Magnus Marketing Blog

*Note to any clients that read my blog: unless the opportunity is spectacular - I am not looking for full time employment.

One of my resolutions is to talk to any prospective clients or recruiters that contact me and talk to everyone. In the event I lose clients or experience financial distress, I would like to have a call list of people that could potentially help me as a resource whether a job or another opportunity.

One day I get a ping through LinkedIN from a recruiter who presents an interesting opportunity for a local company for a VP of Marketing. Hm, sounds interesting so I am willing to talk. The recruiter and I set up a call, which has to be late in the day because I work all day and many evenings. The recruiter calls me and explains that the company insists that the VP of Marketing be local, have a marketing background, and have marketed SAAS. This SAAS was important, and had to be noted all over my resume - she says. I ask, what type of marketing do they want - what is their goal? She said, "Marketing". To which I then had to explain the difference between new business marketing and customer loyalty and strategic development. To which she said that they had some great customers and were looking to go into new markets (ah, I guess new biz, strategy). She kept emphasizing how great the people were there. She wanted me to rewrite my resume to emphasize the "SAAS" (which i had explained I sold SAAS before it was SAAS - but ASP hosted apps). She also expressed concern because the last five years I wasn't in Marketing - no MARKETING. To which I had to explain that my experience now is strategic marketing and sales doing one of the hardest things ever - get businesses with no clients, clients and build a market and marketing program. Ah. I sent my resume, we were to talk on the weekend. I then got an email that her friend's husband passed and she wouldn't be able to talk....and I never heard from her again.

Let's dissect a few points here that made this the worst recruiting interaction ever:
1. The recruiter was NOT well versed in sales, marketing, business development and did not understand what the hiring manager really needed. In fact, I am not even sure the company really knew what it needed, but without the right discussion, that would never be found out. Why did they want or need Marketing? What kind of marketing? What did they do that wasn't working? Why, if they had a sales team, did they need a VP of Marketing? etc.
2. The recruiter was NOT well versed in technology or what SAAS was or the requirements to sell and market SAAS. Almost my entire client base is SAAS which I have marketed and sold for - for over 10 years.
3. I am a passive candidate, you need to work around my schedule not the reverse. If you want to close business for your client, you do what you have to - call me evenings or weekends.
4. Why do I need to rewrite my resume? Why a resume at all? Why not forward my LinkedIN profile to the hiring manager and note points of accomplishment? One other point, I am glad the recruiter thought the company had great people, but that is all in the eyes of the beholder - I fit into certain highly autonomous environments with high value people. They may not be great people in a great culture for ME - not a selling point dear.
5. Finally, I am sorry your friend's husband died and I am sure she is upset, however that has nothing to do with my situation. What if I were married with kids and my husband unemployed for months and I need to feed my children? Isn't that equally as important as your friend? Balance your priorities.
6. Finally, finally - the disappearing act - no follow up, no apology, no split with another recruiter.

I also feel sorry for the client who did not have the opportunity to talk to me. Maybe I could have provided some insight, maybe they could have become a client for me in the future or an employer - who knows.

This is why recruiters get a bad name. With recruiters like that, companies SHOULD have the hiring managers do the job themselves.

I had spoken with a client last week who informed me in a very serious tone that they were speaking with a prospect, a mid-market CIO and asked his advice. One thing he told them was that mid-market CIO's do not respond to emails and phone calls, particularly phone calls from people they don't know. They rely on their own internal network (which apparently you have to break into). She said, no matter how good you are - like you Rachel, it is impossible to sell to these people. A little extra info is that these CIO's are part of the Gartner Group club. My client now wants to stay with shows more than any outbound since that gets faster results.

A couple thoughts went through my mind here (aside from concerns about losing the client):
1. The Gartner Club probably represents 1% of the million or so midmarket companies out there, which means that while you get a few who have a need and visibility - then what of the others who have a need that are not being reached?
2. If the CIO's are are the bell weathers of innovation aren't interested in innovation then what does this say for the economic growth? If the CIO's stay within their network of peers only, how are they promoting competitive advantage for companies through technological innovation or application? They are using the same stuff, by the same people, in the same way? Wow, that's as bad as the marketing people who use the same agencies and tools? Boring.

I also had found a posting from a CIO who wanted to create a do not call list which had a rah-rah agreement from peers.

Then I realized, who cares? The CIO is going the way of prospecting people - walking dead, right? I mean with SAAS and IAAS and all the "as a service offerings" no one really needs a CIO - particularly a mid-market CIO. Consider that most applications will be hosted by "GOOGLE" type companies, so all you need is someone to maintain physical infrastructure. As a salesperson, I don't want to talk with or need to talk to the CIO - they wouldn't know the feature/benefit/need of a SAAS solution for a marketer, accountant, or finance person right? I don't need to call them or need their approval or advice on technology implementation.

