Our very own Tim Riesterer is featured in a recent article, “Keeping Up with the Connected: 3 Steps for Marketing to the Millennial Generation” in 1to1 Magazine. The article provides tips for marketing to a generation that is intimately connected to technology, which makes them difficult to reach. Tim discusses why using images and videos when marketing to Millenials is a way to engage their notoriously short attention spans.
Read the complete article in 1to1 Magazine.
Before you read ahead, take a minute to watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTOPkBDMdfw
Not many people can hear the theme songs of Disney movies without smiling from ear to ear or even choking up a bit. That’s what Disney does. Disney creates an experience for visitors that no other amusement park can match. From the moment you walk through the gates, you become wrapped in the Disney world… from the themed villages, to the ambiance, to the costumed characters. You’re living the Disney story, taken instantly back to the happy feelings of your childhood when imagination ruled and good always prevailed.
Our CEO, Joe Terry, recently took his daughters to Disneyland on a family getaway. As Joe walked down Main Street, hand-in-hand with his girls, he saw something that shocked him out of the Disney story. An employee, clearly just off work but still wearing his Disney uniform, walked past him listening to music on his iPod.
Just a normal person with headphones. Nothing out of the ordinary. In the real world, you wouldn’t have even noticed him.
But in the world of Disney, it broke the story.
Your company also creates a story for your customers… from the moment a prospect hits the website to the conversations they have with your salespeople.
Just as with Disney, your story should be recognizable, unique to you, and one that you can call your own. But often, somewhere between the version of your story that marketing wants to tell, and the one the field tries to sell, something breaks.
Why? Your existing story could fail to inspire passion, causing your employees to struggle rallying around it. It could be translated poorly into your website, campaigns, and field selling tools. It could be fragmented as hundreds of salespeople scratch their heads and try to translate your 30,000 foot message into something they can explain to their prospects.
So ask yourself… is your entire organization living your company’s story? If not, where is it breaking down? And is the story they’re telling the one you really want told?
Congratulations to Tim Riesterer, our chief strategy and marketing officer, on being named one of seven “CMOs you should watch in 2013.” The list, which was compiled by Amanda Batista, former Managing Editor of DemandGen Report and eloqua guest blogger, features progressive CMOs who are using social, mobile and traditional marketing tools to drive sales. Tim was recognized as a proponent of marketing through storytelling.
http://blog.eloqua.com/chief-marketing-officer/
As we well know, persuading people isn’t about a charming personality or having some indefinable, mysterious power. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal, “The Science Behind Persuading People,” talks about the scientific explanations for how people are influenced. As behavior expert Steve Martin, author of Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, says, “Influence isn’t an art. There’s over 60 years of research and evidence that shows how we can effectively move people. My advice would be to learn the science.”
Some of the norms discussed in the article are fundamental to Corporate Visions’ tools and training. These include:
Click here to view the full article and read more about the book:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324669104578203461416235022.html?mod=e2tw
We’re excited to announce that Corporate Visions has acquired WhiteboardSelling®, a sales enablement tools company. This move expands Corporate Visions’ business and strengthens its reputation as the leader in helping companies differentiate their marketing and sales conversations.
Joe Terry, Corporate Visions’ CEO, said: “This acquisition is a significant part of our strategy to grow both organically and inorganically. It also expands our global presence with talent, experience and clients. And, it continues to solidify our leadership position in the marketing and sales messaging, tools and skills category.”
Corey Sommers and David Jenkins co-founded WhiteboardSelling in 2007 with a mission to help marketing and salespeople use hand-drawn visual stories instead of documents and slides to sell expensive solutions to educated buyers in competitive markets. To date, the company has created over 500 whiteboards for more than 50 companies and trained more than 50,000 salespeople around the world.
“By becoming a part of Corporate Visions team, we have the opportunity to accelerate the growth of our whiteboarding concepts and capitalize on the intense interest in these solutions significantly faster than we could on our own,” said Sommers. “Our solution aligns perfectly with Corporate Visions’ focus on differentiating customer conversations because it helps marketing develop messages and tools that the field will actually use to tell a better story. It also gives salespeople a simple, repeatable process so they can gain greater confidence that they can create a differentiated experience in the buying cycle.”
The effectiveness of visual storytelling is rooted in brain research, which reveals that a person’s “old brain,” is responsible for making decisions; however, that part of the brain does not have the capacity for language. In order to get customers and prospects to want to change and to choose your company or solution, you need to leverage the power of visual storytelling, which is exactly what the WhiteboardSelling solution aims to accomplish.
