When we initiate talks with new prospects for our services one of the most frequent questions we ask is, “What do you expect to achieve from a business relationship with us?”
The responses we typically hear include wanting to grow their business, overcome one or more competitive threats, become more active on social media, produce more PR, get ready for an upcoming list of conventions, or launch a new series of products or services.
Then when I respond by inquiring WHY someone should do business with their company, I often get a blank stare for several seconds followed by reasons they think should be obvious such as, “We have the best products or service” or “We have the best prices” or “We are launching this new product” or “We are expanding nationally”. In reality, many of their competitors could say exactly the same things about their companies. None of those answers get to the core of why people make decisions to do business with a company.
I often follow up by asking them to try this test: Ask several of their employees, including their sales staff, the same question – why someone should do business with our company – and keep a list of the answers. They usually discover that there is little to no consistency in responses. And, that’s a problem – a real problem.
If the owners/managers can’t quickly and confidently recite the SAME reasons why anyone should buy from them, their sales team has differing opinions and their customer services team has even more differing opinions, that company is simply not ready to do any marketing at all. It would be a waste of their money and unethical for us to proceed.
Absent a clear and motivating definition of why, that business must first do a deep dive into the heart of their company and extract the core reason or, if lucky, reasons of what makes them a unique, viable and strong contender to lead the marketplace.
The fact is, many companies can grow and achieve some level of success without knowing their true why. But they will never prosper, lead and succeed the way major name brand companies do every day. Without a clear ‘why’, we must pause creating marketing and PR tools and instead focus on working with them to discover the core reason prospects should come to them and current clients should remain with them.
It’s a revealing, fun, rewarding and very profitable process. If you’d like to know more, drop me a note. I’d love to help you build your mortgage or fintech company and help you rise above your competition.
