(00:00) [Music] Hi the burning question for businesses right now is how are you going to find new business right now and in the future the playing field has been levelled and although the bulldog spirit is rising your business is only as good as the content you've got on your website you can't send your sales people out and you can't connect like you could before because everybody's on their mobiles and working from home and the first impression a prospect gets is the salesperson's bedroom wardrobes or their kids doing handstands
(00:55) it's pretty easy for marketing people to say let's start doing loads of emails to get back on top but that's what everybody else is doing and going to do because they don't actually understand that there's always been a problem with marketing and it was there before all this lockdown kicked off so if your marketing department or marketing team or agency haven't come up with a plan yet or if they have either way you really need to watch the rest of this video to consider your options and
(01:32) compare the two suggestions as in days and hours and that's what this is this this video is about we both know marketing wasn't working properly before and it wasn't delivering the results and it's certainly not going to change now far from it what I’m going to cover initially is a bit about why b2b marketing has been failing for decades and bringing us up to date with the 2020 lockdown and what you need to do now to protect your business I’ll also touch on the numbers and how making a change now will have a
(02:10) positive effect on your cash flow your p l and future income and finally I’ll kind of have a chat about what technology you can use and how you can get the ball rolling to sustain you and your business so you could say like pre pre-lock down marketing if you want to call it that but as a director you have to know why b2b marketing has been so bad so if we take a quick look at what's behind all this now I've spent years in sales and marketing and I’ve done some very specific research and we've identified
(02:52) that most businesses have been selling the same way since the 1950s and by that i mean lead generation was done by a salesperson who sniffed out a prospect they called to make an appointment they presented a case for the product they did the demonstration they closed the deal and they went back to the office and rang the bell you know kind of happy days and if any marketing was done it was it could say display adverts or coupons or special offers that forced a prospect to call the company now marketing and legion is done by
(03:34) trying to tempt or force a business to give you their email address in return for some desired online hidden content that was behind a curtain if they take the bait the salespeople use LinkedIn to find the contact details and call them up pleading for an appointment and we both know the success rates of that are virtually zero because the response you normally get and it's what we would say ourselves is you're talking about i was only looking the issue or the problem is 60 to 70 percent of the sale is done
(04:10) without you or i even knowing that prospects or who not even knowing who the prospects are or what the prospects are doing because what they their activities uh that they're researching at the end of the day and investigating online what they can do with your type of equipment or software or service before they even look at your particular website or contact you and the reason this has been happening for so long unfortunately is the fault of marketing directors or chief marketing officers telling managing directors well that's
(04:52) how it's always been done it's always been done this way but if you have a look for the past five years or so according to the press chief marketing officers and senior marketing personnel have only held on to their job for 18 months before they're fired or moved on there's businesses like yours never get to see and the reason the reason I’m saying this is it happens because businesses like yours don't get to see the new business needle move and the CMOs kind of naturally fail to warrant their
(05:29) high salaries so they get kicked out you think right who were they let's go and find someone else and they come in and tell you a good story you think okay well great we'll speak to them then and so it continues and I would probably say that Imean the reason it continues it's because the new people that come in they also keep marketing like it's a 1950s and try to convince people to download something or other and so marketing can get their email out in an attempt to contribute to making an appointment
(06:12) um a while ago i wrote an in-depth article about this um about consultants and CMOs in 2020 which you can you can find on our blog it also provides a completely redefined organizational structure as I’d say it's definitely worth a read i also think it's the real objective of digital transformation but you have to get a handle on this before you move forward before you do anything otherwise you're just going to go from the frying pan into the fire so today right now we've got two problems um apart from the lockdown
(06:55) there's two problems in terms of our businesses and the first is is it's keeping or rather the two problems are keeping in contact with existing customers and they're making contact with new ones so keeping in contact means you have to have a useful and informative website using web chat frequently on you know faq pages quick responses to emails when people do contact you also have to maintain a social presence but we're not talking about posting every five minutes but just showing that
(07:33) you're connected and visible on certain platforms you've then got to exploit video i mean in all its forms as well as recording podcasts and creating properly structured articles and blogs and the reason for all this is that neither you nor i can second guess the the kind of format someone wants to consume information so as business owners we've actually got no choice now all of these content avenues or activities are to help inform and educate and demonstrate genuine transparency and that you're a great company to be
(08:16) connected with no matter who or where they are so when you look at making contact with new customers businesses have to be attracted or rather businesses have to be attractive you have to be attractive and you have to draw prospects to you and how do you do that well like i just said by doing all the things i just mentioned that make your existing customers want to keep in contact with you in the first place i suppose there has to be the money shot and if you want to call it that so before i go any further you've got to do the maths you've
(08:58) absolutely got to do the maths salespeople are going to hate me for this but the fact is they're already getting furloughed like so many other people and hopefully it it won't end up becoming a long-term termination and everybody blames the government but by adopting these strategies you'll be able to reduce the number of sales people perhaps you can redeploy them and actually get to the point where you're only connecting with people who are genuinely interested in buying from you so if you get your content right
(09:38) it works for you 24 7. it doesn't get paid commission it never asks for a raise there's no car there's no expenses and the list goes on the bottom line your content plays into that silent conversation that you're not involved in and does all the prep work by attracting new enquiries that's that's the 60 to 70 percent you're not you're not speaking to at that time so the short and long term cost savings are really significant especially as most businesses are unable to break that ceiling of generating more
(10:12) than about i know 100 150 grand per person per annum and that's why so many businesses are failing right now because they can't continue for more than a few days or weeks before everyone gets let go so give it to give you a comparison apple has or perhaps had a turnover per person per annum of 2 million google was 1.