“88 percent of executive-level buyers believe it’s important that a sales pitch is framed as a conversation, as opposed to a prepared PowerPoint presentation,” said Scott Santucci, principal analyst and research director at Forrester Research. “WhiteboardSelling’s methodological approach for helping salespeople deliver more interactive conversations is a powerful complement to Corporate Visions’ messages, tools and skills offerings. Whiteboarding provides a proven approach to presenting complex and abstract information in a simple, concrete way, which drives a more natural sales conversation.”
Because the WhiteboardSelling solution creates visual tools and teaches sales teams how to use visual storytelling to engage customers and prospects in a compelling way, it will become an integral part of Corporate Visions’ customer conversation system moving forward.
“WhiteboardSelling is a perfect fit with Corporate Visions’ focus on differentiating customer conversations,” said Tim Riesterer, chief strategy and marketing officer for Corporate Visions. “Whiteboarding is really a process of building differentiated messaging, putting it in a differentiated tool, and differentiating the delivery of that story, whether it’s over the Web or in person.”
By leveraging the WhiteboardSelling solution and the power of visual storytelling, Corporate Visions customers will be able to more effectively loosen the “status quo,” otherwise known as “no decision,” when they are trying to create an opportunity. It can also help more clearly distinguish the differences in their solution from a competitor’s and it can better visualize the implementation process or business case when trying to close a deal.
The acquisition was officially completed on August 30, 2012. For more information about what this acquisition means for the market, please view this Brainshark presentation.
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You’ve probably heard one of Henry Ford’s best quotes, “If I had asked the people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” CEO.com recently published an infographic on why great CEOs often rely on their ‘gut’ instead of voice-of-the-customer research and market data to make their most game-changing decisions.
Here’s why this infographic matters to you.
Marketers, Your Customers are Probably Wrong
The New Coke story is a classic example of the danger of weighting what your customers think they need (“Yes, this tastes good”) over their subconscious emotional anchors (But it’s just not Coke).
Your prospects are firmly, emotionally anchored in their status quo. They don’t know what they need to do to take their organization to the next level… so don’t ask them. Tell them. The burden of proof of why they need to do something different rests squarely on your shoulders. Come to your prospects armed with new insight (something they didn’t know about a problem they didn’t even know they had), wrapped in the context of why it’s going to be deeply painful if they don’t move quickly.
Salespeople, Bewitch the Old Brain
Executive personality types can’t be seduced by data dumps. They make decisions with their gut — their overall impression of you, their judgment on whether your company will prove to be a strategic partner to them, and the value of your product. Then, if necessary, they’ll justify that decision with facts. So if you want to message for a decision, you need to get past the gatekeeper of their neocortex (which analyzes your data) and appeal to their Old Brain, which makes the impulse call. Techniques taught in Power Messaging like creating contrast, setting context, and Big Pictures are meant to stimulate their instincts and win their ‘gut’ over.
Attend the Marketing and Sales Messaging Conference
Creating and delivering insightful, compelling messaging that drives for a decision is the entire focus of the 2012 Marketing and Sales Messaging Conference. This event is your opportunity to tap into the experience of companies like Wells Fargo, Lawson Software and Centurylink, as well as get inspired from keynote speakers Billy Beane (of Moneyball) and Ben Zander (Conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra).
The conference is filling up at 4X the pace of last year… so sign up now, and bring your colleagues. And to create some urgency for your Old Brain…here’s how much time you have left to register to get early bird pricing of $399.
Imagine… you’re sitting in a large, hot conference room at the opening session of your company’s annual sales kick-off. The room is filled to the brim with 500 of your sales peers, chatting nervously. The CEO and your executive team are waiting in the front row.
One of your sales leaders takes the stage, carrying a hat. In that hat are the names of all the salespeople sitting around you. He reaches in, pulls out a tiny slip of paper and says, “[Insert your name here], come on up to the stage. Here’s a marker and a flipchart. Now show us our new sales message.”
Sweating yet?
When one of our clients told us that’s exactly how she’s rolling out their new Distinct Point of View, we felt a pang of sympathy for her sales force. We go through a similar exercise every year at our own kick-off, and I can assure you it’s the single most terrifying day of our careers. It’s also the most empowering one.
Why? Because without the psychological security blanket of a pretty, prepared PowerPoint, you have no choice but to deliver your message as a conversation with your prospects. 88% of your executive buyers want you step out from behind the projector. They don’t want to be talked at… they want to be talked with. They don’t want to sit back and listen to you sound smart. They want to have a conversation that makes them smarter. For the conversations where you really have to nail it… when you have to set yourself apart from your competitors, and influence your prospects to do something different… be armed and ready to ditch the deck.
