I recently posted a freelance web development project on a web development job board. Most of the responses, unfortunately, were perfect examples - of what not to do. 

Since a lot of sales these days start with “virtual” contact, it’s instructional to see how these guys blew it - and what you can do to make sure you do it right. 

You don’t want to do these five things.

1) Don’t send an email filled with typos. Most of the messages were, unfortunately, filled with typos. 

The customer’s reaction: I’m not just looking for someone to fix one site. I’m looking for someone who can be a potential long-term vendor, someone I can refer my clients to. If you don’t even pay attention to details when you’re trying to impress, no way am I going to trust you with my own sites or refer you to my clients.

We all use email to agree on a meeting time. Unfortunately it’s terribly inefficient, especially when it’s done incorrectly. A salesperson who is sloppy about it will drive the new, potential client nuts and make the client wonder if she really wants to do business with the salesperson. It is the salesperson’s first test. You’ll want to pass it.

Here’s an example of good form:

Hi, Judy. 

I understand you want to see a demo of our SuperBigProgram. 

I’m able to do this with you at these times - all EST. 

Mon April 8 from 2 - 5 EST

Wed April 10 from 11 - 3 EST

Fri         April 12 from 9 - 12 EST

Please let me know if anything works for you within these ranges, or suggest another day/time. I will send you an invite with a link to the WebEx meeting. [Or, if it is a phone call:

Thanks to site tracking, cookies, and A/B testing, you can monitor and analyze what any person does on your website, and how they respond to your content. So why are companies still struggling to produce content that helps them sell? 

Because metrics can tell you what, who, and how, but not why. If you don’t know the why, you don’t know what you have to do to sell more.

I’m writing this post because I feel sorry for all the companies that waste so much time and money on websites that don’t move the revenue needle. I am saddened to see managers being misled by their tracking results. I’m tired of everyone thinking that A/B testing is the end-all, when it never tells you the all-important WHY. 

All of this weblog analysis and A/B testing, if not coupled with real-customer-interview research, falls into the same old stupid category of

The entertainment industry tends to portray people in business as greedy, selfish jerks. I spent a number of years in that industry, and I can understand why they think that way. Most of the people in power in that particular industry really are greedy and selfish.

Any industry that requires you to be thinking of yourself 24/7 tends to attract a certain type of person. I decided to leave show business because I knew that if I stayed in it, I would be ruining my chances of being the kind of person I wanted to be.

But the "jerk quotient" can also increase as companies grow. I’ve worked with hundreds of CEOs, entrepreneurs and other managers running companies of all sizes. There's no question that the bigger the company gets, the greater the possibility that it will be filled with jerks, unless the founder is absolutely devoted to customers and employees.

What is going to matter most to all companies in 2013? Only one thing, whether you are a MomPopoly (great new term - thunk up by Carlos Dunlap et all at Colloquy) or a Fortune 50 corporation.

Not the news, the wars, the disasters. Not the constantly shifting regulations, the “cliffs,”  or the larger trends. 

Nothing matters as much as your customers' experience, every time they interact with your product, people, or processes. 

Their experience determines what they say about you to others who are considering buying from you. What they say determines if you prosper or struggle in 2013. It’s that simple. 

Even something as basic as your phone system will make them want to do business with you or want to avoid you; recommend you to others or warn them to stay away.  

Let’s look at this as if we were the customer. 

When you call a company to ask a question, you only do it AFTER you have looked online and have been unable to find the answer.

I just finished interviewing a very smart customer for one of my clients. He’s a high-level manager in a tech company, a buyer of my client’s business services. 

During the interview, he explained how there were always two forces working against my client’s services: the comparable cost of accomplishing the same services in-house, and the fact that this customer is constantly pitched by competitive firms. 

Every so often, his own manager comes in and asks, “Are you still getting value for your money?” The customer is expected to have proof at his fingertips when that happens. He wants to be able to say, “Yes, they accomplished X last quarter for Y dollars. If we tried to do the same thing in-house, it would have cost us Z more.” Or, “Yes, last month they figured out how to improve on the automated portion of this process, and now we are getting that part done twice as fast, with fewer bugs. They also told us about a new tool they

CEOs and entrepreneurs tend to pay very little attention to the customer’s experience, as I mentioned in a recent article about Steve Jobs. They focus on product development, managing the people, business relationships, regulations, financials, and marketing. And yet, it is the customer’s experience that causes customers to recommend a company or warn others to stay away. It is the biggest sales driver or sales deterrent associated with the company. In this article, the last in our 4-part series, we answer the question, “How do customers want to be treated?” Here are Part 1 (How Customers Decide to Buy), Part 2 (How Customers Choose A Product), and Part 3 (How Customers Want to Be Contacted), for the late arrivers.

