People reach out to marketing companies in hopes that they will solve a marketing problem. However, there can often be a disconnect between what the client asks for and what they really want.
People say “We need a new website, we need new branding, we need better collateral.” Your client gets an idea and reaches out to you to solve their “need”.
Now the easy approach, which I think most of us take, is to sit back and be a good order taker. Set-up a quote and get to work. Start billing!
But as a more effective alternative, what if we asked. “What’s your problem? What do you really want to solve?”
Because frankly nothing is worse then a customer coming back 6 months or a year later complaining about how they didn’t get new leads.
Client: “Yeah, so we aren’t getting the leads we expected from your work.”
Me: “What’s that?”
Client: “Yeah, not really getting the results that we expected”.
Me: “Um, we did a brand redesign. Why did you think that was going to get you new leads?”
It was the tactic that they assumed they needed. The new leads were really what the client wanted as result of the brand redesign.
And that mistake is not on the customer, it is on me. I can’t just sit back and say, “Yes sir, Mr. customer, we will get right on that and just happily starting building, shipping or billing.”
I am supposed to be the expert in the field. I need to ask, “what are your goals with this project, what do you want to accomplish, what strategy is this supposed to support?”
And it’s easy not to do that extra step. My client is 60 percent down the sales path when they talk to me and know what they want. They may just have a preconceived notion on how to get there.
I need to make sure that I am getting to the real root of the problem and the real goal. It is our job as business owners and salespeople to make sure what we are selling fits our clients need.
Want to talk about what you really want from your marketing? Contact us and let’s chat.
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