Your Prospects Have Split Personalities – Your Website Should Too

Minds On builds a lot of websites and I look at countless more every day. Far too many of them are exactly the same. They put their product right in your face and shout about how wonderful it is and why you need every single feature they provide. It’s jarring. I’ve also talked to a lot of business owners who are frustrated with how poorly their website is at creating new sales. They just can’t understand it. It’s an especially big problem for B2B sales. “Why isn’t my website bringing in new prospects while my competitors look like they’re raking them in?”

I can give you the secret: it’s because your prospect isn’t a single person. They don’t have the same interests and the same problems. Even inside a single company — which many think of as a single prospect — there are many different individuals who are part of the decision-making process, who have different perspectives and things that they care about. If you are putting a single message out for a single ideal buyer, you might be missing a connection with all the other decision-makers inside an organization.

Let’s say you have a software product to sell. You can talk about all of the great features and benefits it provides. That’s great; you’ve connected with the end user. But, are they the ones who make the buying decisions? What about the technical staff that has to install and maintain it AND integrate it with all of their other systems? What about the CFO and those people who are only interested in the costs and the ROI? And, what about the internal training and support staff? If you’re not talking to all of them, you could be missing out on that key individual who can decide to buy your product or decide to buy a solution from your competitor.

Virtually every product category or industry has an entire cast of characters who potentially want in on the decision. You’ve got to know how to talk with all of them. Does your website do that?

But, how do you talk to all of these individuals without making your site completely schizophrenic? You’ve got to create a funnel. I’ll talk more about that in detail in my next post.

Is your website creating new prospects and driving new sales? Does it speak to the complete range of personalities and individuals inside a single prospect organization? Give me a call or drop me a line. I’d be happy to show you how we’ve done just that for our customers and talk with you about how you can do the same thing and turn your site into an active part of your sales effort.

Tweet Your Job Postings and Get Better Results

The last few weeks have been very busy here at Minds On. New business is flooding in and existing clients are busy, too. It’s all good news. But, that also means that I have to accelerate our hiring. I decided to try a little experiment this time and instead of posting job openings on an online site like Monster.com, I simply tweeted about them.

It worked great! It’s just another sign that new marketing approaches can bear fruit if used smartly.

Not only did I get a lot of responses, but I got those responses through people I know and trust, which puts the applicants further up my trust scale to start with. I also received rapid responses and ended up scheduling five interviews the same day that I had sent the tweet. Just one little 140-character message that I had sent, which my connected network passed on and their networks also echoed, and I’ve gotten a handful of very interesting possible new employees - all in one day. That’s amazing!

I also use LinkedIn to spread the word and I’m finding that it is a very interesting resource. Not only can I spread the word rapidly through my network, but I can also see who is interested and who has taken a look at my profile. That is VERY interesting because it’s not just job applicants; it’s other companies that are interested in what I’m up to and companies that are potential customers.

In the past, it’s taken weeks to get a list of qualified applicants. But I just did it in a few hours and without breaking a sweat. When I narrow the list down, I’m betting I’ll be able to check their references more completely by using LinkedIn and Facebook. I think this is a very promising approach. I’ll write more about it after I’ve finished this round of hiring.

It’s a good idea to let your network know when you are hiring. It shows the world you’re growing and it helps to bring you great talent that you might not have known about through the conventional approach. Give me a call or drop me a line and we can talk about how you can use the latest marketing venues to accelerate your marketing and sales efforts.