In sports, MVP stands for most valuable player. In The MVPs of Marketing & Sales™, the letters MVP stand for Message, Vehicles and People. These three components are arguably the most valuable things you can focus on if you want to communicate effectively and dominate your market.
David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. Today co-host Chris Templeton and I are here to discuss The MVPs of Marketing & Sales™. Welcome Chris.
Chris: David, thank you. Great to be here. You know, for years you've been talking about the MVPs of sales, but for those who don't have the benefit of really understanding what you mean by that, help them to understand what the term MVPs of sales means.
The Most Valuable Players of Marketing & Sales
David: Okay. When we think in terms of The MVPs of Marketing and Sales™, it's just like the most valuable players in sports. But when it comes to marketing and sales, it stands for something different. In marketing and sales, MVP stands for Message, Vehicles, and People.
So essentially what we're asking is what is the marketing (M)essage that I want to convey? That's the M part of it. Which combination of marketing (V)ehicles am I going to use to communicate the message? And then who are the (P)eople or prospects that I want to reach? When you get these three things right, your promotion is almost inevitably successful. And if you get just one of them wrong, it's inevitably not successful.
Chris: It's like a three-legged stool.
David: Exactly.
The MVPs of Marketing & Sales: 1.) Message
What Message do you want to convey?
Chris: And so, the first leg of that stool is messaging. I think a lot of people don't have a clear understanding of the value of messaging, what it means and how to be consistent about it.
David: Yeah, most business people communicate a lot, right? We're communicating all the time. We're interacting with people, we're having conversations. But very often what we're saying is not strategic. We're not necessarily thinking about it in advance. Maybe we don't think in terms of it as messaging. We just think of it in terms of communication. But the idea of the messaging is to think in advance.
What do I want to happen as a result of this interaction, this conversation? Whether it's a discussion with someone, or a sales call, whether it's an email, social media post, whatever it is. What is the goal of the communication? What do I want to happen as a result of having this communication?
Let's say it's early stages and I'm just meeting someone for the first time. If I want to get them comfortable with me, obviously the messaging is going to be different than if it's somebody that I've been talking to for a while. Same thing if we've been talking about putting something together and we're trying to get a sale closed. Communication is different, but it's always strategic. We should always have some sort of goal in mind when we initiate that message.
Wanting More Sales
Chris: I think a lot of people have a tendency to say, oh, I just want the sale. And I imagine a big piece of what you're talking about with your clients is, wait, what are the steps? So talk a little bit about that in terms of messaging and, and the results you're looking for.
David: Okay. Well, most salespeople, if they are thinking, "I just want the sale," and that's true, they're probably going to want the sale. That's perfectly natural. But it's very unlikely that you're going to make the sale in that first conversation unless you're selling something very inexpensive. Something that's very easy for someone to make a decision about.
But the reality is that in the early stages, first of all, they have to get to know us. So a lot of our communication, a lot of our messaging is simply about letting them know who we are, making them aware that we exist. We talked about this in a previous podcast. So the early stage messaging is about that. Getting them comfortable with us, confident enough with us that they will place that first-time order.
Throughout those conversations, assuming it takes more than one, which it often will... The closer we get to actually making that sale, the more focused the conversations become. In other words, the middle conversations might be about specific products that they're looking for and providing pricing and that sort of thing. And those conversations will be happening a lot closer to the sale. Whereas earlier in the conversation it's about getting them comfortable.
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Chris: Talk about the importance of comfort because I think a lot of people think, well, you know, here I am, I've got this product and I just want to tell you about it. And then you can buy it and comfort and I think trust is another word that kind of fits in this. Talk about how you define that
Getting Comfortable with Marketing & Sales
David: Comfort is critical obviously in selling because if I'm not comfortable with you, I'm not going to buy anything from you. So I not only need to be comfortable in the fact that you've got a product that is decent, that's going to work, it's going to accomplish what it is that looking to have accomplished; but I have to feel comfortable with you. I have to feel comfortable with the idea of your company, of working with you. Without that there's very little that's going to happen.
There's an old adage in sales that people do business with those they know, like, and trust. That's been beaten over the head of so many salespeople! To some degree it's true, and to some degree, it's a really an oversimplification. We can talk about that at another time.
But the idea there that people need to have some level of trust with you is absolutely true. It's absolutely critical. If it doesn't happen, if they're not comfortable, then you're not going to sell anything.
Chris: I used to say in a previous life, you know, it's about building a relationship. And that first step really is about building comfort, isn't it?
David: It is. It's establishing the fact that you're here and that you can potentially help. And then once they buy into that idea, assuming they do, then you can move forward and actually start talking to them about solutions.
The MVPs of Marketing & Sales: 2.) Vehicles
Which combination of marketing Vehicles will you use to communicate your message?
Chris: So the first leg of this three-legged stool is messaging, and the second one is vehicles. Talk a little bit about vehicles and what you mean by that when we're talking about this process of MVP.
David: Okay, so the marketing vehicles are essentially what you're using to communicate the message. Examples of marketing vehicles could be email, could be a phone call, could be a voicemail message. It could be a text, a social media post, a blog post, or a podcast (like we're doing now.)
All of these things are essentially delivery vehicles. They are there to deliver the message. And when you use the right combination of marketing vehicles, you're able to accomplish a lot more than if you're just, for example, maybe using one. If you've called somebody on the phone again and again and again, you start driving them crazy. It's because you're not mixing up your marketing vehicles. They're getting used to hearing from you in one format and that can get overbearing fairly quickly.
Chris: Is there some kind of a magic combination? I think one of the things we're moving towards is people relying more on electronic messaging and not enough on phone. But when you look at it, is there marketing magic in terms of a combination there?
David: I wish there were one perfect magic combination of marketing vehicles. There really isn't. But there are some things that I've found particularly helpful.
Your Client's Preferred Marketing & Sales Methods
First of all is determining your prospect's primary desired method of communication. Because if the person you're communicating with prefers to do business via text and email and you're trying to call them on the phone, you're going to have a mismatch. That probably won't end well for you, because the way that they want to communicate will generally trump the way that you want to communicate.
So figure out the person you're interacting with. How do they prefer to communicate? Sometimes it's as simple as asking them. “Hey listen, what's your preferred method of communication?” Whatever that is, try to honor it as much as possible.
Now, with that said, sometimes people are not responsive to the method of communication that they said is preferable to them! So in those cases, we might have to mix it up a bit and call them.
Even if they're not responding to the email, and they say they prefer that, you might have to give them a call. Just say, “Hey, listen, I've been trying to send you an email, haven't heard back from you. Can you please email me back or give me a call and let me know what's going on?”
Texting as a Marketing Tactic
Chris: Just out of curiosity, what's your take on texting as a primary means of communication?
David: Yeah, people really have to be comfortable with it before you start doing that. I would certainly not recommend it as initiating a form of contact with someone you don't know. You don't want to be doing text spamming of people who don't know you. But if they've got enough of a comfort level with you that they're okay with hearing from you that way, then it can be pretty effective at this point. It's not completely overdone, as are many other methods of marketing.