Are you ready to turn on the lights and start a dialogue? Watch this short instant webinar to learn more:
Further reading:
Strip Out Complexity and Confusion with Big Pictures
(Corporate Visions)
We have Met the Enemy and He is PowerPoint
(NY Times)
Complexity in your message keeps your customers from buying. Whenever there’s complexity, there’s confusion. And, confusion slows down the decision-making process.
A confused buyer cannot buy. So, you need to make it simple for your prospect to make a decision. How? Have you ever noticed that when someone says, “I don’t understand,” someone else gets up and draws a picture?
One of the great tools that you have in your messaging toolkit is a concept called the Big Picture. But, just knowing why pictures are important doesn’t mean they will be executed well. Look at this picture below to see what can happen when a big picture goes wrong.
OK, OK. I know this was drawn by a grade-schooler. But, it still makes a great point. Big pictures are powerful tools that can have tremendous impact. Just make sure it’s the impact you want.
You need to be aware of how your customers’ strategic agenda, responsibilities and experiences affect the way they see things. They are always wondering, “How will this work in my world?” They don’t care about your world and the way you’ve ordered it.
Many times you are too steeped in the details and nuances of your specific products and services to realize that your customers see a forest, and have no understanding or appreciation for the subtleties surrounding your tree.
Here are some important lessons for making sure your big picture helps strip out complexity and confusion among your buyers, not add to it:
Use a big picture whenever you need to make abstract ideas more concrete, and complex concepts more simple.
It can be the breakthrough you need to communicate your solution story in a more remarkable, memorable way that will be retold and sold by your customer – even when you’re not there.
- Tim Riesterer
CMO and SVP Strategic Consulting and Products
Corporate Visions Inc.
At Corporate Visions, we often define a Big Picture as a simple, graphical (visual) illustration of how your product or service impacts the life of your prospect. The best Big Pictures can be drawn on a napkin and show contrast.
When you look at this definition and compare it to what impresses your Old Brain – the decision maker – you will see a direct relationship, and as a result, understand why it is very important to use a Big Picture in every customer conversation.
Remember that the Old Brain is impressed by six specific areas: Emotion, First and Last, Contrast, Visual, Simple, Personal and Concrete.
Let’s break these six areas down and build their relationship to your Big Picture.
Emotion!
Survival is highly emotional. A Big Picture is an easy and effective way to build emotion in your presentation. Simply identify and illustrate the pain that your prospect is suffering currently, and then illustrate how your solution solves that pain. The emotion you create is sometimes the result of you being the first to simply illustrate that you truly understand the life of your prospect, and that you have a solution for them.
First and Last
Big Pictures should come early in your presentation and be referred back to as often as you feel necessary. By showing your Big Picture early, you can be assured that your prospect understands where you are in your presentation, and that they will be with you every step of the way.
Graphical
The Old Brain likes graphics. Illustrations using simple graphics like lines, circles, triangles, rectangles, and squares make your Big Pictures easy to understand. Avoid using complex drawings that confuse the prospect.
Simple
Remember, the Old Brain likes simple things that are easy to understand and easy to make a decision on. When applying this to your Big Picture, you need to explain what your product or service does in its most basic form. Can you draw it on a napkin?
Contrast
The Old Brain loves contrast! How is your product or service going to impact your prospect’s life? What is their life like before and after your offering? What is their life like with you verses your competition?
Personal and Concrete
When delivering your Big Picture, build it around your prospect – make them the main character. Use “you” phrasing and concentrate on how their life will be improved with your solution. By drawing this out in a way they can quickly understand and accept, it becomes concrete in their world. They begin implementing your solution and visualizing the rewards at an unconscious level.
Your ultimate goal prior to any presentation is to win! Understand the influence your Big Picture can have on your prospect’s Old Brain. This knowledge will help you achieve your goal faster with fewer obstacles.
By David Lane, Consultant, Corporate Visions Inc.
Visual imagery is one of the most powerful tools for creating identity, memory, and emotional connection.
When buyers are inundated with graphics of products (that look so much like everyone else’s products) you make their buying decision much harder. People don’t care what it is… until they understand what it means. A graphic that shows how their life will improve – will get their attention.
So, how can you test that your Big Picture works?
Help them see where you are going and what your product can do for them. Big pictures show competitive edge and uniqueness.