Reimagining the Essentials of Marketing & Sales

Reimagining the essentials is different for everyone. And I hear both sides of that from people. I hear people who are like, ” oh yeah, you know, I’ve been doing this forever. I know exactly what I’m doing and all that sort of thing.”

And then I have people on the other side who are like, “Hey, I’m doing all the things that I’ve done before. I’m doing it more aggressively. I’m doing much more of it. I’m doing it with more people and it’s not working.”

And so for the people who are struggling with that… again, it’s not really a matter of saying, “well, now instead of prospecting, we need to do something different.”

No, you’re still going to need to do prospecting. The question is, “can we now do it in a way that is going to reach the people that you need to reach, communicate the things that we need to communicate and allow us to advance our communications and close the sales?”

David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. Today, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing reimagining the essentials. Welcome, Jay. Good to have you here.

Jay: It’s so good to be here once again. I’m very excited about today’s topic.

What’s the Point of Reimagining the Essentials?

David: Yeah. I mean the whole idea of the essentials to some people it’s like, “oh, essentials, that’s boring.”

Right? But it seems to me that in current times we really need to look at the essentials and say, “okay, how can we tweak them or fine tune them or change them around so that they’re going to be more effective in a 21st century post-COVID economy?”

Jay: Yeah. When I think about essentials, I think about foundational type things. And once you take away the foundation, other things that you have in play don’t work as well.

So what type of essentials specifically are we talking about that we want to, that we might look at in one when everybody looks at it that way, but we’re going to reimagine or rethink about them in a different way?

David: Well, I guess when I think of the fundamentals or the essentials, I tend to think of the real basics, prospecting, presenting, following up when it comes to sales. And sometimes you start talking about those things and people’s eyes glaze over like, “oh, I know all that stuff.” And yeah, we all know we need to do it.

Knowing and Doing are Two Different Things

We all know we need to do prospecting. We need to make presentations. We need to follow up with prospects and clients. But knowing it, knowing what to do, is really not the issue at all. It’s how are we doing it? How well are we doing it? How much better are we doing it than our competitors? How frequently are we doing it?

How consistently are we doing it? There are all these different nuanced aspects of it that completely change the results. And when we look at things like prospecting now versus five years ago, 10 years ago, it’s completely different. Same thing with presenting, same thing with following up. In the past, it was basically phone and in person.

Well now phone and in person are a lot less popular than other methods of communication. So that’s really what I’m talking about here.

Jay: Yeah, I think again, it’s so important, you know, it’s so easy to just fall into that trap of I’ve, you know, we’ve done it this way forever and it’s always worked. I think it’s hard for people to break free from those things, because it’s hard to know what type of impact you really can have.

And I think part of that is even understanding what your baseline is before you can make changes to understand if you’re making any progress, right?

What Happens When Everything Changes?

David: Yeah, absolutely. And I hear both sides of that from people. I hear people who are like, ” oh yeah, you know, I’ve been doing this forever. I know exactly what I’m doing and all that sort of thing.”

And then I have people on the other side who are like, “Hey, I’m doing all the things that I’ve done before. I’m doing it more aggressively. I’m doing much more of it. I’m doing it with more people and it’s not working.”

And so for the people who are struggling with that… again, it’s not really a matter of saying, “well, now instead of prospecting, we need to do something different.”

No, you’re still going to need to do prospecting. The question is, “can we now do it in a way that is going to reach the people that you need to reach, communicate the things that we need to communicate and allow us to advance our communications and close the sales?”

Reimagining the Essentials Post-COVID

Jay: Yeah, I have to think that COVID has had a huge impact on reimagining the essentials. Before, in-person experiences were the norm. That was the expectation in so many ways. Now people are standoffish about that. We’ve become much more interested in doing something online or over the phone.

That’s not nearly as personal. It’s hard to connect and build those relationships.

David: Yeah, that’s absolutely the case. And so I think for a lot of people, the idea of becoming comfortable with other methods of communication, just like what we’re doing now… some people are like, “Hey, Zoom is great. I don’t have to go anywhere. I don’t have to get in my car and I can be face-to-face with someone. It’s awesome.”

Other people are like, “oh, I can’t stand that. I don’t like looking at myself on camera. I don’t like hearing what my voice sounds like when I’m on a speaker.” And you either need to get over some of that, or you need to figure out ways to engage only with prospects who are still willing to do business, just the way that you want to do it.

That really limits your audience.

Jay: I think that’s interesting to sometimes say that there is a customer base out there that I could probably have access to, but it doesn’t really match my skillset or my comfort level. My close rate is going to be lower with them. Do I even want to spend that time?

I think in my mind, I’m like, “I want to reach everybody. I want to talk to everybody I can because that’s going to improve my odds.” Maybe it’s just the opposite.

You’re Never Too Old for Reimagining the Essentials

David: It could be. And for some people it is. I think when I was much younger, and there are certainly younger salespeople and younger people in the business who are really good at doing a lot of this stuff online. It really is about the person.

Because there are people my age who are like, “yeah, let’s do it.” Like myself. I’m all in favor of new technology, trying to figure out how to use it to best advance results for our clients and for ourselves. But then there are people far younger than myself who are like, “oh, well I’m too old to learn that stuff.”

It’s like, “well, I don’t know if that’s such a great position to take.”

Jay: Yeah, old dog new tricks. I think especially in the sales world, you know, is something that I see that is very common. What would you say to those people that are like, “I don’t need to reimagine anything. I have a certain close rate. I know what I’m doing. I’m comfortable in this process.”

What If You’re “Comfortable?”

David: People who are comfortable. I have no recommendations other than “keep up the great work.” If you’re comfortable with what you’re doing, if you’re able to do it, that’s awesome.

What I have seen, however, particularly over the last six to 12 months is I’ve seen a lot of people who have been established in sales for a long time, who have basically said, “okay, that’s it. COVID came, everything’s changing. All the rules are changing. The way that I have to interact with people is changing. I’m not comfortable with that anymore.”

And as a result, they just basically said, “okay, I’m not doing it.”

There are other people who are like, “okay, I have to continue to plow ahead.” Maybe I can’t afford to retire or whatever. In those situations, there are people who are trying to do it, but they’re not comfortable with it. And that can cause a lot of problems.

Reimagining the Essentials of Communication

A lot of the people that I work with in our Total Market Domination course are pivoting in terms of the communication. In fact, when we originally came out with the course, it was pre COVID. Then as soon as COVID arrived, all of the questions inside the portal changed.

All of our approaches in terms of the prospecting, the presenting, the following up, those things all changed.

And, It was actually exciting for us, as participants in the program, and for me, leading the program, to be able to say, “okay, look, this isn’t working for you anymore? What can we get to work?” And not just, “what can we get to work,” but “what will you be comfortable with?”

So it’s not just a matter of saying, “okay, well now, instead of seeing people in person, Zoom with them.” Right? Because that is a lot easier said than done. But what else can we do to initiate first contact? In a future podcast, I know we’re going to be talking about alternatives to cold calling and things like that.

The Essentials Haven’t Changed. Just the Methods.

But for now, if we think in terms of what the essentials are, it still involves establishing relationships, introducing ourselves to people, creating an impression. All of those things haven’t changed. It’s now just the method that