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Did You Make The Mistake Of Creating An Accidental Brand?

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Accidental Branding or Intentional Branding?

We interview Bill Peel about the smart approach to branding your business.

Transcript

The Accidental Brand Versus The Intentional Brand

Robert Riggs: Hi, it’s Robert and Brad with the Clarity Digital Clip of the Week. And we’re talking to Bill Peel with 40 years of experience of marketing and branding experience.

Bill Peel: That’s correct.

Robert Riggs: So I know one of your favorite topics is the accidental brand. How does that happen?

Bill Peel: Well, it is my favorite topic, Robert, because I think if you’re not careful with the business and actually with your personal brand for that matter, and you don’t protect it and are not intentional with your decisions around your brand that you’re going to end up with whatever brand the marketplace assigns to you. And that can sometimes work in your favor and other times, it can be disastrous.

So the real message is, think very strategically and very intentionally about all your brand decisions, everything from the color, to the mark, to the name. And I know in today’s world, we’ve got a wide range of names that have popped up like Uber and Google and Amazon. It’s almost any name goes in today’s world. But I will say that you want to make very sure that you’re extremely about it, you understand all the implications.

And on an international level, how does it translate? There are words and there are marks that work very well in western culture. And when you go to Europe or you go to the Pacific Rim or you go to Latin America, and it takes on a whole entirely different connotation. So the message is to be very intentional about your brand.

Robert Riggs: Where do you start?

Bill Peel: Well, you start with a great name. And I think that you guys have a fabulous name. My mother should know. But you start with your name.

Brad Besancon: He helped us create it.

Robert Riggs: One day on a whiteboard.

Brad Besancon: One day on a whiteboard.

Bill Peel: Well, I think the key is that you have – your name should reflect what you do. Now, there are people that will look around and say, “Well, why does Amazon reflect a massive distribution company or what does Uber have to do with cars?”

Well, when you introduce a name like that, one of these new millennial type names, you really have to have a strong rationale behind it and explain what that means. So it’s really best if your name is reflective of what you do or more importantly, reflective of your value proposition. What are you delivering on the marketplace?

In your case, you’re adding clarity to people’s business. So I think you start with a good name. I think you can start with keeping it very simple. What I see more often is these brands are too heavily articulated. There are too many aligns, too many messages, too taglines. Sometimes you have a very simple and then the taglines, a sentence long trying explain. If you have to explain that much about the mark or about the name, you probably need to go back and revisit the name.

How The 7A’s of Successful Crisis Management Can Save Your Brand

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Following These 7 Steps Can Help Your Brand Avoid A Reputation Disaster

In the wake of high profile incidents involving big brands, Clarity went to Texas A&M University to talk to a published expert on Crisis Management.

Professor Venky Shankar, Ph.D. in the Mays Business School conducted research on how poor crisis media management impacts the long term total dollar market value for a company’s outstanding shares known as market cap.

This is a long video conversation, but we think that executives and business owners can’t afford not to make time to watch it.

Does your company have a plan in place that uses the 7A’s of Crisis Management?

Transcript

Successful Crisis Management

Robert Riggs: Hi, it’s Robert and Brad with the Clarity Digital Clip of the Week. And we’re at the Texas A&M Campus at the Mays School of Business with Dr. Venky Shankar to talk about how do you respond to a crisis and think about it before it ever happens in a digital age?

Brad Besancon: Yeah. I think one of the things we’ve seen over the last probably couple of months is there has been lots of stuff going on out there with some crises with Starlines, the Starbucks, you’ve mentioned a new – one from 2016 that is re-service with American Airlines. And you kind of have a process of the 6, 7 A’s that you’d like to go through and teach. And we wanted to be sure we give this to our audience.

So tell us a little bit about your 6 A’s in a crisis management situation?

Robert Riggs: And this is research-based.

Venky Shankar: Yes, absolutely. And I’ve been doing a lot of research in crisis management particularly product harm crisis, product recalls, and trying to see what would be the best strategy. And I have the 6 to 7 A’s of crisis management. And before I go into that, let’s take the two examples that we briefly mentioned about.

