You actually have to say thank you

August 19, 2020

I don’t know many business leaders who aren’t incredibly grateful for the team of people who help them carry out the organization’s vision. When asked, they will rave about the skills, professionalism, and passion of their team and tell story after story about how they routinely save the day. But those same business leaders are so busy that unfortunately, they often forget to slow down and say thank you. Sadly, in today’s ultra-competitive job market, that can be a very costly mistake.

When it comes to our employees, The International Business Research Journal cited studies that have shown that organizational gratitude reduces employee turnover, fosters employees’ commitment to the organization, and increases productivity.

Those are huge wins on their own, but beyond that is what an attitude of gratitude does for your company culture. We know cultural fit is a crucial component for job seekers. If a company’s culture attracts employees who value and exude gratitude, your customers are the beneficiary of that chain reaction. Happier, more loyal employees lead to happier, more loyal clients.

Best of all, you can bake gratitude into your work environment with a minimum of dollars. Here are some of the most effective ways to make sure that your organization’s internal brand includes more than a sprinkling of thanks.

Make it personal: Most of the time, we deal with employees in batches. By department, by tenure, or perhaps by skill set or location. Gratitude is a very personal thing. There’s nothing wrong with thanking groups of people. We should do that. But it’s very different when you single out a person and make your appreciation about them and just them. Work anniversaries, hitting significant milestones, or earning a new level of expertise are all excellent reasons to stop and thank your team member.

Make it 360 degrees: Many companies have peer recognition programs, and they usually start off strong and then most wane from neglect and focus. Teaching your team to appreciate each other and to practice gratitude internally is a smart tactic. Just make sure your program has a champion, so it doesn’t feel like yet another “idea of the month” that we managers often get accused of starting and allowing to die on the vine.

Involve your clients: There’s no better way to emphasize that you value, teach, and practice gratitude than asking your customers to share in that experience. This can shift from sincere to uncomfortable in a hurry. Don’t ask them to do anything that will make them feel silly, like ring the bell for five-star service. An easy way to invite them is to send a letter, sharing your core values, and asking them to send you examples of team members who have lived out those values. This has a double benefit. It gives you a chance to remind your customers what you stand for and gets them to help you recognize your superstars.

Know what matters: There’s a fantastic book by Matthew Kelly called The Dream Manager. It’s a business allegory that reminds us to invest in our employees, know what matters to them, and help them achieve their dreams. Some employees may appreciate you demonstrating your gratitude through a new educational opportunity or a cash bonus. Others might prefer an extra day off or a gift card so they can treat their family to dinner. Knowing how to say thank you in the most meaningful way will make the thank you last a lot longer.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

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The DNA of a marketing pro

February 12, 2020

I may be biased, but I think it takes a unique kind of person to excel in marketing. There’s a specific blend of skills and personality traits that equip someone to do the job well. Unfortunately, that particular combination may be difficult for others in the organization to tolerate, especially if they are risk-averse or not as open to change. No great surprise, most marketing pros typically clash with the CFO and CIO roles.

If you find yourself in the market for an agency or an internal CMO type of team member, you’re going to want to interview for these specific traits to make sure they can get the job done. But you may also have to steel yourself to deal with them on a daily basis if you tend to be more methodical and measured in your day-to-day activities and decision-making.

A study by Russell Reynolds Associates looked at over 5,000 data points, comparing CMOs with other C-suite roles and identified these trends and commonalities among those who shared the role. They found that CMOs have an extreme leadership and behavioral profile that included these attributes:

Growth minded: Marketing people love metrics, goals and chasing after a defined target. The drive to cross the finish line is admirable but may need to be tempered if it clouds bigger picture judgment.

Bold/risk taker: This trait is essential, but it can cause a lot of anxiety in the C-suite. It’s always been a vital aspect of most marketing professionals, but in today’s environment, it’s essential.

Rule-bender: CMOs are not particularly beholden to rules and guidelines. They’re used to being in undefined territory and having to figure it out as they go along. They’re far less about convention than many others in their organization. Limits and boundaries are more of a suggestion than a hard and fast rule.

Tenacious: Stubborn, persistent, unrelenting. While not entirely flattering, these are words that are often used as descriptors for those who choose marketing as a vocation. To be successful, they have to be willing to stick with a new idea or unconventional tactic to give it time to work.

People people: People tend to like CMOs and other marketing types. They’re outgoing and inclusive. They want everyone to come along for the journey, and they can usually persuade their peers to do just that.

