Serious business versus the "BS Quotient"

My husband was watching an "instructional" video, online, showing a sales guy for a marine rope company. The sales guy was supposedly showing how to make a particular splice in one of the ropes that his company sells.

A splice, for those not familiar, is the joining of two pieces of rope by interweaving the strands from one rope with the strands of another, so the two ropes are joined. For example, you can create a loop at the end of a rope by splicing the end of the rope back into itself. Splices are important. If they fail, you can lose your boat. The splice has to be right. No BS allowed.

As I watched the salesman in the video, I could see that the BS quotient was really high. Not only did he not really know how to clearly explain what he was doing, but he was doing a poor job on the demo. He was showing "how easy it is to splice this rope," but not how to actually do it. For example, he would be pointing to the strands, explaining how they were oriented. As he pointed, his fingers came between the strands and the camera, so you couldn't see the strands.

Needless to say, this was frustrating to my husband, and not only because the demo was poorly done. In this case, my husband represents a very knowledgeable buyer. He has done a lot of splicing in his time, with other kinds of rope, and is very good at it.

He is like one of your potential buyers, who knows exactly what he wants to do, and has a good idea about how he wants to do it. He also knows a lot about your kind of product.

Put a knowledgeable buyer in front of a BS demonstration (or demonstrator), and you're going to frustrate and alienate that buyer. I see this constantly in any sale involving complex knowledge and decisions.

The BS salesperson doesn't have to be a real, live human being - it can be your website. Websites are FILLED with copy that is all BS, just a lot of words strung together by a marketing person who REFUSES to understand your technical product well enough to write about it in a way that will appeal to the knowledgeable buyer.

Even a slightly knowledgeable buyer will be put off by lengthy descriptions of "your problem." The buyer is aggravatingly familiar with his problem; he doesn't need some marketing person to explain his problem to him. Buyers are also quite familiar with the say-nothing descriptions that literally keep them from understanding what you sell.

Here's another example. I am trying to buy a global SIM card for my global cell phone.

My requirements are: reasonable rates in most countries; the ability to get and keep a US-based number, for the convenience of my US-based clients; and no hidden, sneaky "gotcha" fees that only show up AFTER you've signed a year's contract. I also want to be able to select the US-based number - something that's easy for my clients to remember - before I commit to the service.

These are not outrageous requirements. They're pretty predictable, actually, for the business person who needs to stay connected and accessible while on the road in different countries. So, given the reality of how these services are currently sold and marketed, what was my buying process like?

Let's just say it has been unnecessarily ridiculous. The exploding global SIM card market is a rat's nest of sneaky gotchas, including country-specific calling rates that change minute-by-minute, even as you are researching them.

Country calling rates charged by one service can also vary wildly from one country to another. The same service can charge $0.89 a minute for a call from Anguilla to the US (which is still ridiculously high), and $10.04 a minute from St. Vincent to the US. That's $602.40 for an hour-long conversation. Outrageous. Yes, these are real rates. The company that charges these rates is GL Mobility.

Getting the right international SIM card was so complex, and so filled with the potential for "buyer's remorse," that I hired someone who is really good at research to build a grid comparing the real costs of the various services in various countries. The fact that I had to do that was a testimony to the high "BS quotient" associated with these services. I can write their BS in my sleep:

Want to be connected, no matter where you are? Now you can - with the WhizBangGlobalCellCard. Keep the same number, no matter where you go. Avoid costly roaming charges. Save as much as 90%!

OK, allow me to translate, to strip away all the BS and tell you what this writer is REALLY saying. Here's the TRUTH:

Want to be connected, no matter where you are? Now you can - with the WhizBangGlobalCellCard. Keep the same number, an inconvenient Liechtenstein number that no one will remember and that doesn't do much for your image. A number that forces your US-based clients (and anyone who doesn't live in Liechtenstein, which is almost everyone), to make an international call when they want to reach you. Avoid costly roaming charges, but only because you have to call a special number first, whenever you make an outgoing call, then wait for your phone to ring, then dial the number you really wanted to call. Every outgoing call will require this extra step. Save as much as 90%, but only if you're calling from the only reasonably priced country; the rest of them range from $0.89 to $10.04 per minute.

What would a good, honest copywriter have written, assuming this company was able to retain one? Before he started typing, he would do some research. He would:

• Find out if there were really cheap ways to make calls to Liechtenstein, (turns out there are).

   

   

• Understand exactly how outgoing calls are made, so he could describe it efficiently to the potential buyer.

   

   

• Learn enough to be able to talk about rates in a clear, straightforward way that educates customers to the reality of the charges.

Then, he would write:

Stay connected, no matter where you are, with the WhizBangGlobalCellCard. Here's what you'll get:

 

 

• A phone number you can use wherever you are. It's a Liechtenstein number that your family and friends can call, using a service like this, paying only $0.049 a minute (that's only $2.94 an hour), plus the normal cost of an outgoing call.

   

   

• US-based carriers can charge $2.49 a minute for roaming. We offer rates as low as $0.89 per minute for those same countries. Here is a list of all the countries we service, the outgoing and incoming call rates, and a comparison of those rates to those charged by two US-based carriers.

Yes, this approach means that the buyer will see the $10.04 rates on the list. But if most of the countries the buyer will be visiting are close to the $0.89 price point, this may still be a good service for him. The point is, the buyer would have the information he needed to be able to make that decision.

The real answer for this company is to change their service to make it attractive to buyers; then the copywriter would have something great to write about.

Where are your salespeople - and your marketers - on the "Serious vs BS" scale?

Do your salespeople really understand your product or service? Every little detail? Do they understand the technology behind it? Or, does everyone else in your company assume they aren't smart enough to learn it? Does everyone also assume that your marketers can't learn it either?

Then I bet that your BS quotient is high - on your website and in conversations with customers.

Selling is serious business. It's as serious as manufacturing and finance. It's not about hiring and "winding up" professional BSers and sending them out in front of your buyers so they can BlahBlahBlah. It's not about giving away coffee mugs and T-shirts. All of that is so 1950's. As a society, we are so far beyond that. Buyers are, anyway.

They want to know exactly how your product works. How it will affect them. What they will be able - and not be able - to do with it. They're coming to your website and your salespeople to get answers to these questions.

What are they getting when they get there?