If I were to ask you about a recent experience you had as a customer, dealing with a company, you’d have plenty to tell me about that experience. You

The majority of CEOs and entrepreneurs still think that yesterday’s aggressive, cold-calling, hard-sell methods are still working. The truth is, using these tactics is more likely to irritate and repel your customer than to make them want to buy from you. How do customers want to be contacted? We answer this question in Part 3 of our 4-part series debunking common marketing and selling myths. If you arrived late to the party, here are Part 1 (How Customers Decide to Buy) and Part 2 (How Customers Choose a Product).

You just sat down to dinner. Your phone rings. You answer it, and a motor-mouth, angry-sounding recorded voice starts yelling in your ear, telling you that “you have been chosen,” or that “your credit rating may be in danger,” or that “[So-and-So Candidate] has an urgent message for you!” Click. Back to dinner.

Who on earth are they selling to? Forrest Gump? Someone who will patiently wait through the entire message, and then innocently give his credit card information to a call-out-of-the-blue telemarketer? It

Interviewing thousands of customers about their buying process has convinced me that while the buyer is attempting to buy something he wants, he is also determined to see through any deception or manipulation. Sellers are often convinced by gurus that manipulation is the right way to increase sales; it is a strategy that directly contradicts one of the buyer’s main goals: “I will not be fooled.” Here is Part 2 of a 4-part series, in which we examine how customers choose a product or service. Part 1 (How Customers Decide to Buy) is here, if you haven’t read it yet.

Once buyers have developed a need, they begin their buying process. They go online and do their research, and/or ask around. But just knowing that buyers go online, and having a website and a social presence, is not enough to ensure the buyer will choose you. You need to know

Sales and marketing gurus assiduously spread the self-serving myths that you can manipulate a customer into buying; that you can create the need; that it’s all about “persuasion” and “conversion.” CEOs and entrepreneurs can be fooled by these myths, to their great detriment. Interviewing thousands of customers about their buying process has thoroughly convinced me that very few buyers are susceptible to deception and manipulation. Everybody is wise to it. This is the first of a 4-part series debunking these damaging myths and setting the record straight. First we will focus on how customers decide to buy.

A need arises. One minute, the customer does not have a need. The next minute, he does. Something breaks. He runs out of something. He suddenly has a physical or emotional desire that he didn’t have before. Or, someone else says or does something that generates the need. He needs to accomplish or participate in something, and he can

"What I do is call my client's customers . . . " I said, in a dinner conversation with a marketer, at a conference.

“And they all say something different,” he interrupted, proudly, and laughing, because this was his own favorite rationale for not calling his own customers. 

“No,” I replied. “That’s the interesting thing. They actually say the same things, often using the very same phrases to describe their needs, preferences, observations, and trends. By the sixth or seventh call to similar types of customers, the trends are firmly established.” 

The marketer was suddenly quiet, because I had just yanked one of his favorite excuses out from under him. 

I always feel sorry for the marketer’s company when this happens. That same marketer could have made 5 - 10 phone calls to his current customers (using tested methods) and seen the truth for himself. He could have uncovered the issues that matter most to their current - and future - customers. He could have helped his company

One scene, described in Isaacson’s book Steve Jobs, 

sums it up perfectly: 

"As usual Jobs focused on making the product as simple as possible for the user, and this was the key to its success. Mike Evangelist, who worked at Apple on software design, recalled demonstrating to Jobs an early version of the interface. After looking at a bunch of screenshots, Jobs jumped up, grabbed a marker, and drew a simple rectangle on the whiteboard. 'Here’s the new application,' he said. 'It’s got one window. You drag your video into the window. Then you click on the button that says "Burn." That’s it. That’s what we’re going to make.' Evangelist was dumbfounded, but it led to the simplicity of what became iDVD. Jobs even helped design the 'Burn' button icon."

Steve Jobs got one thing really, really right: the customer experience. He was a fanatic about it. It was first on his mind in everything he did. He insisted on a simple, pleasing customer experience against all odds. He could be the world

As a revenue coach, I do not consider my work successful until sales start going up. And sales will not go up until the CEO and other top managers make the mental shift from company-centered to customer-centric. 

Traditional methods of customer research do not flip that switch. I know, because I’ve seen them all fail: focus groups, online surveys, email surveys, and so on. 

Social media also belongs on the “fail” list. Executives believe that they are hearing what they need to hear from customers via that channel, but they’re not. Social media channels are dominated by ravers and whiners. The bulk of any company’s customers fall somewhere in between. They suffer, or walk away, in silence. 

This is especially true in the B2B markets, where people are cautious about what they say in social media channels - including LinkedIn. They know perfectly well that their bosses, competitors, and potential employers have access to those messages, and they are very careful what they talk about and how they say it. So the messages that companies get from social media don

I keep track of the number of people who contact me who then end up becoming clients. My closing rate is currently at 96%. Since I started keeping track of it in 2008, it has consistently been in the low or mid-90’s.  