Imaginative: This trait probably doesn’t come as a surprise. But actually, this skill isn’t so much about the marketing itself but instead about the organization’s overall business position, and the creative problem solving that is needed today.

Curious/abstract thinker: Marketers ask a lot of questions, and some of them feel a little random or unrelated. Don’t shut those down. Seeing how seemingly disparate elements influence one another or connect is one of their unique gifts. It helps you identify opportunities that others will miss.

If you’re a marketing professional, I’m guessing that you recognize yourself in at least some of these skills and traits. You probably also recognize that there are aspects of how you show up at work that may cause your peers to struggle with your methodologies. One of the ways we can get to the goal line quicker is to find ways to bring the rest of the team with us as we move closer.

If you plan to hire someone to handle your marketing (either as an employee or as a business partner) or you just want to get better at marketing yourself – these traits are the common denominators that will get your company the exposure and growth you want. But you have to decide if your organization is ready for the disruption that comes as part of the package.

This was originally published in The Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

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Now can we get to work?

January 22, 2020

Well, here we are, a few weeks into January and everyone is raring to go and ready to work hard for a few weeks. Until some distraction surfaces to take your eye off the ball. And before you know it, it’s June 1st and the summer holiday hits with vacations, the 4th of July and company picnics and then it’s back to school and Labor Day. You would think that with the official wind down to Summer that, in theory, we would all be ramping up.

And in September, people will gear up. Until early November and then the holidays will be looming and people will say, “once Thanksgiving is over, we’re going to push hard to the end of the year.” About December 10th, people decide no one is listening to them anymore so they shut down for the rest of the year.

The reality is – whether it’s because several of your team are on vacation, or you’re traveling or it’s not your company’s peak season – we can excuse away going at half speed just about any time of the year and many people do.

It’s a little like dollar-cost average investing. If you wait for the optimum time to deliver your messages, advance your next project or launch something new – it will never happen. It’s impossible to time your marketing precisely. Sure, there’s a seasonality to some work and messaging, but for the most part, it’s about being in front of your key audiences every day, delivering help and insight whether they are actively listening or not.

How do you keep the momentum going, even with all of the holidays, vacations, Super Bowls, and general sports excitement going on all around us?

One of the answers to that question is to operate in sprints. A sprint is a defined period of time (typically 2-6 weeks) where the entire team is focused on a single objective or project. It doesn’t mean they stop doing their day-to-day jobs. It just means that the entire team is working together on a new initiative as well.

The beautiful thing about sprints is that they force us to take action. Many teams get stuck in the discussion/discovery stage and never seem to be able to move from talking to doing.

To work through a sprint, you need to include these five elements:

  1. A set time frame for your sprint
  2. A planning meeting to determine goals and assign roles
  3. Daily stand up meetings to keep the team on track
  4. A tracking system that everyone on the team can access and update. Keeping it visible (like a big whiteboard in your conference room) is ideal.
  5. A post sprint review

Some best practices you should implement include:

Once you set the sprint’s length, you can’t change it.  Otherwise, you will find yourself in one never-ending sprint as you allow excuses, distractions, and surprises derail your efforts.

You can’t kick off your sprint until you have SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-specific) goals defined.

In your daily stand up meetings (which should not last more than 10-15 minutes) each team member should quickly answer three questions. What did I do yesterday? What will I do today? Are there any issues/impediments that the team needs to know about?

A side benefit of working in sprints (all part of the scrum methodology) is that your team is likely to love their work even more. They feel a sense of accomplishment and pride in moving things forward.

The point of these sprints is that you and your team get into a groove every 2-6 weeks, regardless of what the calendar says. You may adjust timelines or team members based on vacations or a company-wide holiday, but you don’t let the “seasons” become excuses to get in the way of your progress.

Be productive no matter what distractions are trying to steal your focus.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

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Where will you be a year from now?

January 8, 2020

I know you’re barely getting used to writing 2020, but I want to get you to think about 2021 for a few minutes because before we know it, it will be here. Will your organization be in the same spot a year from now?

As the slow start of January wanes and everyone is gearing up for a busy Q1, my fear is that you’re going to get so caught up in the day to day grind and before you know it’s going to be December and you’re going to wonder where the year has gone.

I’m a firm believer in you achieve what you measure, so let’s talk about creating a simple dashboard that will help you ensure that you are where you want to be in 2021.

You may have an elaborate business plan but in many cases, once it’s done and approved – it sits in a filing cabinet or a folder on your laptop and never sees the light of day again.

