How does Sandler help Marketing?

Let’s take a look at what Sandler can offer Marketing in these three keys areas:

Generating revenue

Integrating with sales

Brand differentiation

Generating revenue

Who makes the buying decisions at your organisation? When I ask that, I don’t mean who does the research on the best solution or product, I mean who ultimately signs off the decision? Almost always it’s going to be somebody pretty senior. Even as high up as MD, CEO, a board director. Is that true in your organisation? Repeat buying might be delegated down, but any significant change in direction of purchasing will include a senior person. That’s logical; that is their role after all. But do they know all the technical reasons for deciding in one direction or another? Even a Technical Director won’t necessarily be up to date with all the new stuff available or be aware of the intricacies of taking on new products or services. They can’t be concerned with these things, that’s why they have people to do that kind of thing for them. We are still left with a gap from the point of view of marketing; the owner of the problem doesn’t necessarily know why they should take notice of one aspect of an alternative solution over another. If you market why your solution is the right one (you have all the great features and benefits) then you will have missed out on all the reasons why the decision maker would take notice of your solution.

That looks like an incredible statement; by marketing your traditional Unique Selling Points, the things that you are proud of you miss the reasons for doing business. 

Why do the decision makers do business? They have problems they need fixing. They don’t care about what you do or how you do it. They just want to know if you understand the problem properly and can fix it at a price and the way they are prepared to do so. 

Let’s look at an example. I have a client who is proud of their “no code CRM solution”. Who needs the CRM? That will be the Sales Director or somebody similar. What does he know about coding? Very little. In fact, “No code” sounds positively scary. That’s like suggesting “walking a tightrope without a net”. Or it sounds like the system is easy to handle because it needs a lot of tweaking. None of this is good. Even worse, it makes it clear that the only people who are going to understand the provider are highly technical people who know coding. It makes it clear that talking to this provider is going to be an uncomfortable experience. It makes it very clear the provider has no understanding of the world of a Sales Director.

Instead of frightening off the potential decision maker, marketing should be looking straight at the problems the decision maker has. Something like “Are you frustrated that you can’t easily make changes to your CRM to reflect how your organisation really uses the one system guaranteed to make you money?” It’s the same information. It’s approaching the same selling point, just from a position of understanding.

What difference would it make if your marketing only talked about the problems you solve instead of what it is you do? Do any of your competitors? Take a quick look at their marketing and you’ll see how easy it is to fall into the trap of marketing features and benefits, missing out on the real reasons why your clients buy.

If you would like to have your marketing department speak in the language of solving problems rather a language of solutions, that’s what we spend a lot of time teaching our clients about. We can teach your marketing department about generating revenue in a way that makes you stand out from your competition.

Integrating with Sales

 Marketing v Sales. It's a war. Or often it looks like that. The sales department complains that marketing doesn't produce the right kind of leads and/or enough of them, and the marketing dept complains that the salespeople just can't be bothered to chase up their hard-won leads in a timely fashion. This doesn't make sense. 

What difference would it make if they were aligned? According to our Sandler research the result in increased revenue is startling when the two are aligned: anything up to a doubling of revenue. Even taking into account any caveats about the sample, just the possibility of doubling revenue means senior management must look at this very seriously. This isn’t a slight increase. This is offering the potential for an enormous return on investment. 

How easy is to align? According to real-world examples from our research it can be very hard indeed and needs a common language, process and system. If you would like to learn how to integrate the two departments around a common system, we have helped organisations do just that using HubSpot.  At the very least we can teach your marketing and sales departments a common language and sales process. Our most successful engagements have been where senior management, marketing and sales are all in the same training session. If all three can agree what needs to be done, when and how then the handover from one to the next is seamless and revenue opportunities significantly increase.

Brand differentiation

What makes your brand stand out from your competitors? Are your features significantly different? Are your prices radically different from your peer group? Do you have an edge that is so revolutionary that you can charge what you like and customers will flock to you as soon as they are aware? Typically we find that there is not such a large amount of blue sky between one provider and another. In this case it is very hard to differentiate between your brand and another. It takes a lot of advertising to make your brand stand out from the noise. It is phenomenally expensive to rely on marketing a message that is similar to your competitors and yet stands out. The answer must be to market a message that is not at all similar to your competitors. There is a Sandler rule “Whatever your competitor is doing, do something different”. 

We teach our clients what we call “pattern interrupts”. Whatever your prospect expects, do something different. From first contact, through the messages and on to the whole buying experience, take them on a journey of self-discovery that nobody else has ever done. Get them to understand their own problems in a way that they know they need you. Guide them through a process that ensures they have the confidence that you have their best interests at heart all the way through. Brand differentiation doesn’t depend on unique features and benefits, it depends on having a buying journey that is unique. Unique to your organisation , and, importantly, unique to them.

We can teach your organisation to take your prospects and customers through a unique journey, genuine brand differentiation.