Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: G' day, everyone. Welcome to Lubrication Experts. Now today we're going to go a little bit non technical, but equally important, we're going to be talking sales and marketing once again with returning guest Mr. Steve Knapp, co founder of Plan Grow Do.
Now, Steve has been on this podcast before.
I've asked him to return because sales and marketing is an incredibly important part of what we do in our lubes industry.
The technology that we get to talk about on a bi weekly basis on this podcast is amazing, but if it never gets into the hands of or it never gets into the machines of a customer, then it was all for not right. And I think that one of the things that we do very poorly as an industry is actually convey our value and we don't really market ourselves very well. So there is a couple of. There are a couple of different aspects to this. There is like the sales professional side, how do you, how do you sell products? But there's also the kind of the intersection of technical and marketing because we are selling and marketing technical products. And how do you kind of translate that to an audience which might not kind of be as familiar with the technology issue? So we have so many different things to talk about today.
And you know what, this is going to be kind of debate style, right. Because I know that Steve and I have some conflicting views on some of these. But I will preface this with all with Steve is the absolute expert.
So. So Steve, welcome back.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: Hey, thanks, Rafe, very much. Looking forward to this.
Really pleased that we're having robust conversations about things. Sales, sales process, you know, building opportunities and. Yeah, how can we, you know, get. Get better in the lube sector. Because I'm with you. Right. The one thing already we do agree on, which isn't the purpose of this podcast, is that sales and marketing can do better in the lube space.
And storytelling and all the rest of it is definitely one of them.
And I guess just before we jump into it, there is clearly one way to be very provocative as we start podcast recordings and that is to be wearing a Millwall Football Club shirt when you're talking to a West Ham United fan. And I, in case anybody misses, misses that point, I just wanted to put it out there that you've raised the bar and. And now you've got me wild.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I've got. I brought my battle armor. That was the, the purpose put you off your game, right?
No, no, I'm really looking forward to this one. So the first thing I think which would be helpful is there are going to Be a lot of people that are listening to this who are not necessarily from the sales world. Maybe they come from a technical background or maybe they're an end user. So they are the buyer of lubricants as opposed to the seller. So we have this concept in sales where we always talk about this idea of a sales funnel.
Some people I hear it referred to as a sale pipeline.
Right.
These are all kind of mental models for how sales occurs. Right. Because in any sales process you've got to go from not having the thing to having the thing. Right. Fundamentally you're a non buyer to a buyer and how you get there. You know, we come up with these, with these models. So what do you think is the kind of the overarching purpose for having one of those models in the first place?
[00:03:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's an important place to start.
And I think even before we get to that point, you know, there's almost been this dark arts created around, is it a funnel, is it a pipeline? Is it a, you know, is it pipeline management?
You know, and people interchange these, these phrases which, you know, which starts to add layers of complexity or mystery to it.
People that know me and know my work know that I advocate a visual of a funnel.
And before we start, let me just talk about why I, why I like the visual. I like, I like the visual because it suggests, it suggests that you know exactly what you need to put at the top to get the result at the bottom.
So it almost gives you a visual on, on metrics. It gives you a visual on am I doing the right things to get the right outcome?
And it suggests that at the very top, you control the flow that comes in.
Be that you turn on the tap for marketing, be it you run a campaign, they should have a direct impact on the amount that goes at the top.
You follow a flow within the funnel and you accept that you lose some, right? You accept you lose some. Because that could be qualification. We don't fit, we don't have the right match, products, capabilities, service.
So some of those fall out.
We then get into a sales process and maybe we'll come to that later where again you say, hang on a minute, the terms of this deal aren't going to work. So the funnel starts to narrow down the opportunities that you focus on until you reach a point where everything's hunky dory and we go forward and we close deals.
So I like the funnel because it kind of implies control.
It kind of implies you've got, you know, what's coming in you know, how to manage it through and you know what's coming out.
Where a pipeline to me is slightly different. It suggests that there's this continual pressure pushing things through.
And as engineers, you guys will all get this. You're trying to plug the holes of where the pressure is. Right?
