In the Trenches: Attention and Demand

Attention and Demand

By: Peter Radizeski

There is a saying that if I have to beg for your attention, it isn’t worth it. It is true, but that doesn’t stop businesses and channel managers from interrupting and annoying people who don’t want to be bothered.

The reason that the funnel has flipped is due to marketers ruining everything. Spamming, shouting, robo-dialing, gone are the days of just throwing away a direct mail piece. Voicemail, spam filters, delete keys, temporary email addresses, and ad blockers all have been invented to help people avoid the onslaught of unwanted solicitations.

I was yelled at recently for putting someone on my email list in 2012. He never said remove me. He just simmered until he exploded one day years later. And it turns out he would never buy from me anyway. There is a lesson in there somewhere.

But that won’t stop you from heading into the office and doing the same thing. You will add email addresses to an email list. You will try to recruit a bunch of agents who may ink the agreement but never sell a single thing. You will chase master agents and value added distributors to get the chance at thousands of partners, more than 99 percent of whom will not sell your stuff.

Everyone has their own strategy, and certainly everyone has quota. Quota makes us do dumb things, especially when we focus on quota instead of on daily activity, follow up and making friends. (Yes, sales is first and foremost about making friends.)

Comcast and AT&T can sign up thousands of agents because of demand. There is heavy demand for cable broadband. AT&T doesn’t sign up thousands for a lot of reasons, one of which is controlling their brand, an asset worth billions. Amazon is selling Comcast services and VoIP installation now. There is D=demand.

For most of telecom there isn’t demand. The duopoly – the ILEC and the cableco – are known entities, but most other competitors are not. Being a brand has its own demand.

Too many channel execs confuse their programs to be similar to Cisco or Microsoft. Cisco and Microsoft have channel partners who are invested. They spent time and money to get certified. They spend time and money to stay certified, educated and upto-date. Their business model encompasses Cisco or Microsoft (or Dell or IBM or HP or even Apple). That isn’t the case for most other programs.

Demand creates invested partners. This demand meant that the vendors needed logistics and distribution. This meant Ingram Micro or Tech Data, value added distributors, with a purpose to distribute hardware for the vendors to the VARs, which would install and maintain it for the customer. The VAD would even manage software licensing. The VADs allowed the vendors to scale to tens of thousands of partners.

In the land of business IT, Microsoft and Cisco are staples. There is demand for buyers. VADs facilitate that for the channel program. How does that work for a cloud company or hosted VoIP company? They have not created (1) demand from buyers; (2) market awareness; (3) invested partners. Heck, they are still spamming and dialing to get anyone to sign up to sell their services. It’s like the skinny kid with acne a week before prom.

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A lot of the components to create demand are out of your hands. It is a company issue. Branding, deployment, customer experience, etc., are all ways to create awareness, which helps to create demand.

Yet there are still things you can do. Find out how your customers are using your services. Get testimonials – from customers and successful agents. Craft a customer profile AND a partner profile.

The funnel in sales has flipped. Instead of everything being outbound in marketing, it is now inbound. Content marketing is the new lead generation ingredient. That means stories are in, in a big way.

If you are going to spam their email, do so with something quick and eye catching like a short video (recorded on your smartphone) about the last deal, an excited partner or a happy customer. Give tips on how to bundle your service into a complete solution.

With all of the platforms – Facebook, email, LinkedIn, blogs, Snapchat, Instagram and others – it isn’t like you can’t pick one social media network and “own” it. You could. And it would be more fun than what you are doing now.

Many channel managers tell me that they like to go with their partners on sales calls. Tape segments of one: a day in the lifestyle. Post it to Instagram: wins and losses. Have fun with it. It will help. Not immediately, but it will work. Good content is the scarce resource. Good content is what is in demand.

Good stories are in demand (cat photos too). Talking about your product, your features, your company to a prospect is asking to get the door slammed in your face.

Why are Infographics in demand? They visually tell a story. Most studies I have seen have a summary infographic. We live in a sound bite world. You capture attention in 100 characters or less.

Think about billboards. Unless you are stuck in traffic, you are driving by at 30 mph. That message has to hit you fast. Look at your emails. Do they look like a billboard? Would you send them to your grandmother?

Where does sales start? Oh, right, with making friends. Would you text that stuff you write to your friends? It is a new era.

It is the time of the flipped funnel. We live in a connection economy that lends itself to sharing good stories. Create a couple of good stories and share them. When these stories resonate with prospects they will become friends, partners and sell your stuff.

In the words of Susan Sontag, “Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.”

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