3 Sales Questions You Should Always Ask and Answer

You are working with sales to develop a value proposition for a specific prospect. The presentation is going in different directions as the sales and marketing teams suggest different strategies. Some want to talk about product and features; others want to focus on benefits and ROI. The conversation gets tangled and so does the presentation.

One of the most important things to remember when developing client-facing content is to put yourself in the prospect's shoes. What questions are the BUYERS asking themselves? What do THE BUYERS need to know to justify a buy decision?

It's more simple than you might realize because at the end of the day, the prospective buyer needs to know the answer to only 3 QUESTIONS:

1. Why should I buy?
2. Why should I buy from you?
3. Why should I buy NOW?

Wow! 

Now you are asking yourself, "Why didn't I think of that on my own?" No worries. I can't take credit for developing the 3 questions. The concept was passed down to me from a marketing consultant many years ago.

But I can demonstrate how to respond to the 3 questions, and I decided to use my own company and services as real-life example. Note that I've limited my responses to 5 points because that is the most a human being can digest - 3 points is even better.

Why buy marketing consulting services?

So let's pretend that we are the buyer. We sit in her chair. We wear her shoes. Speaking as the buyer, what want to be able to articulate the business problem?

• B2B marketing organizations need to be agile and move quickly. I need a consultant to keep the wheels on the marketing machine especially when priorities and staff requirements change.
• Sometimes I need to fill a temporary gap in headcount. Other times I need specific marketing expertise fast.
• Hiring great team members takes time and if work stops or slows down, the company can loose its competitive edge which can negatively impact my reputation across the company.
• Sales doesn't care if marketing is understaffed or overworked, sales needs leads.
• The company's revenue number is depending on me. 

Why buy McGee Marketing Consulting services?

The answer to this question highlights your differentiators and the responses change depending upon the specific needs of the prospect. Make sure that for any differentiator you mention, you can provide proof to support your claim. This is an example that I recently provided to a technology company that sells B2B insurance software.

• Over 20 years of 'old and new-school' experience as a strategist with the ability to execute and achieve measurable results. 
• Expertise in 'womb to win' integrated marketing (e.g., from GTM plan development through all aspects of marketing and sales execution). 
• Experience across all marketing disciplines in the B2B technology sector. 
• Domain expertise in both the healthcare and insurance segments.
• Innate ability to quickly simulate with your team and achieve success fast.

Why buy now?

This is a very important question - it is the compelling event that has a strong sense of urgency and can only be answered after a discovery session with the prospect. Here are the reasons why clients have engaged with me - again from their point of view.

• I need an expert to put a new set of eyes over our messaging and value proposition NOW.
• I need someone to manage my PR agencies NOW. I'm spending a fortune and need the PR activities integrated with the rest of marketing.
• I am understaffed and need to launch a new product NOW.
• Sales needs more leads NOW and the current demand generation machine isn't working.
• We are a small company, need help with strategy NOW, but not ready to hire a full time VP of Marketing.

I am interested to get your point of view on the "Why buy...Why buy your company...Why buy now" perspective.

3 Reasons Why You Need to Redesign your Website

Several weeks ago, HubSpot published an excellent blog post discussing 10 Terrible Reasons to Redesign your Website and as I read it, I recalled how many times I heard these exact reasons from former employers or clients.

And when one of these reasons surfaced, I remember how the marketing team stopped everything to redesign, relaunch, revamp, re-something the corporate website as fast as possible. Many times, the website looked so much better - everyone agreed - but no one really knew whether the website was 'behaving' better - meeting the objective of 'why a website'?

For this reason, I thought I'd share with you my views on 'when to redesign your website' - IMHO.

Reason 1: Prospects tell you they don't know what you do

One of the key components that drives a superior website is crisp messaging which is developed from the customer or prospect's point of view. I myself have made mistakes here, getting caught up in coining new technology or marketing terms, trying to look 'new school', modern, on the bleeding edge, only to later discover that website readers are scratching their heads wondering what we are talking about. Other times, I've seen organization's get caught up in focusing on the 'unique' features of their product - versus the 'unique' value - which only leads to presenting your product while standing in the weeds.

IMHO - You should crystallize your value proposition, key messages and unique selling propositions (USPs) before you even think about a website redesign. Prepare yourself because if you are a SMB and haven't done this in a process-oriented way, you may be surprised to see how long and difficult this can be. Also look under Reason 3 for other homework you will need to do before finalizing your messaging.

Reason 2: Your customers tell you they can't find anything on your website

Website navigation is more important that you think. Regardless of how much great marketing content you may have on your site, it's of no use if no one can find it.

IMHO, you need to think about what your customers and prospects want to know - NOT what your company wants the customer to know - and put that content front and center.

Depending on the objective of your site (see Reason 3 below), customers, customer stories, resources such as your blog and other thought leadership pieces, and educational opportunities such as webinars, events, should be front and center - in other words, ABOVE the fold.

Reason 3: Your website isn't meeting your company's objective

Reason 3 assumes, of course, that you have identified the objective of your website at some point. For most B2B enterprise software organizations, the objective of a website is one or more of the following:

• Provide product, company and/or industry/thought leadership information for existing customers and prospects
• Generate leads (note: for a software company that provides 'free trial' software, the objective of their website may be to generate sales AND leads)
• Enhance your company's brand
• Any combination of a through c above.

Provide information (a.k.a. marketing content)

With regards to product and company information, you know if you haven't reached the objective if you can check off Reasons 1 or 2 above. What is more interesting is that if you are doing a good job at providing compelling information about your company or product, and your customers/prospects can decipher and find it, you can still get a low grade for your site if you aren't delivering industry and thought leadership content.

IMHO - many technology organizations have great websites both visually and content-wise but it only talks about the company and/or the product. Your readers want more. They are looking to be educated about your 'space' and the value of your product or service. Don't just talk about yourself, your company, your product, your product features.

Generate leads

Both marketing and sales will know, intuitively, if the website isn't generating inbound leads from either organic search or PPC. The problem here can be a combination of not identifying the right keywords (or any keywords for that matter), not delivering the information the prospect wants, not making the information easy to find. 

IMHO - you should develop your list of initial keywords as you develop your messaging, value proposition, USPs and web content. And, bear in mind that this will be an iterative process. Hire SEO and PPC SMEs and don't forget that a strong social media presence can also bring leads to your site.

Enhance the company's brand

Your sales team, customers, the media and the industry analysts will tell you, in a heartbeat, whether they recognize your brand. What they can't necessarily tell you as easily is whether the brand personality, as portrayed on your website, is the personality you want portrayed. 

IMHO - if you feel your brand and/or brand personality is weak or needs to be more 'current', you will need to bring your company through a re-branding exercise. Unless you have a branding SME on staff (and even if you do and depending on your size), re- randing is best done in collaboration with an outside marketing agency.

Have you had other experiences for 'why a website redesign'? If so, please feel free to comment and add additional ideas.

10 Steps to Develop a Lead Generation Plan