(10:38) 1 million amazon's 290 grand but they've got 700 and or nearly 800 000 people working for them and then there was a a um it's a camera a camera accessory camera bag manufacturer called peak design and they've got a turnover of like 1.4 million per person per annum and they've only got about 40 staff so i suppose the way to present this is if you like what i've been saying you might be encouraged to talk to us about doing something you know maybe some of the work or all of your marketing work who knows
(11:18) but if you're like me you'll research everything we've got on our website and pretty much do everything yourself why why shouldn't you you've been probably been in business long enough and that's the point that's why we've spent so much time developing agents uh developing agents developing sales exchange and building a community of leaders who can weather storms like this and keep their businesses afloat and the reason being is all because of the flow of valuable information with you not being reliant on the
(11:50) old-fashioned marketing techniques that have been failing businesses for decades now so whether you do everything yourself or you talk to us i really urge you to keep listening just for the next few minutes as i explain what we would do for you over the next few weeks or months so firstly i'm going to make a few practical assumptions in the first instance you're connected to the technology industry in some way shape or form secondly your business has been affected by this 2020 lockdown and pandemic and thirdly
(12:32) it's on your mind your business and marketing and so on is on your mind and you may have to be forced or you may be forced to actually review it now i've already mentioned a variety of practical points that explain why there's such a problem in marketing so i suppose i better tell you so who who are we you know what are we about sales exchanges is a b2b marketing consulting agency that uses video podcasts and article marketing in-house so basically we we practice what we preach i mean if you take a look at any number
(13:14) of um of marketing businesses just online and see for yourself how many actually use video and podcasting in-house for their own business they might be recommending you go and do it but see how many actually practice what they preach now in addition we're building a business community to help organizations like like yours connect with a marketing company that's not like ours that actively encourages businesses like yours to do your marketing and if you don't want to or can't do some or all of the work yourself
(13:53) look here we are you know we're on we're on hand we're online and we can do it for you and that's fine but after 30 years or so in business i know there are people who are like me and will get on with it and do it themselves and that's why we developed the first part of this process called social 334 as a starting point and provided all of the information you need downloadable from our website and without you having to give us your email address and there's a specific point for that which i'm probably
(14:26) you've probably guessed already then there's also the people i guess or i hope who will like me and and ask me and sales exchange to get involved with their business so whatever you choose to do um i i suppose the best way of putting it this this would be our approach and bearing in mind um in marketing there are a lot of moving parts to keep an eye on and so it's not so much taking it but not a pinch of salt but you you have to bear in mind it's a bit like a a conductor in an orchestra so firstly in this present situation
(15:16) working with you um we would operate as a virtual marketing director and um to do that i'll go over to my screen i'll show you something some of the stuff that we've got on um uh online on screen and and so on um so initially uh we have i suppose i suppose we're gonna have to talk we can't just do this by email um and basically what we would say is we will talk and and have dialogue and we'll prepare a marketing plan that you and other people in your organization agree on and and to develop that plan
(15:58) and execute it we would connect with and work with your staff and we'll do that over zoom or skype or youtube live or whatever so if we start with articles and and that that type of content first we'll review and write articles based upon um google's recommended structure and it's called schema but it's a schema layout so it'll appear on page one of all the relevant searches but don't get too hung up on the seo um you're probably i guess in a niche market and so there'll be very little search volume
(16:32) but it's the it's the google logic per se behind the structure or the and the way that you need to structure your articles and it's it's extremely sound and it works i mean we've got a separate article about that about seo and and how your your content needs to look um again and that's on our website if you want to take a look so when it comes to videos what we would do we would prepare the scripts prepare the screen direction and create the content for the videos if need be i mean the videos
(17:06) at the end of the day they they need to help your viewers and not be about the company per se i mean your your customers and clients want to experience and see your transparency and honesty and commitment towards them and the i mean the videos need to be about your customers how you can help them and what you can do for them so once you get thinking about this it is an easier the process becomes easier to come up with all the different titles and so on and if you haven't got any um in terms of images for for the equipment you've
(17:43) got or or product photos and so on we'll sort them out as well and do the product shots for you as well so even if it means doing green screen uh and inserting images of your offices in the background uh we'll we'll take care of that as well as we've got some examples here that we've some of the stuff we've done so you get an idea for this this is not i say it's not complicated you just gotta know how to do it and and one of the processes is that we'll come on to that later about training your
(18:11) guys to do it moving on to podcasts we'll produce and record the podcasts that can just for the moment include you dialing into our system and we'll edit them and upload them to spotify and apple and so on so the podcasts need to kind of be a part entertaining and engaging and so on but this can easily be done and achieved by having more than one person um hosting and interviewing other people again i mean it's about corralling different people to do different podcasts and it just keeps the content fresh and interesting