And I don't think sales is about that. I think sales is about recognizing there's a heavy part of qualification and you deal with the right opportunities to come through the funnel. So dealing with your question that the complexity in funnels is why I like funnels, because of the shape.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: But I think it's important though, because I mean, from my perspective anyway.
Although it's just a mental model, right? And you could say that we're kind of talking semantics here, you know what the difference between a pipeline versus a funnel, they're all representing some kind of process. I do think it's important though, because it shapes what I found. At least it shapes the psychology of the salesperson, right? Because let's say, for example, if you think of everything as being a pipeline, it's almost like. Yes, because a pipeline implies no losses, right? So in my mental model of a pipeline, it's the same diameter all the way along.
[00:06:47] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: Which implies that I need to do everything I can to ensure that I do not lose any candidates as they kind of move along this pipeline.
Whereas a funnel, you know, if I'm a salesperson, I'm working towards a funnel. I know that, let's say, for example, 100% of what I put in at the top is going to end up in that first layer.
Maybe that shrinks down to 80%, then 60%, 40%, you know, with various processes.
But it is also an exercise in what can I do, right, to kind of push people down that funnel faster as well.
So I do think it's not just semantics, right. There is something to the idea that it shapes the psychology of how we sell 100%.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: And through my time working with sales funnels, which now, now I. Is far too long really. I mean, it's 30 odd years, I've come to believe, and this is a bit of a sad point, but true, that they actually talk to you, right? Funnels, sales funnels talk to you. And you know, they, they guide you. And the reason that they talk to you, unlike, unlike, unlike another visual that you might have, you just described the pipeline, the funnel almost implies that there is a next logical step, right? So it kind of, it kind of implies that if we recognize that there is a next logical step in the Process.
There are things that I need to have done and there are things that my customer needs to have done before we're ready to move.
And often in the absence of a funneling approach to sales, we end up creating confusion not only in our messaging, but in our customers receive the messaging now, almost to the point that you can help drive your effectiveness and efficiencies at each of these stages by understanding, hey, am I any good at qualification?
Yeah. Do I need to get better? Look, I'm getting 100 in to your point earlier, but my percentage goes down to 10.
Is there something here that's telling me either I'm attracting the wrong things at the start so I change my marketing messaging or my qualification filter and criteria or skills isn't where it needs to be.
So all of a sudden the funnel is talking to me, if I'm prepared to look into it and listen.
Now, one of the, one of the things that has kind of been created around sales funnels and sales processes is how SaaS tools have come in and over KPI'd the process.
So sales managers start looking at KPIs and they're measuring, you know, not only hit rates, but cycle times, agitation of funnel. And it's turned into this almost academic exercise that almost hamstrung sales professionals in really understanding what matters the most. And what matters the most to me is that whatever you put into the sales funnel, you use it to become more effective, more efficient. Learn where you're strong, learn where you need help, learn what marketing offers are working, learn which ones aren't, and adapt as you go forward.
Because ultimately, if whatever you use as your sales process and the funnel as a representation, as I say, is the one I advocate, it should give you control, it should give you confidence.
And out of that you're getting, you know, results.
So for me, it is important. It isn't just semantics.
The funnel, the funnel suggests we're in control of what's going in the top.
We're in control of our filtering and our phasing, and we know what we're going to get out of the bottom.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: Okay, now, as you know, I have some thoughts on the funnel, but we're going to leave that till a little bit later.
[00:11:18] Speaker B: Sneaky.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: Now, what I think would be helpful is that you've just talked about kind of the way that customers progress and the way that customers want to buy.
One thing that you've been doing along with the UKLA is this by Revolution survey, which is kind of talking to customers and saying, well, how do you want to buy or how do you buy?
And I think that that's a huge missing piece in a lot of lubricants. Let's say people on the sell side is that we are selling, not in a way that our buyers want to buy. So could you please help us with what have you uncovered so far? You know, what are the kind of industries that you've been talking to? What are the sort of key insights that you found?
