MARKETING: The 5 Fundamentals of Sales and Marketing

While reading “The 80/20 Rule in Sales and Marketing” by Perry Marshall, I bumped with something that I was willing to write a while ago, but wasn’t able to do so due to limitations in my personal agenda. But now this book has pushed me to deliver you something special, if you actually love Sales and Marketing like I do. OK. Since my Facebook notes are actually short articles, I’m going straight to the point.

THE 5 CORE QUESTIONS TO MASTER SALES AND MARKETING
Basically when you’re about to embrace a marketing campaign of some sort, and you want to strike with precision, all you have to do is ask the following to yourself:

1. Does your target audience have the MONEY?
2. Do your customers have some URGENT need?
3. Do your customers embrace your USP (Unique Selling Proposition)?
4. Are you talking to a person who CANNOT SAY “YES” to your offerings?
5. Are you putting TOO MUCH WORK on the customer’s hands with your solution?

That’s it. That’s what you need to answer before doing anything in order to maximize your marketing precision. Now let’s head to the quick explanations.

DOES YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE HAVE THE MONEY?
Despite all selling techniques and psychological blows you can deliver to the customer’s mind, it does nothing to help your marketing and the product you’re promoting if the end customer is limited by cash itself.

For example, if your market involves poor people, who are struggling to pay rent for instance, then even if your product IS CHEAP you’ll still face great levels of resistance. Right? Therefore, you need to be aware of this “buying resistance” and expect fewer conversions from them, since paying the bills will always be mandatory to them (usually…).

Also, you’ll have to craft better copy to address such buying blocks.

This is why, whenever you can, you should pick customers who have no problem paying you because those who do have money, are way easier to sell to. If you can market your product to few buying personas that have the ability to pay you as much as a crowd of all other personas, then focus on that.

Because if 3 customers can pay me $100,000, then why would I chase 100 customers who can only pay me $1,000? So before you do anything with your Marketing, ask if they have the money to pay you.

Next.

DO YOUR CUSTOMERS HAVE SOME URGENT NEED?
They may have the money, but if they don’t have that urgent NECESSITY of buying your product then you’ll have to do extra efforts with your Marketing. An immediate “problem” must be resolved by what you’re selling. You need to pick people’s brains where it hurts. And by problem, I mean either something EXTREMELY PAINFUL like:

• a daily routine at work that steals away from employees an extra 5 hours of effort +
  minus 35% of revenue from the entrepreneur
• a hopeless, lonely man/woman who cannot get a good job nor a love life for years
• a big company that relies on following every detail that the government demands, in a very complex internal process that is attached to the law and one error can cause the company to shrink 50% in size overnight

On the other hand, problem may also mean something EXTREMELY PLEASURABLE, like:

• a 2-week package in a resort in Hawaii with free food during these days
• a whole weekend to spend with a celebrity in crazy parks, restaurants, and mansions
• a championship spot that allows you to compete for a huge house + a sports car of choice

Big pain, big pleasure. That’s the 2nd rule. If your audience has the possibility to be approached by either one, then you’re in a very good position to strike.

DO YOUR CUSTOMERS EMBRACE YOUR UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSITION (USP)?
Are people buying the uniqueness you’re selling? Because as soon as they see your USP, their eyes need to pop from their faces. What are you offering that others aren’t?

A unique selling proposition (USP) is your unique answer to these questions:

• What does your product do that nobody else’s product does?
• Why should I buy from you instead of anybody else?
• What guarantee can you make that nobody else can make?

If you’re turning heads with your USP, then you got this part right in your Marketing. Next question.

ARE YOU TALKING TO A PERSON WHO CANNOT SAY “YES” TO YOUR OFFERINGS?
Now, this part is a bit tricky. And very important. Just think of it like this, if you’re a B2B company then you probably want to talk with decision-makers, right? The thing is, that you usually can’t go directly talk to them, because of hierarchy issues. Therefore, your marketing lands on managers and similar “trouble makers” instead.

Meaning? These guys have the ability to SAY NO but they cannot say YES and close a deal with you. They cannot sign the contract and make the final decision. You cannot CLOSE them. Get the point? And this is a place where you cannot win. If you do deliver the right message and you can’t even get a “yes”, but only a no, then why market to those people? Because remember that besides that obvious context, managers and similar roles have the authority and the ‘moral duty’ to protect their bosses from annoying people.

And guess what?

One of the “annoying threats” to their bosses is you and your business. To them you’re just “noise”. Because managers don’t have the same urgent need their bosses have to solve a specific problem that only their bosses know how it feels.

They rather protect their jobs instead of actually trying to help.
Therefore, remove the middle-man whenever possible.

ARE YOU PUTTING TOO MUCH WORK ON THE CUSTOMER’S HANDS WITH YOUR SOLUTION?
This a rule I learned in an early stage: DO NOT give additional work to the customer. Period. Why do you think that Technology spread so fast in our society? Simple, because it removed work from our lives.

Therefore, if your solution is actually putting ANOTHER complex process on the customer’s hands, then he’ll not enjoy paying for that additional work. Nobody likes to buy something that will bring him work. This is exactly why Artificial Intelligence is spreading really fast, because much of the work done by humans today, will be left off to the machines.

You don’t see by accident in ad copy, things like: “With only ONE click” or “A 3-step process”. Such marketing indicates EASY STUFF TO DO which is what the customer wants in the end.

CONCLUSION: FIND OUT IF YOUR ANSWERS ARE CORRECT, THEN GO ALL IN WITH YOUR MARKETING
QUICK RECAP: Does your target audience have the MONEY? Do your customers have some URGENT need? Do your customers embrace your USP? Are you talking to a person who CANNOT SAY “YES” to your offerings? Are you putting TOO MUCH WORK on the customer’s hands with your solution?

That’s all you need to know.
Beat those tests with glory and you’ll boost your sales.

Marketing is not rocket science.
It’s just about understanding the market and how humans behave in it.

Take care.