Who are you talking to?

She asked me again “who are you talking to?” I was shocked! I’d been talking to a friend of mine who’s a marketing expert. She’d been looking at our website.

I replied, “Businesspeople”. 

But she said “No. I think you’re talking to the people who come on your courses, not the people who buy your courses for their staff.” 

I knew she was right. 

Even our website offers “Effective Presentation Skills Training”. And when I thought about that from a prospect’s point of view I came up with the question – So what? (that classic sales challenge when you give a feature with no benefit). OMG. 

But it got worse; then she named a couple of decision-makers we both knew, and said “I think they might look at your website and say ‘they’re not commercial enough’”

And now I’m floored. Doesn’t she know that I’ve headed up a team that helped a major client win over £1.5 billion pounds of business in 3 years? Not commercial!

But I know she’s right. I’ve got caught in the classic trainer catch that says we run great courses (but so what?) What will they produce? More confident and more skilled presenters, or more business? Hopefully both. But. Who knows, actually? Unless we make it clear in our communications, and we give some evidence that our training does work to produce more business.

As a salesperson I feel reasonably confident to be able to convince decision-makers of the value of what we do. But as a marketeer? Obviously not so much!

So my question to you is “who are you talking to?” – “who are your team talking to?” The end-users? (yes, they need to be convinced too), but what about the decision-makers? How commercial are your salespeople and marketeers? How business-focussed are they, really?

This whole episode has got me thinking and working on how to improve our commerciality. If you think you might be caught in the same trap, I’d love to talk with you, because I’m just waking up too! Give me a call and let’s talk.