[00:12:05] Speaker B: Yeah, and it's a good thing you bring that up because truly understanding how your buyer buys is not an easy task. Right. Because again, you get the academic view about, you know, what are you buying, why are you buying it, how does it help you? Okay, we get all of that, and there's probably, you know, some pretty effective marketing campaigns from companies that build on. Build on that, maybe Personas of people. I get that.
But actually, when you ask buyers of lubricants across the lube supply chain. Right. So not just finished lubes across its breadth, additives and all the way through, what are your habits and behaviors?
You know, what is it like when you go to work? What do you do? How do you do this buying of lubricant stuff? How important is it to you? How much time do you spend on it?
You start to get a slightly different outcome than you see projected from the corporate brands in their marketing.
And the research is still ongoing. So please, people, contribute. You know, get your customers to contribute, get your sellers to contribute, get your buyers to contribute. You know, just think about how the buyer revolution can help continue to shape our industry.
There are thousands of data points, hundreds of responses. So it's going very well. So what I'm going to share is pretty robust, if not challenging, to how some people might receive it, because how we've always done things right is how we always will do it because we've been successful.
But I think it's. Let me share maybe four bits. I mean, there's loads, but four that I think might be relevant and connected.
75% of buyers, 75% make decisions before they reach out to the seller.
And they use digital resources to do that research.
75%.
That is quite a significant shift into how many organizations believe their salespeople should be helping sellers make decisions.
Organizations believe that sending their sales manager, sales rep to have a physical meeting with a buyer will help them make a decision.
Well, buyers are telling us that's not what we value.
We value you providing us with digital content that aids our research by implication. Now, your digital content should talk directly to the problems you solve and how you uniquely help that buyer solve their problems.
Digital content in the lube space is average.
It focuses more on awards, years in service, the fleet, their blending capacity.
Now none of that at a tactical level solves a buyer's problems because interestingly, we found the one thing that they value more than anything in a buyer seller relationship is, is the application knowledge of the seller.
The things that I cannot easily find out myself. So let me just join those two things together because they're kind of counterintuitive.
What it's saying is I will validate you and your capabilities before I invite you in.
Then when I invite you in, your job is to validate my decision and teach me something that I didn't already know that adds value.
So it changes the moment in time when a seller becomes important to a buyer.
So the most valuable meetings that a seller will have with a buyer is when the buyer has made their decision already.
And you can influence something like a value sell or solve the problem with a creative solution.
So it's a change, right? It's a change in when a seller becomes important in the buyer's buying journey.
Because my decision is made. Stop trying to convince me by sending your salespeople to meet me. That's, that's one of the big takeaways, another big takeaway.
And this is different from when I used to sell, right? There used to be buying departments, used to be senior buyer, head of buyer, buyer for lubricants, buyer for safety pins, buyer for everything.
Now the buying role, not only is it aggregated that they buy almost everything, but a buyer is also responsible for health and safety or sustainability.
So I'm multi hatted, I'm multi product line.
Therefore my room for buying lubricants has diminished.
My capacity to become the expert in buying lubricants is lessened.
So your opportunity as a seller again through your digital content is to make it easy me to buy.
Do we do that? Are we really, really thinking about that?
And I think that starts to become a very, very critical part. We've always known that there are more and more people in the decision making process in lubricants functions department.
But now your buyer has got a tiny percentage of it mind share to the products that you're selling. So if they've not responded to your email, they've not answered your quotation, they're not calling you back.
Well, you're probably fighting against how they want to receive information, but you're clearly only a small percent of the mind share of their job.
So I think that's the second of the four to share.
I think the third is, really connects to the two.
92% of buyers of finished lubricants. Lubricants across the piece are active on LinkedIn, not just on LinkedIn, active on LinkedIn. And in this case, active means engaging, searching, reading.
Now, if I knew that there was a.
If I knew that there was a place where 92% of my buyers were hanging out, consuming content to make 75% of their decision, there's probably not many other places I would be in nurturing and developing relationships.
