184 John Bertino When You’re a Generalist, No One Knows How to Refer You

Helping Sells Radio

"Why don’t they just say no,” say customer success managers of sales executives who close deals with customers who do not fit the ideal customer profile. Now the customer success manager has to deal with customers who have expectations that do not fit with what the product or service actually does well.

We have just gotten off on the wrong foot, and this situation is not good for anyone. That customer, during the on-boarding process, is already expressing disappointment and is evening thinking about not renewing.

On day one.

Of course our churn rates are high. The sales team is selling to the wrong customers. Even after our CEO said in the last three town hall meetings, “We have published our value proposition canvases and ideal customers profiles on the wiki, and we have designed our product and are running sales and marketing campaigns designed to get more ideal customers.

So, I ask again, “Why don’t they say no?”

Think about this from the sales person’s point of view. They are on a quota, and they have a prospect who is willing to buy. How can an account executive say no to that?

Two reasons:

* The obvious reason: They are paid on commission and have a quota.

* The less than obvious reason: They don’t want to be told by the VP of sales, and especially not by the CEO, “Why did you turn that prospect away?” It’s easy for the CEO/founder or a VP of sales to turn prospects away because they don’t fit a profile. They are the boss. Not so easy for an account executive who has to explain herself in weekly pipeline review meetings.

What to do?

John Bertino is the founder of The Agency Guy (TAG), a collective of marketing execs determined to help brands find the best marketing agency or consultant.

In his experience finding successful matches between brands and service providers is a high predictor of long-term success.

John offers three principles to following if you want to find ideal customers and build long-term customer engagements.

Principle 1: Set expectations

If we want to acquire and work with ideal customers, we need to set proper expectations up-front. This includes communicating:

* What we are good at.

* How we can help a customer.

* How we cannot help a customer.

* How (and when) a customer will know if an engagement is successful.

* Help the customer understand those expectations.

Sometimes this means we need to talk customers out of signing up with us.

John shares an example. This is how you might set expectations with a prospect that wants to hiring someone to run paid media campaigns, and wants to increase brand trust.

You would say to the prospect, something like this, “If you are hiring us to run your paid media strategy, you can expect to generate awareness and page views on your website. But if you want to increase trust in the market, you need design an earned media strategy. Paid media will raise your awareness. We’re really good at that. And we will bring more people to your website. But if you want to increase your trust score, earned media is better for that because earned media gets other people talking about you That earned trust. We don’t specialize in that. We specialize in raising your brand awareness.”

In this simplified example, we are educating and being consultative.

We are being helpful.

That’s one way to get ideal customers.

Principle 2: Offer more experience and higher rates

Anyone who ever hired someone on Fivvr to do a logo for less than $50, knows that you get what yo pay for.

Service providers that recruit experienced staff and sell services at higher prices are more successful because they can do more to help customers. Experienced people are better positioned to lead customers. To challenge customers. Experienced people will say to clients, “Based on this or that, what you should be doing is….”

Experience people lead.

That’s why customers hired you.

Inexperienced people wait for the customer to tell them what they want. Then work hard to give them what they want. What if the customer doesn’t know what they want.

To be successful over time, we need to increase the value we deliver to our customers. And change more.

Principle 3: Be niche

Another way to find more ideal customers is to be niche. You might turn away more deals if you stick to your niche. But you will have good customers because customers will know exactly why they hired you.

For that niche thing you do.

And you get a lot more referrals because people know precisely how to refer you.

“I need to find someone who can help me with my LinkedIn ad campaigns.”

“I know a guy. Bill. He specializes in Linkedin ad campaigns. I’ll introduce you.”

When you’re a generalist, no one knows how to refer you.

More about John:

* The Agency Guy (TAG) Website: https://www.theagencyguy.com/helping/

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