You have the Starbucks situation and the American Airlines two years ago, the passenger passed away unfortunately because she could not get access to a doctor where the doctor on board asked it to be diverted and the American Airlines decided not to divert.

And the response of American Airlines was that, “We are looking into the complaint.” Whereas the response of Starbucks’ CEO as soon as the hand-cuffing of the African-American, two people happened, immediately apologized and wanted to have a face-to-face meeting with the these two people and also institute a racial …

Brad Besancon: They took control, right?

Venky Shankar: Yeah, they took control of racial profile, racial sensitivity training. They had instituted closing down all the locations. All of this is done very swiftly.

Robert Riggs: They treated them like humans.

Venky Shankar: Yes.

Robert Riggs: Their valued customers.

Venky Shankar: Exactly. And also very swiftly, all of these. And this is where the 6 A’s come in. The first A is to anticipate. Don’t wait for the crisis to really happen for you to act on it. So good firms nowadays in the digital age, that’s a difference between pre-digital age and digital and post-digital age. Social media and age social media where anything that happens, any negative event gets amplified and it gets stored and accumulated and then it gets viral.

And so, you don’t have the luxury of hoping that in the past, people say if crisis happens, wait for some time until you ascertain the facts, until it blows over, until it’s replaced by another crisis in the news. But now, you don’t have the luxury of it. So that’s why anticipating. What does anticipating mean? Having like a social media war room or command center where you monitor each and every thing that is said about your brand, shared about it, and pictures, videos that are being shard about you.

And Dell is a good example. They have a command center in which they 24/7 they monitor that. That’s a good …

Robert Riggs: Minute by minute.

Venky Shankar: Minute by minute, yeah.

Brad Besancon: Well, I think one of the thing we talked about previously was this, what better group to anticipate something going wrong than the people that are in your company?

Venky Shankar: Exactly.

Brad Besancon: To say, all right, here is a crisis.

Venky Shankar: How would you respond? That’s what I would suggest based on the research is that being proactive and anticipatory means that not only anticipating before a crisis hits but also preparing what to do when the crisis hits. By looking at others are teachable moments, right? If you are Dell and you look at the Southeast Airlines crisis, what would you have done if you had experienced that? So that’s the first A.

And then the second A is Acknowledge. Acknowledge something has happened.

It took about four days for the Facebook CEO to even come out of the hiding and say there is a problem that happened. That’s acknowledgment. And before that, it was too late. As you know, Facebook lost about 37 million market cap in the four days.

Brad Besancon: Yeah.

Venky Shankar: And then up to 75 million, and 5 billion later on. But that’s the second A.

And the third A is basically Apologize. Now, a lot of people think, “Wait a minute. My company may not be at fault. Why should we apologize?” But apology here really is the equivalent of empathizing with the affected party. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re acknowledging liability or you’re saying you’re at fault. Apologies could be heartfelt, sincere, and it should resonate with the affected party.

Robert Riggs: But what if the lawyers write the apology and it is corporate speak.

Venky Shankar: It is unfortunate. And a lot of firms are boxed in by that. They issued very canned responses like, “We regret …”

Robert Riggs: Yeah.

Brad Besancon: That’s not the audience speaking.

Robert Riggs: And is that more harm?

Venky Shankar: That is more harmful because let me talk a little bit about my research. We had two papers published in the last two years in top journals and what we looked at was the impact of product recalls and especially in the automobile industry. What does it do to the brand equity or to the consumer trust in the brand and also the shareholder value of the brand? What does it depend on? And does it depend on not just the severity of the problem, the immediacy of action, and what did they develop voluntarily and come out with the admission? Or did they delay the corrective actions? Did they took – all of these we factored and took on.

What we found was the short time – yes, you can arrest the claim by just stalling it but in the long term, it hurts you more. And these are the kind of be truthful, think like a – when you are in a crisis, think like the customer. Do not think like a firm. That means if you’re CEO, you got to ask yourself, “What if I’m the affected customer or the family? Then how would I respond? What would I want the firm to do for me?”