[00:19:44] Speaker A: Maybe just a kind of a point to highlight about that because there might be a few people who say, well, I know my buyers and I never see them post anything or like anything or, you know, I've never seen them active on LinkedIn. So just so you know, LinkedIn did a whole bunch of research, this was going back about five years ago to look at people's activity because of course they're, you know, they're a social media company, so they track everything you do, whether for better or worse. And they, they basically found that approximately 80, I think it was 80 to 85% of people were what they call lurkers. Right? So they never engage with content. They never, like, they never, they never try and connect, they'll never repost, none of that. But they are constantly looking at the content. And so what they have found, and this has been my experience, sometimes as well, people will come up to you and say, oh, I've been following you for like two years now, and you think I've never seen your name like you, you've not liked a single post. How's that, how's that even possible? And it's because there's like 80% of people that never engage. And in fact, LinkedIn has optimized their algorithm for those people. So once upon a time, it used to be all about engagement. Now, whether posts get boosted or not is based on a metric called dwell time. So it's basically just how much time do people spend on your post? Because that's an indication of how interested they're in, regardless of whether they, like, repost all the rest of that stuff.
Anyway.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: Sorry, No, I mean, I think that's really important because it's one of the behaviors we see in salespeople. I posted nothing happened, Nobody did anything. I'm not doing it again.
Well, in reality, you know, consistency matters.
And I think this is a critical point.
Lurkers, I mean, I'm sure they could come up with a nicer word. It sounds almost seedy, right?
But I think this lurkers concept is something to recognize in modern day prospecting.
You know, we've got to kind of get over ourselves that we're not going to get that instant gratification.
It is a slightly longer game. It is nurturing, nurturing a holding pattern of people that could become a customer at one moment in time. And you're nurturing them through content that you know is educating them because that's how they want to buy.
So you have to kind of accept this lurking piece and a funny comment on the dwell time. It might be why some of you, when you read your post, get really frustrated that people put one word after another word after another because they just keep gaming the system and they want you to stay on that post to read that post longer and longer and longer. So you're right, Rafe.
It's a game in itself, but actually probably one of the most important games that's out there at the moment. If 92% of my buyers are there. Wow.
[00:22:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: Yeah. And then the fourth one, just to share. And this is really, this is really, really important. You know, really, I can't, I can't emphasize just how critical this is.
0% of buyers look forward to engaging with corporate messages.
0. 0.
So they'll read them because they're in their feed.
But in the absence of what they want, 66% of buyers would and do engage with personalized messaging.
That's not even personal messaging. That's personalized. So let the difference personal.
Personal is something about my life, about my day and about what I do. Right.
Personalized is taking that company post and making it relevant to your network.
You magnify from 0 to 66% just by taking the time to put your perspective on something.
And please don't make your perspective. We've got something to sell. Do you want to buy some?
Think about it.
But if we are therefore, through personalization of our content, able to reach 92% of our buyers who make 75% of their decisions via digital channels, please tell me a better way to start filling the top of your sales funnel.
So they will be the four things I'd share.
And I think the research is showing us so much more.
And it isn't all digital. I've already pointed that out. They value the salespeople, but knowing when they value them matters the most. And you've got to re engineer your sales process to recognize this.
[00:24:36] Speaker A: So that kind of suggests that we need to be Doing a lot more activity at what once upon a time would have been called the top of the funnel. Right. So.
And. And in some respects, that's kind of more been the domain of the marketing function than the sales function in the past. Right. Was to develop all this collateral, this material that can be out there kind of working for us and explaining our value and what we do in the products we sell, what, you know, what we can do for our customers, that kind of needs to be kicked into overdrive to make the salesperson's job easier. You know, it's almost like the job of the salesperson is now just to convert.
Right. As a, you know, they're basically, in basketball terms, they're being given a layup.
I don't know how many sports terms I can come up with here.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: But.
[00:25:26] Speaker A: But it, you know, that. That would suggest that we're weighing a lot more heavily on the. On the marketing function. Is that, is that a fair statement?
[00:25:33] Speaker B: Well, I think where it works, it's the reverse of that.
