I just read this post entitled “Concise Introduction for Networking” in which Patrick Carney shares some of Dr. Ivan Misner’s wisdom.

Here’s my problem. Done in this manner, we spend 30-60 seconds reminding ourself what to say, 30-60 seconds saying it, and 30-60 seconds wondering if we did it right and we totally miss the other person’s intro. I’m reminded of this post of mine. If you are a marketer, you might be OK with getting your message out and the heck with the other guy. But, if you are actually looking to SELL something someday, wouldn’t it behoove you to find something out about the person that you’re meeting to learn if they are a prospect, a potential center of influence, a competitor, or what.

If you believe that networking is part of your marketing program, go for it. But if you think networking is part of your prospecting program, you should stop telling and start selling and you sell with your ears, not your lips.

No call to action. Just do what works for you.

Yesterday, Mark Paskell called to let me know about a huge opportunity that he was about to lay at my feet. In case you don’t know, Mark is the perennial RainMaker at Francis Harvey and Sons. He’s a regular speaker at home shows and expos teaching the audience how to avoid picking the wrong contractor. He’s got a reputation for doing it right the first time and staying with it til it’s done. Pete has been after Mark to start a blog, but it’s a lot of work to get a blog done right and this is the middle of his busy season. So, isn’t it appropriate, that the long time RainMaker of Francis Harvey and Sons practice as a guest blogger on the RainMaker Maker.

Expect to see his first post soon. I’m sure that we’ll all learn and enjoy!

God! I hate giving credit or linking to Godin, but every once in a while he says something that makes sense in the sales world and I don’t want to be accused of not acknowledging the source.

Twice, today.

First, in this post, he advises marketers not to market until they’ve got the prospect’s attention. How many times have we seen salespeople start telling their story while the secretary’s giving messages to the boss, the kids are running around distracting mom & dad, the prospect’s phone is ringing, the prospect is looking at their computer monitor, or any other number of distractions are keeping the prospect from giving us 100% of their attention. Here’s the rule. If you can’t get 100% of your prospect’s attention, go 100% away until you can!

The second post can help you decide whether or not you should work for yourself. If you have a good boss and you don’t want to do all that’s necessary, stay put! But if you can be a better boss than your boss, maybe you should fire your boss and hire yourself to replace him/her.

Thank you, Seth.

The Worcester Business Journal published a great article on local business coaches. Linda Cohan was not only one of the coaches that was highlighted, but one of her clients had some great things to say about her.

Linda, how about this? You want to be a guest blogger on The RainMaker Maker? I think that people would be interested in what you have to say and I’ll give you the space. If you like it, Tim Grahl will help you with the technical stuff.

Come on, Linda. You took over at networking events. Now you can tackle the blogoshere!

I was reading and commenting on Dave’s post and I wanted to make sure that you all saw it.

Spelling is, was and probably always will be one of my pet peeves. I worked for an engineering firm in the early 90’s that hired incredibly talented, very well educated engineers……none of which could spell, but all of which thought that they could. We used to generate 100+ page proposals for projects that were worth millions of dollars and these idiots thought nothing about sending them out without any checks because the author was so awesome. Eventually, we instituted the policy that EVERY proposal was reviewed by me, an administrative person, and an executive. The three of us were very thorough. Invariably, we missed something in 100+ pages, but we caught most of it.

I see examples every day of emails that get sent, blogs that get posted, newsletters that get sent and even websites that get published with errors that should have been caught. I shake my head and think, “Careless!” Then I evaluate whether or not this carelessness might show up in their work if I become a customer of theirs.

You may be aware that I subscribe to a service that sends “sales quotes” to my inbox. Some are more noteworthy than others. Here are a few to ponder.

HMMM!

Today, I had the kind of phone call that we all live for. A client called and told me that, “…his prospect had just signed on the dotted line even though he spent 45 minutes trying to find a hole where he could get it cheaper, but I resisted knowing I would always be leaving…”. I’m intentionally keeping this client anonymous. If he wants to show himself, that’s his perogative, but I want the world to know that he’s about to become a “poster boy” for what can happen when raw desire, brains, determination and drive can do when they hook up with a company that knows what they’re doing and cares about their clients.

This particular client is probably saying (to himself), “I should’ve done this six months ago.”

What a year! It seems as though every time I turn around, I’m trying something new. Last year, I didn’t know what a blog was, now I have one, post regularly, have readers, read others, and comment when appropriate (and sometimes when it’s not.) A while ago, Pete Caputa introduced me to Tim Grahl and to Dane Carlson.