Brad Besancon: I think you said it best in very business technical terms, “Just do what’s right.”

Venky Shankar: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. As simple as it sounds, people I know understand. And that’s why we did the research to show the long-term effects. This only shows up in the long-term and that sometimes firms do not wait that long to see the effects.

Brad Besancon: Yeah.

Venky Shankar: And corresponding to that is admit. If you have anything to do with that, admit even if – you don’t have to be perfectly at fault, even if you are partially at fault.

So take the example of United CEO, when a passenger, Dr. Dao, was dragged off the plane. First reaction was to say the employees did the right thing without really thinking through the issue. Not only does it not show the empathy but also it shows the lack of willingness to admit.

Obviously, even if there was something wrong with the passenger, nobody should be dragged. At least, that was – you don’t need to do an investigation. You should have admitted it, right?

Brad Besancon: Yeah. We don’t need three days to analyze that.

Venky Shankar: Exactly. So I think that’s – the fifth A is Amend. Make amends. Fix the problem genuinely. Don’t just show superficially that you’re changing something. Show how you fix it. So if it’s a car recall, show how nicely it’s done, how clearly it’s done, how they are compensated, what changes you made to the process.

People want assurance. It’s all about brand trust.

Brad Besancon: Absolutely.

Venky Shankar: Can I trust this brand again whether it’s Southwest, American, Facebook, Equifax, all of these brands that get diluted? And can I trust this brand? The only way you can do that is to show that you fixed the process that leads to this problem.

Brad Besancon: It shouldn’t happen in the future.

Venky Shankar: Right.

Robert Riggs: And are we in a low trust environment these studies online?

Venky Shankar: Very, very. Unfortunately in this digital social media world, people’s trust of brand is very low because they are not listening to the brand messages. They are farming their own messages. And they may actually take over the brand message if the firms do not anticipate that and do the correct thing.

Robert Riggs: And one of the things we say is that if you don’t tell your own story in an authentic, empathetic manner, someone else is going to tell it in a whole different way.

Venky Shankar: Different way.

Robert Riggs: And you would not like it.

Venky Shankar: And you may not have control over it beyond a point in time. And that’s where …

Brad Besancon: And it can happen that quick.

Venky Shankar: Right.

Brad Besancon: That’s the other thing that a lot of clients don’t understand is it can happen in minutes.

Venky Shankar: Right. And that’s where the sixth A comes in, which is really you want basically your affected customers to become an ambassador for the brand, so you want advocacy. So the sixth A is Advocate.

So in other words, get the affected people to come out and say, “Wow! This company really reacted correctly, quickly, fixed the problem. I want to trust this brand for the long term.

Brad Besancon: I mean we saw – I saw that in social media with the Southwest issue and accident that the amount of people that came on to their Facebook pages and in their social media supporting Southwest just saying, “Thank you for doing what you’re doing. Thank you for getting the plane down safe.”

Venky Shankar: Right. I think that’s a great example.

Brad Besancon: That’s a perfect example of right in the middle of a crisis. I mean they would put up a statement on Facebook and then thousands of people would come in and say, “Thank you and thanks for helping out and taking control of the situation.”

Venky Shankar: Right. And I think that leads me to the seventh A is that advertising your brand. Have faith in your brand. Show that signal and do not play hide and seek. A lot of times when firms have crisis, they stopped advertising because they don’t want the brand name to be in the public. I mean definitely by all means, do good promotions and make sure that they are compensated and so on. But maintain a steady level of faith in your brand and show that faith.

Brad Besancon: It’s back to if you stand by yourself, I’ll stand by you. I’ll stay with you.

Venky Shankar: Exactly.

Brad Besancon: And again, you bring up that same process kind of mentality up, if you keep kind of a steady flow, they’ll stay with you along that road trip if you will.

Venky Shankar: Absolutely.

Brad Besancon: They’ll stay with you if you kind of keep steady.