But this simple dashboard can literally be posted in your company’s break room or a single sheet document that gets updated and shared monthly. It becomes a working tool rather than a plan that you dust off every so often.

First, you need to decide what matters most. Take some time and answer these questions.

  1. If you can only accomplish one thing this year – what would matter most to your business?
  2. What system or process improvement (or addition) would impact your business the most?
  3. What is the most single most important financial metric you should monitor to gauge the health of your organization?
  4. When you think about your workforce, what one metric (retention, employee satisfaction, etc.) could you measure to track the stability of your team?
  5. How will you track/monitor how you’re doing in terms of customer delight? (Don’t shoot for satisfaction – that’s like working hard for a C.)
  6. Last but definitely not least – what is the one thing you, as the leader, could change, learn, or add to your skillset that would really be a game-changer for your organization?

Once you’ve answered these questions, identify a monthly metric that you could easily use to measure your progress on achieving each of those mini-goals. You may have to implement some measurement mechanism, like a monthly employee satisfaction survey but if you can’t measure it – it doesn’t count.

Once you’ve decided what you need to measure and how you’re going to get those monthly metrics, you need to decide when you’re going to review/discuss the monthly results. Odds are you hold some sort of leadership or management level meeting on a weekly or monthly basis. You need to build this dashboard into that meeting’s agenda.

But don’t stop there. Share these six metrics with your entire team. Yes, even the leadership goal you’ve set for yourself. Let them know that these are the barometers you’re going to be using to track how the company is doing throughout the year. I think you’ll be surprised at how interested they are in helping you hit these metrics.

If your organization doesn’t have a good meeting process that allows you to focus on making progress on key goals, rather than just a status report, I highly recommend the book Traction by Gino Wickman.

The book has a brilliant framework for taking on large, internal projects that normally get lost in the shuffle or drag on forever – and actually getting them done quickly and well.

Here’s the amazing thing – if you actively watch and work on moving the needle in the six items on this list, your organization will be healthier, stronger and more profitable a year from now.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

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Your inner circle

December 4, 2019

A business is influenced by so many people that as business leaders, we need to choose those influences carefully and cautiously. That’s even truer when it comes to our inner circle.

Motivational speaker Jim Rohn is probably most famous for his statement that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. And yet very few of us actually decide who those people are. A big part of my annual reflection/planning time is to carefully choose who I want those five people to be and to schedule the time with them for the entire year so I make sure we get enough time together.

But before I can schedule the time, I need to decide on exactly who I want those five people to be. Here are some of the criteria I consider and by the way, these are not just people who influence my business life. They influence my whole life and make me a better business owner, marketing guy, coach, client advocate, boss, friend, dad, etc. I want to surround myself with people who will make me a better me, not just a better business me.

Who inspires me to a level of excellence that forces me to really stretch myself? They say that if you want to get better at a game, you should play with people who can beat you every time. I need to hang out with people who are further along, more adept and more successful than I am if I want to keep getting better.

Who is willing to teach me? Just because someone has something to teach me does not mean they are open to being the teacher. I need to seek out those who have much to share and are willing to be patient with me while I learn.

Who can I teach? I believe we learn the most when we’re helping someone else learn. Who is willing to let me learn alongside them?

Who will challenge me and call me out when I need it? Let’s face it; it’s easy to surround yourself with cheerleaders. But we also need those who will hold us capable and accountable and let us know when we’ve dropped the ball or missed the mark.

Who sees me more clearly than I see myself? It’s impossible to accurately describe the outside of a bottle when we’re inside the bottle. We need objectivity and someone who sees us as we truly are.

Who thinks very differently than I do and will push me to consider new possibilities? My way is never the only way and often not the right way. I want to be with people who approach challenges and opportunities from a different place.

Who fills me with joy? If I am going to spend a lot of time with these people, I want them to do more than make me better. I want them to love me. I want them to make me laugh. I want to look forward to our time together and I want to add value to their life too.

It may seem calculated or silly to be this intentional about the people you spend the most time with. But I can tell you that I’ve been doing this annual exercise for years and I can point to specific changes in my business and personal life that I can directly attribute to my inner circle. There’s no doubt that I’m better because of them.

So, for me, this is a business must. Give it a try and let me know in 365 days how it played out for you.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

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Hire for the soft skills

June 6, 2018

hireRemember a few years ago when it was simple to hire? There were so many people that had been displaced by the recession that finding a qualified and available candidate was a piece of cake.