So I think those traditional sellers that are hanging around for marketing to do their job are the ones that are probably on a road to extinction.
Right. So marketing have a role without doubt.
The brand messaging has a place, without doubt.
But personalization and personal content matters more in building a holding pattern at that top of the sales funnel.
So a traditional seller, if you take a buyer's journey, a buyer's journey goes from unaware.
They're unaware of who you are, aware. You've kind of popped up in their subconscious conscious feed or in a physical space.
So they're aware of you into the consideration, into the decision.
A traditional seller is hanging around at that consideration phase, right? They're hanging around for all the work to be done.
They're waiting around for the buyer to call them in to say, I've loved what I've seen out there, take my order. Order takers, right?
If I was to look at their sales funnel, it would almost be bare.
Because what they're not doing is focusing where a modern seller should. And actually, a modern seller today is as much a marketeer as they are a salesperson. They're as much responsible for their personal branding and their lead development as the marketing team, if not more.
If I know that 66% of my buyers want my opinion, they want my perspective, they zero of them want to engage with my branding.
Which way is going to be more effective to create top of funnel activity other than to personalize my outreach?
And it's almost like a slight perverse behavior. We see in sales organizations. Right. Because if I was to tell you that there's this invention out there that gives you access to 92% of your market to influence 75% of their decision, and all you got to do is pick it up and personalize the phone call.
Right. You'd invest in training like no one's business.
But just because I say it's digital content, we kind of have this almost barrier up against it being valid.
So what do we need to validate? The fact that actually a seller or somebody responsible for business development to make 50 connections in a month of their ideal client of people whose problems they you can neatly solve. That they're able to engage with content that teaches them things. Things. Able to direct message them and share with them things that help them.
Yet we don't validate that.
Therefore, if I was leading a sales team right now, my goodness gracious me, that top of funnel, I would be doubling down on how do we build our digital footprint and our network to absolutely own the top of the funnel.
And the top of the funnel is an area that I call suspects. These are people that you believe, that you believe should want or need your product or service.
They're not prospects folks. Right. They're not qualified, so please don't sell to them. These are, to use the phrase earlier lurkers. These are people that will be just consuming content.
Don't measure your effectiveness from suspects, but recognize them as great things because these are the people that you feed with insight and information.
This podcast is going out to a bunch of suspects.
I don't know who you are.
I'm not going to phone you up. I'm not going to direct message you.
You might consume this content and go, hey, that guy knew a little bit about the sales process.
And you might start looking at my other content.
You might one day reach out. So this top of funnel is absolutely vital, Raf. And I think we shouldn't lose the role of the seller, the role of the business development manager.
This is the critical part, because it's here that 75% of my decision is made.
Play the game where the game's being played.
[00:30:30] Speaker A: Yep. Now that. That makes a lot of sense. All right, so the takeaway there that I had anyway was, was actually, yes, we do need to place a lot more emphasis on the top of the funnel.
But salespeople need to be involved at every stage of that process, whether it is engaging, personalizing, or sharing some of that content and building their network so that their network sees all of that, which makes them more Engaged when they get to the bottom sections of the funnel.
[00:31:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: Now, and this is where we get to have our stash.
Because I would contend that again, we're going back to mental models. Right. And there is always a process from getting someone who is not a buyer to making a purchase.
And we, what we said was that the idea of funnels and pipelines and these mental models, it's not just semantics, it's shaping kind of like the psychology.
I encountered this idea a couple of years ago when Google published a whole bunch of research to say that consumer buying behavior has changed. And now they call it the messy middle. Basically, people go into their version of it looks like a washing machine. So. So buyers come in because they want something or they need something, and then they have a completely unpredictable path to how they get to the purchase. And like you've said, you know, this marries up with a lot of what you've said because it's their consuming content on socials. I have a problem with the word content, but we'll get that to. We'll get to that later. Yeah. So they're consuming information on social media, but they might also hear things from friends and family. They might see an ad on a bus. You know, they're putting, they're doing their own research. They're going to blogs, they're looking at rating websites, and they're kind of putting all of that information together. And maybe there's an ad that just kind of hits them at the right time. You know, with a sale, they come into some cash. That's the trigger for the purchase.