OK, so all these introductions led to my latest “something new”, being interviewed for a podcast. What’s a podcast? If you click here, you will be able to listen to me being interviewed by Tim for broadcast by Dane. Confused? Just turn your sound up and click the link. Then click on listen now.

Of all the people that read Marketing vs. Selling during the last week, one person voted that they liked it. One person voted that they didn’t like it. I assume that the rest didn’t care. Doug commented. Pete commented. Thank you, Doug and Pete.

Recently, Seth Godin wrote that “there’s close to zero trust of marketers these days“. But honestly, in addition to “marketers”, don’t stereotypical consumers distrust salespeople, mechanics, lawyers, and many others? Aren’t consumers advised to get “second opinions” from other doctors when it’s an important or difficult diagnosis? He also made an interesting observation about receptionists. How would you like to be responsible for marketing a company and/or it’s product and have all of your efforts negated by an ineffective receptionist? This is the reason that I advise all my clients to leave a direct number when prospecting. You may only get one chance with a prospect and you don’t want the receptionist to blow it.

Pete starts to delineate some differences here.

Tim Grahl is noticing that if he wants to be in the marketing business, he needs to learn how to sell.

Philippe makes a valid point.

Dave talks about a confused salesperson who doesn’t know the difference between marketing and selling in this post and about the importance of GOOD salespeople in this one.

I thought that I’d talk about the definition of marketing that I learned in college. I thought I’d talk about advertising, public relations, the four P’s, and all the other marketing terms and compare them to the definition of the word, “sales”, but I got bored just thinking about it.

I thought about comparing the difference between sales and marketing to the difference between a psychologist and a sociologist, the difference between a tutor and a classroom teacher or the difference between a personal coach and an exercise/sport instructor, but the analogy wasn’t perfect.

Each of the pairs above has one person that deals typically with individuals and one that deals with groups. If each is to be effective, they need specific education. Whether dealing with groups or individuals a professional will have a target. Don’t personal trainers target either older or younger, fitter or fatter, prone to injury vs very healthy? Teachers teach a specific grade level, subject, or may even work only with the “smart” kids.

But then, on Sunday, the answer came to me. I was at the beach and one of those planes flew buy towing the banner that said something like “Big party at the pier, tonight. Come one. Come all.” I’m sure that somebody saw that sign and decided to go to the party. Later, as we were driving home, we stopped at the liquor store. This knockout blonde was standing in the middle of the aisle with a table and some liquor samples to taste. As soon as I tasted, she told me that they were on special that day for $16.95. I thanked her. Bought what I had stopped for. Checked her out again as I left and wondered if anybody had bought any of her stuff that day.

I wouldn’t call either the pilot of that plane, or the blonde in the liquor store a salesperson. Were they promoting? Definitely. Did people buy? Probably. Were they “sold”? No. Predisposed? Sure. I bought $50 worth of gas earlier Sunday. What influenced my buying decision? The station was across the street from the place that I was picking up my pizza. Incidentally, I called ahead for my pizza. How did I decide where to call? Because Pizza by Alex is the best pizza in Maine and I’m not the only one who thinks so. I didn’t care about price, promotion, or place. I didn’t care about what others thought. I wanted the product. Most of us make several buying decisions every day that are based solely on marketing. Marketing sells, but only to a point.

Sometimes marketing doesn’t give a potential consumer EVERYTHING that they need to make the buying decision. In these instances someone has to ask the prospect, “Why?” in some form or other and finish the process. Marketing did nothing wrong. This prospect needed some human contact and preferably not the kind offered by Seth’ receptionist example.

Sometimes marketing prediposes consumers. Look at all the car ads. Seriously, have you ever watched the commercial, called the dealership and said, “Just saw the commercial. Send me a blue one.”? Probably not. Let’s pretend that when you went to the dealership, there were no salespeople, just a desk top computer with instructions on how to order your car or what if there were no dealership, but you could log onto the manufacturer’s website at home and order your car to be delivered in a few days. Would you? Could you?

I just realized that everything that I’ve written to this point has been written to “save” the relationship between salespeople and marketers. Grow up! It’s all about the prospect! If the prospect will make a buying decision based solely on a website, an ad, a sample, location, or some other marketing factor, then marketing doesn’t need sales. If a salesperson can take a brand new, unknown, un-packaged product and help the prospect discover a compelling need, create urgency and develop S.O.B. with the prospect without any help from a marketing effort, and the prospect buys, so be it.

As you can tell,  got bored with this post, but I posted it because I promised it. If you make a comment that’s a question, I’ll reply. If you send me a question by email, I’ll reply privately. I just don’t want to write any more.