That is definitely not the case today. The employee shortage is real and in certain sectors, it’s a serious crisis. Not only does that make it harder to find that next vital team member but it means that every hire is even more critical because you can’t afford to make a mistake and have to start all over again.

We have all experienced the cost of a bad hire. It’s the cost of the investment you made in recruiting, interviewing, training and onboarding them. But it’s also the cost of the damage they do if they’re not as qualified as you think. The staff suffers too when you have a bad hire. Not only do they have to pick up the slack (again) while you replace the bad hire but it ripples through the fabric of your culture.

The only thing worse than a bad hire is a hire that is a bad culture fit because they don’t have the soft skills that you need. It’s easy enough to interview for and test for aptitude. It’s a completely different challenge to screen an applicant for the difficult to discern or measure traits like leadership, adaptability and how they match your culture. And yet, those are the elements that will most likely determine how successful this candidate is in your company.

Why am I talking about hiring in a marketing blog? It’s simple – your employees are your biggest marketing expense. Every day their choices, behaviors, and attitudes translate your brand into how your customers and prospects see you. There is no better insight into a business’ heart and soul than to observe its employees.

We have to interview better. We need to ask more questions that give us a peek into how the person works, rather than if they can do the work. Let’s assume you use the first 10-15 minutes of an interview to determine if the candidate is able to do the tasks of the job. (You should be doing onsite testing too but that’s a different topic.)

After they’ve cleared that hurdle, most interviewers actually go into selling mode, talking about the company and trying to woo the applicant. Avoid that temptation and instead, ask questions like these to get a read on their soft skills.

Tell me about a time when you were asked to do something you’d never done before. How did you react? How did you approach it? What did you learn?

What has been the biggest change you’ve ever had to deal with? How did you adapt to that change?

What’s the most interesting or surprising thing about you that is not on your resume?

What’s the biggest misperception that coworkers might have about you and what might make them think that it’s true?

Describe a time when you were working on a team and someone on the team did not understand you. How did you know they weren’t tracking with you and what did you do?

What was the most difficult decision you’ve had to make in the last six months? How did you approach it?

These are tough questions to ask and even tougher to answer. That’s the point. You’re considering setting this person loose inside your organization. They’re going to influence your team and either impress or alienate your best clients. I know it’s easier to interview with safe questions that only focus on the tasks of the job. But if you get this wrong – it’s a mistake that can cost dearly.

Ask the hard questions. Find the right brand advocate. It’s worth the effort.

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Employees – your most important audience

March 28, 2018

importantCompanies fall into a very familiar pattern. We invest a significant amount of time and energy into chasing after and wooing new customers. We spend the lion’s share of our communications and marketing dollars trying to convince people who have no idea who we are that they should buy what we sell. There’s nothing wrong with that effort. But it’s not the most important, your employees are.

Some organizations are wise enough to allocate resources to continuing to woo their current clients, reassuring them that they’ve made a good buying decision, trying to serve them at a deeper level and turn them into raving fans who write reviews, drive referrals and re-purchase.

Both of those audiences, as well as influencers and other key groups, are vital to your business. I’m not suggesting you ignore them. But, I am saying that most organizations ignore or under communicate to the most critical audience you have – your employees.

You know all the reasons why they matter. They’re the ones delivering (or not) on your brand every day. They are the conduits to your customers. They have to deliver on and honor whatever your external marketing is promising. When they have no clue what your marketing is saying, it’s tough for them to have a shot at fulfilling your customer’s expectations.

And yet, despite all of that — they’re also who you talk to the least.

I’ve never met an employee for any organization (including my own) that feels like they are completely in the loop. Maybe it’s not possible. But we can do a lot better.

I believe there’s added urgency around this marketing issue. We live in a time when stellar employees are hard to find and harder to keep. Combine that with the reality that marketing’s most potent moment is woven into customer service and care right before, during and after the sale.

You cannot be successful if your team is playing at the minor league level. Your customers and prospects have too many other choices.

So how do you truly communicate with your team?

Make it a commitment: Calendar and conduct regularly scheduled all team meetings (whether that means you do it in a single conference room, over Skype, or have to travel from office to office). Monthly is probably ideal but nothing less than quarterly. In these meetings, you report on company goals, the health of your business, celebrate customer and employee successes and provide a mix of inspiration, vision, and expectations. These meetings are a wonderful time to recognize employees who have gone above and beyond, tell stories about the importance of the work you’re doing and ask for feedback on issues. It should also be where your employees feel comfortable asking questions or expressing concerns.

