Marketing, Marketing, Marketing, but sales still lag

If you are like most business leaders you were either dragged into creating a marketing infrastructure; or are proactive and embraced the systems needed to assure a robust, sustainable process for finding customers. Most businesses today can say they have a business development process but whether the platform is meeting management’s objectives can be elusive.

I hired [marketing] assistance, but
In a recent conversation with the owner of a local, residential contractor we discussed the company’s history and growth plans. The owner explained the challenges of recovering from the past recession’s effects as well as how they have prepared for the future. As he spoke, I must say, I was clearly impressed with the methodical operational approach. One would expect that kind of process orientation from an engineering-led enterprise such as this, but operational process does not always telegraph well to marketing.

During our call I learned about their seasonal cycle, geographic concentration, revenue silos and the tactical sales functions; everything sounded like a well-oiled machine. When asked what I thought I might be able to do to bend the sales curve in a more definitive direction, I made the statement that all requirements seemed to be in place. I wondered, however, about what seemed like a less than ambitious future forecast so I did a very little bit of follow-up investigating.

Looking no further than the firm’s website I found an uninspiring “story,” not much more than a narrative listing of the services offered, their warranty, their services and maintenance packages. The site was not nearly as inspiring as the interest and passion expressed to me by the owner.

Today, when a company like this gets an inbound call, it is very different than ten or even 5 years ago. Back then, callers were looking for information, today when they call they have most of the information already. Callers in this environment are calculated to be more than 70% ready to do business with the people they called.

Unfortunately, this company is not telling the “brand story” that is so much a part of the DNA of this company. Marketing is clearly something that all companies must do well, and there are hundreds of website vendors, content writers and SEO “experts” that can create these sites and compile keywords, but few that know how to develop the brand and impart the emotional connections that closing deals is based upon.

By developing a provocative and resonating brand story for itself this company should be able to meet its longer term growth objectives in much less time.