Interestingly, Gartner has kind of put together a very similar model for the B2B buying process.
So just in terms of, like, changing seller psychology, I, I kind of find it a bit more helpful, actually, to think of the funnel as being inverted.
And let's say I, I once used the word pyramid, but then it seems like I'm selling an mlm. So that's the, that's a terrible word for it. And words. And words matter. So let's call it a mountain. And the good thing about the mountain analogy, and I'm going to ask you to poke holes in it, right, because that's what, that's, that's what you're here for, is with the mountain, it's not just who we put into the top of the funnel.
People can come from all around and they can decide to climb the mountain for themselves. Right. So sometimes it's not any action that we take. These people just turn up, they look at Mount Kilimanjaro and go, I'm going to climb that mfo, right?
And, and in that role, it is the buyer who is, is giving the impetus, right? So it's. It's the buyer who is kind of making the decisions to progress up the mountain further and further.
And if we were to take the mountain analogy a little bit further, the role of the salesperson is basically to be the Sherpa, right. To make that buyer's journey as easy as possible. So whether that is.
So in some circumstances, right, the role of the Sherpa is just to get the hell out of the way, right? If Alex Honnold, the guy who climbed El Capitan without ropes, right. If he wants to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and he wants to go straight to the top, don't. Don't get in that guy's way. Don't touch him, right. Let him climb to the top of the mountain. Versus there are a lot of other people who want to go to want to do hand holding. The other thing that I think helps with biopsychology in having this mountain analogy is that people can take backward steps on the mountain, but that doesn't mean that they're disqualified from purchasing. So in a funnel, the only direction is down. Stuff doesn't come, doesn't go up in a funnel very much. Right. So with a mountain, you might go to Camp 2.
No, no, I'm uncomfortable with this. I need to descend to a lower level and get more comfortable with my buyer's journey before I try for the summit.
Right. And that sort of builds in all of the stuff that Google's been talking about. About, hey, we need to provide these people with as much information as possible. But ultimately it's them that are making the decisions when we're not able to carry them up to the top.
Now, let it be known I am not a sales professional.
And so I've just come up with this because I find it helpful.
Steve, what's wrong with it?
[00:35:20] Speaker B: Well, I think from a seller, it's the wrong. It's the wrong, wrong model.
And I'll take some time to try and work through it.
Google are right.
There is a messy middle, okay? There is a messy middle. And we have to accept that. And it's a good thing because what it's saying is that buyers are omnichannel. They're across. They're across all the platforms. They're consuming content wherever they can.
And they'll go check you out, right? They'll go check you out up to 12 pieces of content could be consumed.
Question 1.
How active is a sales professional currently on any digital channel? How hard are they making it for buyers to find them? And I'd say that's maybe one of the first, the first places to consider.
And I think there's a step here to recognize what Gartner and Google describe well is the buyer's buying journey and the buyer's process. What they're not naturally doing is overlaying the role and purpose of a seller and the sales team.
So this unaware, so out of market, unaware, aware consideration model that I use over here at Plangro do recognizes that in the aware phase, I could be jumping all over the place. And I accept that.
What a seller probably needs to recognize is, you know, what are the markers? What are the things that are the big clues that this is a buyer that's consuming content and raises the seller's awareness.
That doesn't mean you've downloaded an article. Do you want to buy some?
It just means that in your conscious awareness, there is a buyer that's very active consuming your content.
This could indeed feed the next piece of content you generate.
Right. We've written an article for one person to see because we saw the problems that they were searching.
So how buyers buy is important, but it's buyer behavior.
And what I'm really looking at is just being a bit careful because how sellers sell really matters.
One of the risks if we take that mountain visual, it suggests that I'm working at what's beneath the point. Right?
I'm working what's beneath the point. It means I'm a little bit myopic or blind to what's coming in at the top.
And where we find sellers that just operate in a mountain visual, it generates this phenomenon we see called feast and famine.