Tell them first: If you are launching something new (marketing campaign, product, change in policy, etc.) be sure that your team knows about it and has time to ask questions, make suggestions and talk about how they need to prepare for whatever reaction (more traffic on the floor, increased activity on the website, etc.) they believe will result from your efforts.

Create informal and safe spaces: Some of the most effective department heads or CEOs I know have taken the conversations to a more casual and impromptu level as well. They hold “drinks with Drew” or “bagels with Bob” kind of events where people can attend and participate if they want to and know it’s a safe place to ask questions or raise concerns. I have no idea what is magical about conversations held over food and drink but it works.

Bottom line – your teammates should be your #1 priority. Take good care of them and they will take good care of your customers. And there’s no better marketing tool than a delighted customer.

 

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Hire for the soft skills

March 7, 2018

hireRemember a few years ago when it was simple to hire? There were so many people that had been displaced by the recession that finding a qualified and available candidate was a piece of cake.

That is definitely not the case today. The employee shortage is real and in certain sectors, it’s a serious crisis. Not only does that make it harder to find that next vital team member but it means that every hire is even more critical because you can’t afford to make a mistake and have to start all over again.

We have all experienced the cost of a bad hire. It’s the cost of the investment you made in recruiting, interviewing, training and onboarding them. But it’s also the cost of the damage they do if they’re not as qualified as you think. The staff suffers too when you have a bad hire. Not only do they have to pick up the slack (again) while you replace the bad hire but it ripples through the fabric of your culture.

The only thing worse than a bad hire is a hire that is a bad culture fit because they don’t have the soft skills that you need. It’s easy enough to interview for and test for aptitude. It’s a completely different challenge to screen an applicant for the difficult to discern or measure traits like leadership, adaptability and how they match your culture. And yet, those are the elements that will most likely determine how successful this candidate is in your company.

Why am I talking about hiring in a marketing column? It’s simple – your employees are your biggest marketing expense. Every day their choices, behaviors, and attitudes translate your brand into how your customers and prospects see you. There is no better insight into a business’ heart and soul than to observe its employees.

We have to interview better. We need to ask more questions that give us a peek into how the person works, rather than if they can do the work. Let’s assume you use the first 10-15 minutes of an interview to determine if the candidate is able to do the tasks of the job. (You should be doing onsite testing too but that’s a different topic.)

After they’ve cleared that hurdle, most interviewers actually go into selling mode, talking about the company and trying to woo the applicant. Avoid that temptation and instead, ask questions like these to get a read on their soft skills.

  • Tell me about a time when you were asked to do something you’d never done before. How did you react? How did you approach it? What did you learn?
  • What has been the biggest change you’ve ever had to deal with? How did you adapt to that change?
  • What’s the most interesting or surprising thing about you that is not on your resume?
  • What’s the biggest misperception that coworkers might have about you and what might make them think that it’s true?
  • Describe a time when you were working on a team and someone on the team did not understand you. How did you know they weren’t tracking with you and what did you do?
  • What was the most difficult decision you’ve had to make in the last six months? How did you approach it?

These are tough questions to ask and even tougher to answer. Which is the point. You’re considering setting this person loose inside your organization. They’re going to influence your team and either impress or alienate your best clients. I know it’s easier to interview with safe questions that only focus on the tasks of the job. But if you get this wrong – it’s a mistake that can cost dearly.

Ask the hard questions. Find the right brand advocate. It’s worth the effort.

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Hack your work day

February 21, 2018

hackWhether you own your own business, run someone else’s, are responsible for an entire department or just have to pack 60 hours of work into a 40ish hour work week – I feel your pain.  Don’t you wish there was a hack for that?

No matter what industry you’re in, my guess is that your workday is a little like mine. There’s never enough time and no matter how carefully you plan – unexpected fires end up dominating your day. Combine that reality with the pressures of demonstrating ROI faster and probably with fewer people and a stagnant budget; it is even more daunting.

But that’s not even the greatest source of pressure. I’ve been in business for almost 30 years and the pace of change just keeps getting faster and more disruptive. We’re moving so fast that I don’t even think we realize how dramatic the change is. Facebook has only been around since 2006. The first iPhone made its debut in 2007. Forget all of the other changes we’ve experienced. How have just those two introductions influenced your work and your life?

And guess what – it’s only going to get more disruptive and faster.

Let’s review. You’re doing more. You’re being interrupted more. You’re expected to deliver more ROI and faster, please. Oh yeah, and the world is spinning faster and faster while you try to do all of that.