Robert Riggs: So it strikes me, there’s actually an 8th A here that ought to be part of each and every step of the seven and that is Authenticity.

Venky Shankar: Absolutely.

Brad Besancon: Every one of those adds up to authenticity.

Venky Shankar: Right. All the 7 A’s if you do it correctly, your brand becomes very authentic and most likeable, desirable. People will stick with your brand and they will almost internalize and start saying, “Hey, I want to support this brand. It could happen to me.” That’s the kind of empathy that you want, the reverse empathy you want.

Brad Besancon: Rob and I talked about that if you’re doing the right steps, no matter what social advertising, if you’re doing everything that we’re talking about here, it gets you right here.

Venky Shankar: At the heart, yeah.

Brad Besancon: It gets you right there in the chest and the heart. It becomes an emotional connection, not a product or service connection. That’s often really where you’re trying to get.

Venky Shankar: Absolutely.

Robert Riggs: So you as a leader of your business or organization need to be asking, do I have the 7 A’s in place and how do I do that?

We’re going to put some resources online that you can read the doctor’s papers and we want to thank you for hosting us here at Texas A&M at the Mays School of Business. What a fantastic place.

Venky Shankar: Thank you.

Robert Riggs: We really enjoyed it. Thank you.

Brad Besancon: Thanks again.

Venky Shankar: Thank you, Brad. And thank you, Robert.

Do You Define Yourself or Company Brand on a Daily Basis?

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If Your Personal or Company Brand Is Not Clearly Defined, It May Get Hijacked

Transcript

Robert: If you don’t tell your own story, someone else will tell it for you.

Brad: Absolutely.

Robert: If something is happening around your company and you’re not out there, your competitor, an upset customer, they will tell that story for you.

Brad: One crisis.

Robert: Right. If you do not define yourself, if you haven’t defined yourself in the bio, the description on your webpage, all your social media, somebody is going to define you in the terms that you do not like.

Brad: And it’s a daily thing or a weekly thing for companies out there in the digital world. You say it all the time. Be your own publisher. Be your own – pump out good quality content. What does that mean? Well, that’s back to audience speak and understanding all that. We’ve talked to that ad nauseam.

But you’ve always said – we’ve had a couple of clients where there has been a midlevel crisis I would say because of a couple of complaints.

Robert: Yeah.

Brad: What are some of the things that happened that we had to spend six months fixing it?

Robert: Well, they sat with the lawyers for days. Days, twiddling thumbs. You cannot do that. Literally, it’s seconds. There are precious seconds or you’ve lost it. It has gone away on you. You have to immediately show that you are what – you’re aware of the problem. You’re dealing with the problem. You don’t have to take a stance about the problem necessarily. But you better show people that hey, we’re on it.

Brad: You got to have a plan.

Robert: Right.

Brad: Right? The bottom line is in – United Airlines.

Robert: Yes.

Brad: In a matter of seconds, literally seconds, maybe minutes on the high end, their reputation was destroyed when that gentleman was taken off the plane.

Robert: Well, I mean here’s what every company, anybody in business needs to know and they need to – they need to school their – all of their employees on it. You’re always on camera now. You’re on – it is –

Brad: Every action.

Robert: Every action you take is being scrutinized by someone who has got their cell phone out. It’s going to be on social. It’s going to be – you need this awareness that you are always on. You’re always subject to being criticized, evaluated and hey, sometimes, good things happen and people put them off as well.

Brad: And guess who else has got that camera. Your competitors and that’s the whole key of the discussion is putting yourself out of business before they do.

Robert: Yeah.

Brad: So have those conversations.

Robert: Oh, and, you know – hey listen. If I’m a guerilla marketer and my competitor, like a United, that happens, oh, I’m going to get out there on the backend of the dark web and everything else.

Brad: Yeah.

Robert: And I’m going to really –

Brad: Lots of stories.

Robert: Yes. I’m going to really boost that.

Brad: Lots of stories.

Robert: I’m really going to help it.

Brad: Yeah.

Robert: Yeah. So there are a lot of people that are better than the Russians at this.