(18:48) i mean there are various ways we can arrange this even if it means shipping some new podcast equipment or a platform to your staff and we'll talk them through the setup and so on and this is we use the road caster pro which is a a blinding piece of equipment it's pretty straightforward to use and one of the key things like we've got here um is just having decent microphones but that's something that we'll go through with it with you as well there's another thing called an a10 mini and it's made by a company called
(19:21) blackmagic and what it is um it's probably the best piece of kit you can get because it's called a switcher and it enables you to look at one camera and then another and then a computer screen and and i mean all in all it helps to better structure better trained staff to use this new technology over video conferencing but this kit also enables you to connect multiple cameras and feed them into a zoom call or skype call and pretty much help you nail every presentation you do compared to your competition now in terms of um
(20:02) our our own website i mean we've got we've got articles and blogs and videos and downloads and and you know a raft of things there for you um to to look at but we'll review your existing assets your website your design the brochures articles all that kind of thing and i think part and parcel of it is to review your customers experience as a user experience and if you look at this there's some diagrams that we've got on our site here if i show you this particular page it shows that the the customer's journey
(20:41) and how you can edit and adapt your customers journey for them to get to experience your your setup better if you see what i mean then finally we're looking at reviewing digital selling so i'm not talking about e-commerce now what i mean by digital selling is to is for you to help develop your infrastructure to enable you to communicate demonstrate and present in the most professional way possible with the least amount of effort or expense now without going into all the detail i'm suggesting that you set up a
(21:23) multi-camera video mini studio if you like and in your at your offices to be able to stream over skype or zoom or on 24 or webex whatever whatever you're used to using or if not get one of them in which means your demonstrations and meetings and presentations will look spectacular then you can use the same kit for streaming live over linkedin live youtube live or facebook live so whether you use it for live live streaming or recorded is up to you and on top of that the same kit can be used to create video content which can
(22:04) be edited and polished with you know putting dubbing music over it and and titles and so on and finally you'd use the same kit to take in-house photos and head shots and so on but i'll tell you one thing before you think that there's loads of expense and time you have to kind of marry all of this up with the way that um with the way that i suppose work and commerce is changing and i said what does take a long time is the editing but if you use the switcher you could do all live and you can deliver a genuine
(22:41) presentation and record it direct to your laptop and when it's been done upload it to youtube i mean there's there's much less work involved it's just a bit of setup but we can do that over over over video conferencing um but at the end of the day as long as you've got um some cameras and you can you could you could spend thousands of pounds on cameras or not as long as they've got um hdmi cables connections for them you're away you can use them so there's another part to this if you've
(23:20) got ipads there's some pretty cheap teleprompting systems and solutions that you can use i mean i'm using my ipad for it now so so at the end of the day to not to put too fine a point on this by changing the way you're able to communicate and engage with your customers online it'll have a three-fold effect firstly you'll elevate your business above the competition from a pro a professionalism perspective and secondly you'll exponentially increase your reach and accessibility and thirdly i mean at the end of the day
(24:04) you'll dramatically reduce your costs in terms of sales staff or bdrs or business development reps and travel costs and so on so all i'm suggesting is that you review the future of your business and get a new sales and marketing strategy in place as soon as possible i mean your business and your future actually depends on it as i mentioned before you've got to do the maths i mean this approach will increase your bottom line quicker than any other method or approach that you've ever attempted in the past
(24:39) i mean the next step is up to you like i said you can check us out by looking at our website our articles our videos our podcast downloads you can also see how we're set up and how we approach helping businesses like yours so if you're compelled to do this all yourself great i really hope i've given you the necessary encouragement to jump in and go and do it if not you can contact us and we'll get onto it right away so there's one final thing just before i finish i just want to tell you about something
(25:20) that we've set up called it's a syndicates program now this is where we bring together five businesses who sell to the same audience but don't compete with each other so what we do if you're interested and have a have a look at it the way it works is we do the matchmaking so we bring the businesses together and once everyone's met probably on a conference call and if you're up for it we build a group website and do all the marketing to each other's customers within the group all five businesses share the costs
(25:56) and you get to increase your reach by about 400 virtually overnight i mean it it's seriously a great way of finding new business and by direct introductions you get to keep your annual costs to annual marketing costs to an absolute minimum take a look on our website for more for a bit more information and let us know if you want to put your name down as being interested i mean that's just where it starts and then we'll we'll be in touch and we'll see how it moves on from there but but that's it that's it from me for
(26:30) now i hope all of this made sense and if you'd like to have a chat about how you can redevelop your marketing and as i said you need to be able to weather this storm our contact numbers are on the screen now and they're on our website and that just leaves me to say all the best for the future bye for now uh [Music] you