If you want to have any chance of winning the game, you need to change the rules. I know I’ve had to do that to juggle running a couple of companies, serving 100 clients and producing as much content as I need to do. Here are some ways to hack your work day that help me and my team make it all happen.

Claim YOUR day: One of the best changes that have come with this work evolution is the recognition that there is no such thing as 9-5, and everyone has an optimal work window. At MMG, we have people who start at 7 am and people who roll in closer to 9:30 am. We all know when we’re at our best, and we’ve figured out how to allow everyone to work at their peak times and still honor all of the collaboration we need to do every day.

Know your cycle: You don’t have the luxury of not doing your best and most important work when you’re at your best. So you need to know when that is. And odds are, you have different ideal zones for different types of work. You need to take into account two distinct factors. When is your output at the highest level and when are you the most efficient with the work?

Make a list of the top 5-8 tasks you perform on a regular basis. Email, meetings, ideation, writing, etc. Then, spend a couple of weeks trying to do those tasks at different times of the day. Monitor/record your outputs in terms of both quality and speed. Look for patterns and then build a grid that shows when you should ideally do what. You won’t be able to honor it every day. But if you can three days out of five, you’ll be stunned at the increase in the volume and the value of your work.

Shape your schedule: If you don’t allocate and protect your thinking time, your trend tracking time and your vision creation time – it will never happen. You’ll never have a day without a fire. You’ll never have a day without too many emails. Whether it’s a full day a month or blocks of time every week – put it on your calendar now and protect it.

If you want to be at the top of your game, you’re going to have to give yourself an edge. Give these hacks a try and let me know if they’ve helped.

 

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Scarcity versus abundance

July 12, 2017

abundanceWhen I started in the agency business 25+ years ago, there was this odd paranoia that ran through agencies big and small.  There was a belief that agency personnel couldn’t be friends with people who worked at other agencies because secrets might leak out. And if you dared to be friends or even associate through a professional network – you’d better not bring the other agency’s employees into your office for fear that they’d walk by something and glean secret details about your accounts. All of this is what I call a total lack of abundance thinking.

I know it sounds crazy – but it was very pervasive through the industry back then. Today, I’m happy to report that with few noted and paranoid exceptions, agencies seem to recognize that it’s actually healthy for agency professionals to mingle together for both the shared learning and camaraderie.

That paranoia was a symptom of scarcity thinking.  I don’t think the ad industry is the only one who did/does suffer from having that point of view. I think it’s easy for any of us to get stuck in that rut.

We’ve all seen scarcity marketing and sales in action.  It’s the overly attentive sales clerk following you around the store, the car dealer who won’t let you take a test drive without being in the car with you, or the salesperson that knocks the competition at every opportunity.

There’s a scent of desperation in scarcity marketing and sales that puts the buyer firmly in the driver’s seat. It converts the transaction from a potential partnership to an uneasy game of tug o’ war that ultimately puts you at a disadvantage because you want the deal more than your potential buyer does.

It creates the sense that there’s some sales quota that’s not going to be met or some other looming deadline that has everyone scrambling to cut a deal.  That rarely works out to the seller’s advantage.

I’m not talking about the idea of creating scarcity around your product or service. Letting someone know there are only four plane tickets left at this price or that you won’t be offering the workshop again until spring can be very effective because it actually is a position of abundance.  You’re basically saying, “Hey, just to let you know, I only have five of these left. Let me know if you want one before I sell out.”

That’s the secret of an abundance mentality. It’s very laid back and it gives the impression that while you’re happy to sell your wares, you’re equally okay if the prospect isn’t interested because someone else will be. That confidence in your product or service is contagious.

What does abundance marketing and sales look like?

You share your knowledge freely:  You teach and give away your expertise through white papers, ebooks, blog posts, free webinars and other tools.

You are quick to tell someone when what you sell isn’t right for them: You know that an unhappy customer costs you more than what you could possibly make off of them, so you encourage them to find a better fit.

You don’t haggle on your pricing:  You know that what you offer is an incredible value at the price you’ve quoted, so there’s no reason to play the game. You set an honest, reasonable price for what you offer and then you stick to it. If the prospect doesn’t want to pay that – it’s okay because someone else will.

You don’t chase potential buyers: You know that you can’t make someone buy before they’re ready so there’s no up side to being a pest. You keep offering value and your expertise and they’ll come around when it’s time.

Review your marketing tools and procedures. Do they suggest you’re desperate to make a sale or do they convey a sense of abundance?

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