Brad: Yeah. And they do it every day.

Robert: Yeah, yeah.

[End of transcript]

Debunking The Rule of 7 Impressions

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Is the Rule of Seven in Marketing Outdated in the Digital Age?

One of marketing’s oldest concepts is the rule of seven. It states that a prospective buyer needs to hear or see the marketing message at least seven times before they buy it from you.

Brad and Robert explore that rule today.

Transcript

Robert: Hello. I’m Robert. This is Brad and we’re here today with Clarity to debunk the “rule of 7”. That you got to have seven impressions before somebody will buy something. What’s wrong with that in the digital age?

Brad: Yeah. I don’t know if there’s anything wrong with it. But there has been a lot of talk recently. A Forbes article really highlighted what’s really critical in today’s kind of marketing world, if you will, with the consumers.

You know, and one of the key things they said was is that only about three percent of your clientele or your particular audience, that we always like to say, is ready to buy. So why are we hounding and hounding and hounding and hounding all these people? I mean I think at some point, you do have to reach a large audience. So you have to have reach and impressions. But how much benefits are you actually getting?

We always get told ROI, ROI, ROI. So you have to think about that. One of the things the article highlighted, which is what we’ve been saying for a while, is with product or your brand, you have to kind of create a journey through that sales funnel, right?

Robert: Yes.

Brad: Old school sales funnel and that experience and that journey with your product or your service, by basically just becoming a resource for them, information on how to use the product, things that are associated with your product or service, it doesn’t necessarily – it’s about your product or service.

Robert: Well, give your current customers and your prospects helpful, useful information to solve the simple pain points in their life and then –

Brad: Everyday things.

Robert: If you build their trust, then you might get that call. They might become –

Brad: Yeah. I think the key is, is that building that trust will eventually – you have to – the bottom line is you have to connect at a different level and just come buy my product and we can solve the problem A, right? You have to also be B, C, D, E and F nowadays because the consumer is education, you know.

Me and you were talking earlier about a headset. You know, Robert bought a headset. He didn’t just go buy a headset anymore because somebody says, “Hey, this is a good headset.” He goes and reads reviews. He goes on price checks. He goes and checks on products, service.

Robert: Yes.

Brad: Maybe even a warranty or whatever. So it’s an educated customer. So you have to play a different role.

Robert: And then after I had it, one of my friends called me and said, “You know, I really need a headset like yours. I drive a lot and all. What do you have? Will you send me a link?”

Brad: Link. Yeah.

Robert: Send a link to Amazon. And you know what? He bought it. He looked at comparisons. His friend had suggested it. That’s how digital has done the paradigm shift.

Brad: Yeah, it’s all in the palm of your hands that we’ve always talked about. It’s mobile, mobile, mobile. It’s right here now.

Robert: But talk to them about the – well, first off, I like what you say. You talked about you got to make the connection where.

Brad: Yeah. It has got –

Robert: In the heart.

Brad: It can’t just be in the pocketbook anymore. You can’t just sell on features and benefits and say, “Well, this is a great product and this is a great price.”

It has got to be – you’ve got to hit them here. I recently bought a new set of golf clubs. Not new. They were used. But one of the things that always comes up with golfers and any kind – anybody that has a hobby, whether it’s bike riding, mountain bike riding, golfing, camping, appearance is important, right?

Robert: Oh, yeah. You like the look of the club. When you hold the club in your hand, it sits on the ground. It looks good on the ground. It feels good in your hand. You swing it. You hit the ball. Same thing with everything. I sit on the bike. It feels good. It rides good. I go to the next brand. Maybe it doesn’t feel the same or whatever.

So it’s making that connection at different levels amongst the whole experience around that product. So sure, I may be on a mountain bike that’s $4000. But I might have had a better experience from a product standpoint on one that was $800 because it fit better.

Robert: Yeah.

Brad: And I liked it more or whatever. I’m still in the same place, right? I’m still in the same environment. I’m still in the same mountain. But because the product made a different connection with me, in my heart if you will, then I bought that product and I had a better experience.