That they're busy at one time, they're quiet in the next period. They're busy in one time, they're quiet in the next period. Because what they're not doing is keeping their eye on the thing that really matters most in a modern seller's job. And that's nurturing a holding pattern at the top of the sales funnel.
By implication, what the mounting is doing is probably just identifying the opportunities or that I'm working on, not the opportunities I'm creating.
So in a very simple view, that's where I think the mountain falls down.
What I also push back on is the fact that opportunities in a funnel model can't go back up. Now I get liquid, won't go back up. Right. I Get that. You have to get your lubrication head out here.
A good sales coach and manager, or even a good seller, let's be fair, would recognize if something changes, I might need to take this opportunity back up a phase.
Now what could that be folks? The buyer changes, the budget changes, the opportunity of the application has moved to something else. The decision making process has altered.
So a good coach, a good seller is tracking the opportunities through the funnel but fully cognizant that something could change to either move it back.
And that has to be part of sales funnel management.
And that's the stuff that we coach and we train. This is a skill that's being lost in the businesses that we see because they're jumping into driving through KPIs through CRMs without really understanding what the sales funnel brings.
So I think what this is all about is ensuring that the reputation of your funnel not only shows the opportunities you're developing, but also the opportunities that you are progressing. And I think this really, really is a sort of subtlety in, in the two. But we can't ignore the fact that there is a messy middle. Right? We have to accept the fact that we are creating content for people to consume.
And I tell you what Rafe, if you're lucky enough that you fire one shot and you get that one customer. Yeah. Let them go to the. Let them climb. Let them climb quick. Don't stand in their way. Don't tell them you haven't read this document. Don't tell them you haven't downloaded this article.
Help them buy. Because actually what should be happening in here is your knowledge of how your buyer likes to buy. We've already spoken about that earlier in data from buyerev the model. I talk about how buyers buy and the messy middle from Google and the Gartner report.
Don't mix and try to over complicate that with how you need to sell, but make sure the two things do connect.
Buyers that are unaware of who you are should be receiving your top of funnel content.
Buyers who are aware of who you are should be receiving your content. That is educating them.
Buyers that are ready to consider a purchase should be consuming your content, that is telling them how to place orders.
You have to mix and match your content to match how your buyers like to buy. So I'm going to stay robust with my visualization of the funnel because I think it drives the right sales behavior and I think that's where we need to take the conversation to into the businesses. Your job is to create content that educates customers that Helps them make their decision that when you go to meet them physically, you're just validating their choice. That to me is where the magic happens.
[00:42:28] Speaker A: Interesting, interesting. Okay, so if we progress the conversation onto social media, because you've already talked about, we're having to develop the kinds of. Okay, use that word again. Content.
The reason I don't like this word is because content is just like, it's just the stuff that is inside a package. Right? The word just implies, it's just like, just stuff. And even the way that the, that like Netflix and Disney use this word, content, we just like need more, more, more content. And there's nothing, there's no talk about the quality of the, the, the, the media that we're, we're consuming.
So let, I don't know, let's call it social media assets or some, I don't know, there's gotta be a better word for it.
So let's say for example, I'm completely, let's talk about top of the funnel.
We're just trying to make people aware of us, what we do, the kinds of problems we solve.
What are the kinds of materials. There you go. There's another word for it. What are the kinds of materials that you found have been kind of most effective?
You've already talked about some stuff that definitely doesn't work, right? So like posting updates about your company's Christmas party.
No one cares. Right.
Versus what, what is the kind of stuff that you find is resonating with, with buyers.
[00:43:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, I mean, content. Yeah, I mean, you're right. I get, I get what you're saying.
But within the, within that backdrop of content, certain types of content connect more to a busy individual. Right.
So buyers are telling us interestingly, they consume content more outside of work than in work. That's an interesting, that's an interesting point. They're scrolling.
So the act of your social media activity fundamentally is to stop me scrolling. Right.
So how do you do that?
The buyers are telling us that it's predominantly a image based break in their pattern versus a text break. So that could be a photo, that could be an application, that could be a video.
