Revenue Journal®

I'm in the midst of rewriting about 50 "sales plays" for a client. These are intranet-based instructions for salespeople making outgoing calls to potential clients. Each "sales play" describes the product or product combination being sold (the "offering"), the target audience for that offering, what's included in the offering, why the client should be interested, and suggested voicemail, phone call, and email copy that the salesperson can use when pitching the offering to a client.

Rewriting these sales plays is reminding me how impossible it is to be a salesperson who is depending on copy written by copywriters who have never had to make a cold call. The plays I'm changing, although each one is written about a different product, all use the same language. They all talk about the customer's need and the product's benefits.

"Has your network gotten too complicated? Are you looking for ways to simplify? This [offering] will increase your efficiency, and lower your administrative overhead."

They use the exact same phrases for the "benefits," no matter which product they are describing. The customer has heard all of these benefits a thousand times. Plus, you can't say these words to real clients in real calls.

It's not the fault of the marketers, really. This is what they have been taught to do.

Marketing people often complain about salespeople who create their own "unauthorized" materials. These materials tend to be graphically crude and legally dangerous. They are filled with clip art instead of professional-looking stock photos, and they make competitive claims that the company couldn't defend in court.

Why do salespeople take time away from commission-earning activities to create their own materials? Most salespeople would rather be out selling, not fussing with presentations and handouts.

They create their own materials because the materials they get from marketers are often insulting to the real, live customers that salespeople talk to every day.

For example, if you're selling a healthcare solution to a surgeon, and you want to introduce the idea of a "patient safety initiative," which is one of the big issues in the healthcare industry right now, you don't start the call by asking the doctor a question that one marketing copywriter suggested: "Do you care about patient safety?" The doctors I've interviewed all say that the reason they're doctors is because they love helping people get well. Asking a doctor if he cares about patient safety is rude and insulting. It's a slap in the face to the very essence of the doctor's character and altruistic motivation. This one question would ruin the chances of the salesperson selling that product - or any product, for that matter - to that doctor.

The basic problem boils down to this: Marketers don't know who they're talking to.

They write copy to people they're imagining instead of people they actually know. The target audience of that copy knows immediately that the person writing the copy has no idea who he is, what he's going through, and what he needs.

It's as if marketers are writing to "Joe Bob," who nods, gratefully, at each new "benefit" thrown his way. "This widget will make you sexy, Joe Bob!" Joe Bob nods, smiling. "This widget will lower your costs and increase your productivity!" Joe Bob nods even more enthusiastically, and smiles even wider.

But in the real world, where salespeople call real customers, there are no Joe Bobs. There is Donovan, who has been around the block 3,000 times and wants the salesperson to stop talking about vague, silly promises and start describing exactly what the product does and how it does it. There is Susan, who runs the IT department at a large company, who has 250 people working for her, and who has very specific questions that the salesperson must answer. "Yes, that's all very nice, but what is the cycle time? That's what is going to make the most difference for us. I've researched you and your competitors, and talked to other people who have installed these things. And it all boils down to cycle time. What exactly is your cycle time?"

The solution is simple, but seldom done: Marketers need to get to know current customers, personally. They need to interview people who have bought the product already, people who are similar to the people who haven't yet bought the product.

Why don't marketers do this? Three reasons: false confidence, false priorities, and fear.

False confidence. Marketers live in a very subjective world. They are surrounded by people in other disciplines who think they know all about marketing, and feel they can tell marketers how to do their job. It's easy to have an opinion on marketing when you've never had to personally suffer the humiliation of a failed campaign. As a defense against these buttinskis, marketers spend hours learning the latest marketing methods, and they vehemently defend those methods.

Unfortunately, this is a false confidence. A method may have worked last quarter, but will fail to work this quarter. Every new marketing method starts out being effective, simply because it is different. Sooner or later (and these days, it is usually sooner), the method settles down to its permanent level of effectiveness, which is usually a 1% to 2% response rate. This is the response rate marketers will get when their copy is addressing Joe Bob instead of the real buyer.

If marketers interviewed customers on a regular basis, after talking to seven to ten people of a given type, they would know what each type of potential buyer wants and needs. They would have a new respect for that buyer. They would see that buyer as an intelligent human being who is pretty smart about what he buys. They would also develop a new confidence, based on objective realities rather than self-delusion. They would be able to write relevant and non-insulting copy, copy that uses the kind of language that real buyers use, copy that the salesperson can use with real confidence, copy that actually addresses the customer's concerns, answers the customer's questions, and makes it easy for the customer to tell the salesperson, "Yes, that sounds good. I'm ready to buy now."

Merry Christmas, salesperson!

False priorities. Marketers are busy people. They spend most of their time cranking out copy, giving other people instructions, or attending meetings. The deadline of the moment seems to be more important than calling customers. Days, weeks, months, and even years can go by without a marketer talking to a real, live customer. No wonder their copy is mostly irrelevant and often insulting.

Most marketers have never done what salespeople must do hundreds of times every single day, all day long: pick up a phone, call a complete stranger, and attempt to convince that stranger that you have something of value for him. These strangers get dozens of these calls every week. They try to get off the phone the second they realize it's a salesperson calling. And they will only stay on the phone longer than a few seconds if the salesperson's first few sentences are exactly right.

Salespeople start out making the calls using the words they've been given by marketing, but those words don't work because they were created by someone who never talks to customers. Salespeople quickly abandon those words, and start experimenting. Pretty soon they find something that works better.

Marketers are lucky! They could write great copy without having to make cold calls. All marketers have to do is call a couple of current customers each week, people who are actually happy to help and proud to share their opinions with a marketer who asks intelligent questions and carefully listens to the answers. Marketers who make these calls will write copy that will work when the salesperson calls strangers who are looking for the same solutions as the company's current customers.

Merry Christmas, salesperson!

Fear. A marketer whose confidence comes from a knowledge of methods - rather than a knowledge of customers - is bound to be afraid. They're living in a very fragile world, one that can be shattered in an instant by someone who actually talks to customers. This is why CEOs tend to pay more attention to salespeople in meetings. Salespeople talk to customers all day long. They can confidently say, "The doctor I sold last week won't like that." Or, "I tried that pitch on a doctor the other day, and he hung up on me."

The problem with salespeople is they only focus on the conquest of the moment. They seldom see "the big picture." Plus, they don't hear the whole truth from customers, because when customers are buying, they are playing poker - with a card shark. They never reveal their whole hand to the salesperson.

Once again, marketers who interview current customers have a distinct advantage. After the purchase is made, the customer is more than willing to reveal what he was really thinking. The customer will even gloat a little. "I knew that what the salesperson was saying wasn't exactly true. Sure enough, I called another one of your customers, who told me that the product really does have a problem in that area. But, I decided to buy anyway, because it did the other things that I needed…"

Marketers are good at spotting trends. After a dozen conversations with similar customers, a good marketer can easily identify the common thread and come up with copy that will be relevant and convincing to prospective customers.

Merry Christmas, salesperson!

Don't force your salespeople to make cold calls with irrelevant and insulting scripts. Instead, insist that every one of your marketers talk to at least two customers every week. By the end of a month, you'll have great buyer perception data, and your marketers will start cranking out copy that actually works.

Merry Christmas!