Robert: So I think you’ve said the most important thing here to close the zone and it’s that people don’t buy features and benefits. That comes into it later. They buy experience.

Brad: You’re buying an experience. So if you’re not creating experiences in social and your website and information and content – it’s always about content – then you’re losing audience.

Robert: That’s the Clarity Clip of the week. Focus on experiences.

Brad: Have a good one, guys.

[End of transcript]

Is ROI The Problem In Your Company’s Social Media Marketing?

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We Are Often Asked, “What Is The ROI of Social Media?” Here’s the Answer.

Sean Jackson, the CFO of Rainmaker Digital, offers on how companies should think about the ROI of all digital marketing.

Transcript

Robert Riggs: What has happened in the digital age though that businesses want to immediately jump to talk, talk, talk, sell, sell, sell, never listen, never even listen to what the customer might even want or the prospect might want and all – like ROI, what’s the ROI?

Sean Jackson: Right. So I think that’s being primarily driven – since you used the financial term, ROI, then that’s the problem because that means that a sales organization is being tasked with delivering results on a quarter by quarter basis and it is all about driving that immediate return rate and it’s a financial drive that is doing that. It is not a marketing drive that’s doing that.

Brad Besancon: Right, yeah.

Sean: And I think you see this most often with companies that have received a lot of funding or they’re under some sort of financial pressure and they’re saying –

Brad: A big boardroom.

Sean: Right. You got to go sell and you got to get out there and we need numbers. But it really is a trade-off between short term results and long term success. So I think when you look at long term success, people are saying we need to listen because we don’t care about the next quarter or the quarter after that. We care about the quarters that are happening four years from now, five years from now.

Brad: Yes.

Tips On Listening In The Digital World From Sean Jackson at Rainmaker Digital

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Are You Tuned Into Your Digital Audience? Tips For Listening From Sean Jackson

Transcript

Sean Jackson: People don’t buy the product. They buy the idea that the product delivers.

 

Brad: That’s right.

 

Sean: And that is so important. So if you’re selling an idea, not a product but selling a true idea, then it really means that you have to stay tuned not only to those new people, but the people that have already bought off on the idea.

 

Brad: Yes.

 

Sean: Right? Because those are the people that are already invested in the idea. They want the idea to fulfill something in their life and the more that you can talk to those people, then they will not only help spread the word but they’re going to continue to repeat buy.

 

This is true no matter what market you deal with, B to B, B to C. Whatever acronym you want to come up with, that rule holds true no matter what.

 

Brad: People still buy from people.

 

Sean: They buy from people and they buy from people who care about them.

 

Brad: Yeah.

 

Robert: OK. So if you’re facing the challenges of “listen,” you’ve got a podcast Digital Entrepreneur.

 

Sean: Yes.

 

Robert: That you host weekly and we hear this discussed there and we hear also their marketers talking about the pressures of ROI and all. You give out great advice for how to handle that. So I encourage everybody to seize this.

 

Sean: Please!

 

Robert: Please, listen to my podcast.

 

Sean: Rainmaker.fm. It’s the Digital Entrepreneur.

 

Brad: Well, we’ve been talking about making a connection. We give ourselves –

 

Sean: That’s right.

 

Brad: We give ourselves

 

Sean: But I often think that that is the way that we can always grow is by learning more, right?

 

Robert: Right.

 

Sean: And understanding information and hearing from others that have been there, done that and now with the beauty of technology, we can share it via video, via audio, via whatever.

 

Brad: Yeah. It’s solutions, right?

 

Sean: Right.

 

Brad: You’re trying to fix a solution or sell a solution or connect with a solution or whatever it is. So –

 

Robert: Top three tips on listening, what do you do?

 

Sean: I think actively listen means that you’re not just nodding your head. You’re actively trying to understand what they said and that means that you’re putting a lot of your preconceived notions behind and not trying to fill up your head with, “What is going to be my response to what they just said?” It is, “I’m going to listen, taking a pause.”