So image.
Now most people that I know on this phone are watching through, on this podcast, are watching through a digital device.
They've probably all got telephones which all have cameras.
Yet there's this reticence to use them in a way that creates the most valuable piece of content and that's showing your buyers how you help people just like them in your daily work.
So images is where I'd. Is where I'd hover first.
The second thing that matters to buyers is your opinion.
So engaging on other people's posts with comments, your perspective, your perspective, your commentary is valued by people that are lurking as much as. As fresh content, which is quite an interesting piece.
So that really matters.
If you see something that is relevant to the industry, add your perspective, add your content context, because it matters. And from that you could maybe create a post.
So there is a real thing about visual images, there is a real thing about personal sharing, commenting and context.
And then there's this piece really of just about owning something.
Owning something.
So what do you stand for? You know, what matters to you? What are you going to repeat about. So if I think about LinkedIn as a platform. Right, right. Let's think about LinkedIn as a platform.
It has the ability not only for you to build a holding pattern of ideal clients, you know, suspects.
It also gives you the ability to create newsletters for free within the platform.
I challenge anybody who's watching this podcast.
Anybody.
Which one of you creates a newsletter for your ideal clients that you send out monthly through LinkedIn.
It's free, yet you don't do it.
Now, you might be thinking, well, no, I've got nothing to say. Well, I think the problem's at your end because you've probably got lots to say. You just haven't thought about how you're going to say it. So, Raf, for me, this is the thing about content.
It's about being prepared to see it as a valuable asset in the nurturing of prospective clients versus something that you feel you have to do because it's been added to my job. So, yeah, that's where I would. That's where I would hover around this. This point.
[00:48:04] Speaker A: Yeah, interesting. So, I mean, what I kind of take away from that message was basically, you need to put the social back in social media.
So, so come. Like turning up to social media and acting like a corporate robot is going to turn everyone off. But if you have your own opinion and you have your own story and you have your own perspective and the context that you can put on top of, even if it's on top of other people's stuff, that is what's resonating with buyers. So it's, it's kind of like showing up as a person instead of as a. As a company. And to be honest, I mean, LinkedIn itself, the way the algorithm is built, people who have run corporate pages would notice that posts on personal accounts have way wider reach. Than they do on corporate accounts. And that's primarily because people want to connect with other people. Right. They're not interested in necessarily connecting as much with. With. With brands and corporations.
[00:49:08] Speaker B: So you're right. That's a great way of saying it. Put the social back in because, you know, you're right. We work with organizations and when we get them to analyze hits on their websites, guess which website page is visited the most. Meet the team.
Right.
[00:49:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:24] Speaker B: So. So you're right. Yeah. If we think about the tradition, a lubricant industry, which is solid, robust, built on relationships, and people say, you know, you'll get a room of sellers and they'll say people buy from people.
Right. Yet they're fearful to be people digitally.
Now, I get that fear.
I get that fear from a perspective that there's apprehension around branding, around corporate risk, around. I get that.
But really, we've got to get over that because your buyers will ignore you and that will make digital content irrelevant. It will make your role be more hanging around at the consideration phase of a buyer's journey. And ultimately, if we don't embrace digital as organizations, our buyers are telling us they want you to be there.
It's only going to end up one way, and it's not a happy ending.
[00:50:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that feels like an awesome place to end it.
My resolution out of this podcast is that I need to start a newsletter because I personally don't have one and I've never written one. And it's a good point. LinkedIn actually does give you that functionality for free. Free. So, yeah, maybe I need to get on that. So that's. That's come my resolution.
Stay tuned for the lubrication expert newsletter coming up in. Give me two weeks at least.
No, Steve, as always, pleasure to talk.
You know, there. There are very few people in our industry that, well, number one, are passionate about lubricant sales, but number two, also know what they're talking about.
So it's. It's always a pleasure. And yeah, we'd love to have you back basically, anytime.
[00:51:25] Speaker B: Nice one, dude. Always great to meet you and chat with you.
