Solid Marketing & Tracking Will Be Attacked By Clients Employees
Veteran offline marketers will have experienced this and I encourage you to share your stories, but those new to turning around the marketing efforts of offline businesses may be in for a surprise so this serves as a bit of a warning.
This is more common if you are involved at a deeper level and not just selling some quick one off service.
Most of the businesses that need help are often not tracking and analyzing leads/sales conversions etc... If you put in a system that finds flaws you will likely end up being the target for those that feel they have been exposed.
Even if you have the best intentions and merely want to work with them to bring them up to speed there will be the odd character that simply feels they are being attacked. It is fair to say that implementing a great marketing/tracking plan is a quick way for crappy employees to get found out and eventually fired.
Here are two examples that really happened to me.
1. PI firm doing business in 3 states wanted to go national. They operated off the premise that their close rate was exceptional but just needed more leads. Got them ranked in maps and search in top 5 for [city] private investigators in 300+ cities. Their close rate had crazy fluctuations. I put a CRM in place and call recordings to find out what was happening. It became clear very quickly that one senior employee was dropping the ball constantly and had terrible close rates and was horrible at following up. He had not been called on it yet but the numbers and reports were speaking for themselves. He started to aggressively try to sabotage my relationship with the client.
Fortunately the client was no fool, I flew down and our goal was really just to try to train up the guy dropping the ball. At that point his job was not at risk, the boss was a great guy that really thought we would be going over some possible scripts and changes to approach. The employee however thought the board meeting was an audience to attack the quality of my leads etc... I will never forget his exact words when reports showed his 20% close rate compared to others at 70%.
He said "well as far as I'm concerned your seo isn't that great. Just because people call us doesn't mean they want to hire us. People on the internet aren't serious..." He went on a 20 minute plus tangent and we just let him talk. He talked himself out of a job. The client apologized to me later and thanked me for my patience in trying to work with him.
2. Local high ticket manufacturer/supplier wanting to significantly increase their retail business. They had no real internet presence, all old school marketing. Again their assumption was if they contact us we close them. Got them to 3 to 5 full leads daily, on track to add 1 million to their bottom line first year working together. Once again owner turned to me for advice on tracking sales conversions/employee performance. One very senior staff member fought the process every step of the way. Meanwhile others thrived and revenues increased. Eventually after not being able to get her to adopt any electronic tracking the owner put up a simple leads/sales board much like car dealerships use. It was now in black and white for everyone to see that her close rate week over week was 1 or 2 out of 10 compared to 5 or 7 for everyone else.
When the owner sat and explained that finances must dictate who he can and cannot keep and suggested that we all work together to bring her close rate inline with others her reaction was "maybe if you were not wasting X amount of dollars paying this Peter Lessard guy we would not be worrying about how many clients we close..." Apparently she went on a huge rant attacking me personally that he did not want to bother sharing. Once again this owner is an easy going guy that sincerely simply wanted to fix what was broken and could not believe that the employee would rather quit or be fired than try some new approaches.
Anyone had similar experiences of being attacked for putting in tracking that became the bearer of bad news?
This is more common if you are involved at a deeper level and not just selling some quick one off service.
Most of the businesses that need help are often not tracking and analyzing leads/sales conversions etc... If you put in a system that finds flaws you will likely end up being the target for those that feel they have been exposed.
Even if you have the best intentions and merely want to work with them to bring them up to speed there will be the odd character that simply feels they are being attacked. It is fair to say that implementing a great marketing/tracking plan is a quick way for crappy employees to get found out and eventually fired.
Here are two examples that really happened to me.
1. PI firm doing business in 3 states wanted to go national. They operated off the premise that their close rate was exceptional but just needed more leads. Got them ranked in maps and search in top 5 for [city] private investigators in 300+ cities. Their close rate had crazy fluctuations. I put a CRM in place and call recordings to find out what was happening. It became clear very quickly that one senior employee was dropping the ball constantly and had terrible close rates and was horrible at following up. He had not been called on it yet but the numbers and reports were speaking for themselves. He started to aggressively try to sabotage my relationship with the client.
Fortunately the client was no fool, I flew down and our goal was really just to try to train up the guy dropping the ball. At that point his job was not at risk, the boss was a great guy that really thought we would be going over some possible scripts and changes to approach. The employee however thought the board meeting was an audience to attack the quality of my leads etc... I will never forget his exact words when reports showed his 20% close rate compared to others at 70%.
He said "well as far as I'm concerned your seo isn't that great. Just because people call us doesn't mean they want to hire us. People on the internet aren't serious..." He went on a 20 minute plus tangent and we just let him talk. He talked himself out of a job. The client apologized to me later and thanked me for my patience in trying to work with him.
2. Local high ticket manufacturer/supplier wanting to significantly increase their retail business. They had no real internet presence, all old school marketing. Again their assumption was if they contact us we close them. Got them to 3 to 5 full leads daily, on track to add 1 million to their bottom line first year working together. Once again owner turned to me for advice on tracking sales conversions/employee performance. One very senior staff member fought the process every step of the way. Meanwhile others thrived and revenues increased. Eventually after not being able to get her to adopt any electronic tracking the owner put up a simple leads/sales board much like car dealerships use. It was now in black and white for everyone to see that her close rate week over week was 1 or 2 out of 10 compared to 5 or 7 for everyone else.
When the owner sat and explained that finances must dictate who he can and cannot keep and suggested that we all work together to bring her close rate inline with others her reaction was "maybe if you were not wasting X amount of dollars paying this Peter Lessard guy we would not be worrying about how many clients we close..." Apparently she went on a huge rant attacking me personally that he did not want to bother sharing. Once again this owner is an easy going guy that sincerely simply wanted to fix what was broken and could not believe that the employee would rather quit or be fired than try some new approaches.
Anyone had similar experiences of being attacked for putting in tracking that became the bearer of bad news?
What if they're not stars? What if they are holes poked in the top of a container so we can breath?
What if they're not stars? What if they are holes poked in the top of a container so we can breath?
"If you think you're the smartest person in the room, then you're probably in the wrong room."
What if they're not stars? What if they are holes poked in the top of a container so we can breath?
- Jack Trout