I think I can safely say that this is an exceptional closing rate, one that any salesperson would love to achieve, given that the average is closer to 15% - 25%. I’m going to tell you how I do it. 

First I should say that my closing rate would be closer to 100% if I took on jerks as clients, or if jerks were comfortable working with me. Neither is true. If, during the first phone call, I sense that a jerk is on the line, I find a way to back out. I also make jerks uncomfortable, which is OK with me. Manipulators don’t like my straightforward approach, and usually decide during our first conversation (or even just reading my blog content) that I am not a fit for them. This accounts for the remaining 4%.

Frank Dale is the CEO of Compendium, a fast-growing content management company. Just before he became CEO, he did something all CEOs should do: He interviewed customers. But he didn’t just interview a few; he interviewed 100. In my mind, this puts Frank in a very special category.  

Compendium started out as a blog content management platform; as they’ve grown, the platform has expanded to include all types of marketing content, including content for social channels. 

There are a lot of things about the Compendium tool that make sense from the marketer’s perspective - including how the marketing calendar is designed. Each entry in the calendar appears in red, orange or green. Red means the marketer hasn’t gotten the draft; orange means it’s in review, and green means it’s ready to publish. At a glance, you can see which projects are on time and which ones are behind. You can also know, over time, which of your content authors are habitually late or on time. You can use that information to publicly motivate your authors to do the right thing.

As the blogosphere obsesses over customer centricity, there’s a contrarian school of thought that goes something like this: “It’s impossible for a company to be customer-centric, because customers have too many individual demands, and all those demands cannot possibly be satisfied.” One writer suggested it is time to “go back to the brand” and focus on what the company wants to accomplish.  

In other words, do what you do naturally! Do what you’ve always done! Do what you love to do: Make it all about you!

Terrible advice. 

First of all, it’s a total lie that “customers have too many individual demands.” Thousands of conversations with my clients’ customers (and other great research, such as the “top website tasks” studies conducted by Gerry McGovern) have convinced me  that customers have always have top five needs in common. 

Second, and significantly, these top needs can always

Yep, I've been very busy with client work, as you may have guessed. As you know, I don't post unless/until I have something helpful and well-thought-out to share with you. I have several new posts in the works. 

In the meantime, here's a fun 20-minute podcast interview I did recently with Michelle Davidson at RainToday (a great site for service business owners) about how buyers have changed the way they buy - and what business owners can do about it. 

Click here to see the short intro article and hear the podcast. 

Michelle is very sharp and I had a great time talking with her. 

Enjoy.

kz

Before you read this, check out this heart-warming video, which shows an amazing French horse trainer, Francois Pignon. Listen as he explains to Martin Clunes that horses are constantly “scanning” human beings to see if those human beings are predators or protectors.  

 Our customers do the same thing. They’re scanning constantly - deciding who the predators are and who the protectors are. They keep track of companies and take note of how companies treat their customers. They take note, when they are searching for a product or service, how easy you make it for them. Every tiny step in their buying process, from search to research to purchase to use, is a test. 

Your customers are constantly asking themselves: Protector? Or predator? 

When you look at the world this way – not just the business world – you realize that just about every source of discord and unhappiness comes from one human being attempting to control another human being. Predators control, abuse, and hurt; protectors protect, nurture, and love.

Before someone decides to hire you or buy something from you, one of the criteria they use to evaluate you is your social footprint. They consider three things: Volume, quality, and credibility. 

Volume: 

• How many followers you have
• How many social channels you participate in

Quality:

• How helpful your tweets or posts are
• How original, insightful, and non-promotional your tweets are

Credibililty:

• How many followers were “bought” rather than “earned”
• How much your blog posts are commented on or shared

You don’t have to participate in every channel; only the appropriate ones. In general, if you operate in the B2B world, they expect you to be on LinkedIn and Twitter; if you are in the retail B2C world, they expect to find you on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. (Of course, if you want to know exactly where your customers expect to find you and what they hope you will do for them there, you can always ask them using the simple method I describe in my

I needed new software for my smartphone, so I could conduct customer interviews and record them when I’m not sitting at my computer and using my Skype recording setup. I had several non-negotiable requirements. 

• No distracting beeps while recording (I do always tell customers I’m recording, and that I will “anonymize” their comments)
• High recording quality for my transcribers
• Intuitive and reliable, so I could depend on it working when I needed it
• It had to be one-click easy to send files to my Mac
• I didn’t want it to screw up anything else on my phone, including phone security

Price wasn’t an issue, within reason. I assumed I would find an app for free or something like $20, and that’s basically what I found. 

I wasn’t going to buy an app from a vendor who was obviously a sleazeball, someone who couldn’t be trusted with my smartphone environment or my email address.