If there is one thing all businesses want it is to scale – either their impact or their profit. The key to unlocking this scale is generally marketing. However, this is not an easy key to turn as many of us have found, the lock that holds that particular chest of treasures shut is rusty and stubborn. So we agonise, get frustrated and keep asking the same question of those that have done it.
“How do you scale?”
I believe that that is the wrong question, I think the correct question is, “what did you scale?”. I believe – strongly – that when it comes to marketing, we are putting the train before the tracks.
Let me explain.
One of Missing Link’s flagship products is our StorySeller sales narrative design/training program. For the most part, it’s an easy sell, a simple case of investment for return. However there is one stumbling block that sometimes slows down my sales cycle, it’s this:
“Yeah Rich this sounds great, we deffs want to go ahead in the future, we are just working with a marketing/branding/positioning/whatever agency to really get our brand promise/positioning/story right then we will come to you to convert that to sales.”
No. You are scaling the wrong story!
In the past month, as I cover in the video below, I have had two different customers say a variation of the same line, “We wasted six months on this with those guys, I wish we had just come to you guys first, you figured it out so much quicker.”
Why is that, is it because you guys are so much better? No, it’s not that*. It’s because we started at the right place.
Marketing people create brand avatars, “This is Dana… Dana is a mid-tier manager that cares about…”.
They create a fictitious cast of characters and then write a story that will appeal to them. It’s not terrible, there is just a far easier shortcut.
Real humans. With real problems. That have real money to spend.
It is far easier to amplify a message that you already know resonates – so that’s where you need to start.
“Yeah Rich, but you can’t scale those humans.” I hear you say.
Sure, but you can scale the story you use to get them to part with that real money while solving those real problems for them. In fact, that’s the only story that you should be trying to scale. Why? Because it actually works!
Sales is the pointy end of the stick, it’s brutally honest, it either stuck, or it didn’t, Marketing is a numbers game and it’s a lot trickier to quantify. Does this mean I don’t think it’s great? Of course not, I’m a big fan. I just believe that it’s not a point of departure. Sales are where your conversion narratives are written, marketing is how they are amplified.
It is far easier to amplify a message that you already know resonates – so that’s where you need to start.
Look, I get it, marketing is seen as sexy and sales is seen as sleazy, however, sales is actually honesty. When you get to the honest truth of the problems that your customers care about, then you can amplify the conversations about your solution.
That’s something that we’d love to help you with, however, whether you work with us or not, never lose sight of the real customers, because while those customer avatars and archetypes are useful tools, I’ve never met one that pays for stuff.
*Yeah it’s that too, we’re really fucking good!
Learn 25+ years of sales techniques directly from the mind of Rich when you undertake the StorySeller program.
We teach you how to uncover your value proposition and sell it successfully through the power of narrative.