found your post on personas interesting. I would like to add one comment though…from my understanding personas originated from data on marketing segments. They put a face on a marketing segment, or a prospective buyer. The only reason I bring that point up is that when I was researching them, it seemed like one of the problems was stereotyping.

I first was introduced to the idea of persona in business, at a vendor partner conference about two years back. The marketing team presented a matrix with all of their products broken down by prospective buyers such as CIO, Director of IT etc. (this was a tech company). They also showed which ones were influencers, and which were decision makers. You could then drill down and view their persona which included a persona profile, with a picture, video, age, goals & triggers, motivations, frustrations, and what they read. I was completely blown away with it. Though I don’t know what data they used, it seemed quite extensive and I would like it was based on internal and external sources. It seemed like a great tool, I’m not sure how many people walked away with a plan to start using them. I go back to the site from time-to-time and I still think that was one of the most interesting projects and tools they created for their partners/resellers. I have found it most useful for writing copy, but also for thinking through the various people involved in a decision (for higher end B2B solutions).

I was also delighted to see a comprehensive Business Tech Buyer personas written in MarketingSherpa’s Business Technology Benchmark Guide in 2006. That is probably the most comprehensive data I have seen around on IT Buyers.

I was looking around for more information on how they were created and I found this link http://www.textor.com/page_135.html, and at the bottom there is a presentation describing the process of building a persona.

I think it is definitely important to think like your prospects when it comes to messaging and communicating. I just wanted to mention that the technique has roots from a marketing data-driven environment. That is not to say that anybody can’t create their own, but at least understand how they were established…personal experience, from data, from instinct, from real people etc. I’m sure that in some cases you can be very good at it without extensive data to back it up. One might think that a persona based on marketing research or data is just as much of a stereotype as any..this is going to depend on your mindset and experience!

Mou

[Jill Konrath]

Mou, Thanks for the excellent insights you added to my post on "The Secret to Enticing Prospective Customers."

As a sales consultant working with clients primarily on new product launches for many years, I unconsciously was creating personas before I even knew what they were. In order to help them understand how to sell their technology, I would sink myself into the role of their perspective buyers and see if their sales messaging and approaches would be effective.

I was delighted several years ago to finally learn that what I was doing had a name! Also, I enjoyed visiting the site you recommended and the numerous links I visited from there. I haven't seen Marketing Sherpa's report, but would love too!