 

The second key to listening is to also be thinking through the why. Go through the next level of whatever they say. Bring it out to them but never use the word “why”. “Why” is an accusatory term. What is it? How is it? Those are the ways that you can really get people to draw out.

 

The third way of actively listening – and it’s funny. It’s called “parrot back what they just said”. If you parrot back the last three words someone says, then they will expound even further.

 

Robert: Yeah.

 

Sean: And if you use a question at the end of those last three words, then of course they will repeat it and then expound upon it further. So I think when you look at active listening, combined with really what is the next layer of questions, combined with asking what they just said back to them, you will find they will give you much more and the irony being, they may actually convince themselves that you are so empathetic to what they have, what their needs are, that they want to only work with you.

 

[End of transcript]

 

If You Will Let People Talk They Will Tell You What They Want

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Sean Jackson, CFO and Partner of Rainmaker Digital Says Don’t Interrupt Your Customers Online Conversations

Transcript

Robert: I’m Robert. We got Brad here, with Sean Jackson, the CFO of Rainmaker Digital and we’ve known each other way back to Pubcon and you were the President of the Dallas Ad League. You’ve done it all from old – what we like about you, you are old media.

 

Brad: Old school marketing.

 

Robert: Old school marketing and now digital.

 

Sean: There you go.

 

Robert: So Brad is going to tell you about one of the challenges we run into in a process we use called “Listen, think, speak,” and we’re going to talk to you about “Listen”.

 

Sean: OK.

 

Brad: Yeah. So one of the things we find, Sean, is that companies don’t take the time to listen. They just want to sell, sell, sell or promote, promote, promote and they don’t take the time to really listen first to say, “What is it about my audience or customers or prospects that I need to take and then develop a plan or marketing plan off this?”

 

Give us a little idea about how you’ve seen that in the digital world, how you see things work, how you see things that haven’t worked. Just give us some of your insights.

 

Sean: I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening. Oh, wait a minute! No. I think that is the toughest part. I think in a sales-driven culture especially, everyone is so excited to get out there selling, right?

 

Brad: It’s all about the money.

 

Sean: Yeah, that’s right. I need to sell you and even if somebody says, “Wait, wait, wait. I’m ready to buy,” it’s like, well, I haven’t sold you enough yet, right?

 

Brad: There’s more. I need to talk more.

 

Sean: And I think it’s because typically in sales organizations, you have dynamic people wanting to speak, et cetera. But I think we’ve always found over history, between all media, that when we take time to listen, the most successful sales technique is listening.

 

I think the digital age has actually made it easier for us to listen than it has been in the past. So with all that said, if you’re not prepared to really take the time and understand that if you let people talk, they will tell you exactly what they want.

 

Brad: Exactly what they want. Yes. So you spoke the digital age makes it easier to listen. Tell us how you’ve seen that in real life. What is it in the digital world that makes it easier to listen? I’m not talking about software. Let’s get to a better level.

 

Sean: Sure.

 

Brad: We all have little buttons we can push. Let’s talk on a deeper level. What are some of the things you’ve seen that help you listen better?

 

Sean: Well, I think when it comes to businesses, certainly a lot of people now are feeling comfortable asking questions on the internet. So let’s go through the very basics. Google, right? Google Trends will tell you what type of topics seem to be trending or not, right? That’s a very informal way of seeing where a topic is and how it is –

 

Brad: Speaking of Google.

 

Sean: You know, basically how in Google Trends you can see how people are talking in an indirect way. But then even more intimate is all of our social media channels, right? When you’re looking on LinkedIn, you’re looking on Quora, you’re looking on Facebook, people are posting things out there and asking questions or they’re responding to questions that come up.

 

So I think from an observation standpoint, there are many, many ways out there. One of my favorite tools for listening is actually Quora because Quora, people are asking questions and people are giving responses.

 

Brad: Yeah.

 

Sean: So I think we have a way to be a little bit more sophisticated in how we hear people at a broad level. But then of course at a business level, there are different techniques that are needed.

 

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