So, I guess the CIO's can retain their club and set up the do not call list. No one cares to call on them much anymore anyway (unless it is a pure technology solution).

A recent Inc. magazine posting (one I tried to find, but could not locate) talked about how cold calling can be an effective way to reach prospects and is usually the most reliable way when in start-up mode (lacking funds) to reach new customers. While many people, including myself, indicated agreement and reinforced the points in the posting/article, one asshole - and there usually is one - responded that he never, I mean never responds to cold calls from "SOB rude interruptors" and won't do business ever with anyone like that or that he doesn't know.

Every time I run into these people, I challenge them and ask - well, if you are a startup with a great product or service bootstrapping your company and have very little money to spend on marketing (because you are building an ever better market aligned product) how would you reach out? To which I never received a good answer.

Of course, the asshole isn't spending his days on Twitter monitoring tweets from unknown entities or companies right? My email is either going into SPAM (because it is unrecognized), being lost in the myriad of known emails (many people get "hundreds" a day), or is deleted resulting from unrecognizeability or heading - it may take "hundreds" of spammy like attempts before asshole really READS the email. Not to mention, for example, many of the companies I work with have rather innovative solutions that aren't quite well understood first time out. I may know the asshole on LinkedIN, but as many people say - going through the network will delay interaction by a load of time as I may be dependent on 2nd or 3rd level contacts to pass my introduction along - new businesses have no time with runway at stake to wait months for an introductory response. As a startup with competitive issues and limited funds, I can't spend on advertising and don't want too much web or internet content floating around where competition will get wind and slay me before I get a chance to get some traction.

So the best point contact way to target my potential buyer and engage in discussion that can help me build and align my product/service is through a good phone call along with point targeted email.

Along the lines of the "I won't take calls" are the great people who say "I don't work with companies unless they are vetted by Gartner or have (as I was informed recently) been in business for five years and have named customers". Gartner costs five digits to work with, you have to pay for their services which are generally out of reach for most start-ups and without the support of customers, start-ups don't make it five years. If you don't work with us and the next guy doesn't either for the same reason and so-on, then we have no way of building our business to get those named customers that you need so desperately to prove ourselves.

One of the reasons I believe our economy isn't growing is because of the limited myopic views of not only these type of people, but also companies that refuse to work with anyone or anything "not known" to them. If people and companies are reluctant to invest in the growth of start-ups (interesting though, they will put money into companies that are known like IBM which have a large majority of employees offshore, right?) then they are cutting off local enterprise and shutting out innovation. Will the limiting cliques of social networks kill the innovation of American Enterprise? Would Steve Jobs have had a shot today? Or would no one have bought an Apple computer because it wasn't "liked" on Facebook?

Thankfully, there are some foresighted dice rollers who recognize that their jobs exist because another foresighted entrepreneur created the business they work for and are paying it forward. They are the people that start the takeoff so the myopic can - usually way later - sign on. (Forget competitive advantage, right?).

No wonder this country has lost ground.

Oh my! What weenies Twitter and Email have wrought with the interpersonally challenged. I can't understand why people just cannot pick up the phone and actually speak with people to communicate or get anything done? I love the response one of the reporters or editorializers of the news made with respect to the BlackBerry (Research in Motion) outage. S/he essentially said, this outage would not be a big deal if people would have just used their phone and CALLED people instead of texting or waiting for an email to appear.

We have become a nation of anti-socials, phone reluctant because that would actually mean you have to hear cadence and emotion in voices and possibly be rejected with feeling. Of course, so much easier to hit the delete key, right?

This week, two issues occurred that highlight the need for the kiddies to drop the texting and email and learn how to use the phone.

1) A prospect at one of my clients had a few simple questions about a software solution his company was very interested in using. The prospect was already qualified and was inches away from signing on the dotted line to acquire the software. I sent an email to my client with these questions, the email was acknowledged. I waited, waited, waited - almost five days for a response. Meantime, the prospect is evaluating solutions and response time can affect perception of service. In between I sent another email to my client, which was acknowledged, saying has there been any response? To which it was stated that the company was contacted and was awaiting response. Finally, a week later I gave up, risking the ire of the client, and called. In exactly 2.5 minutes the questions were answered and the prospect was emailed AND called, a response thanking me received not more than 2 hours later. It was clear that my client, who has done this before, has phone reluctance. The deal could have been blown because of a fear or disregard for dialing the phone.

2) A manager at Kohls was overheard complaining that some type of signage was needed at the store. She stated she had emailed the district manager who had not acknowledged the email and ended up bringing signs that were incorrect. She never picked up the phone to reiterate that an email was sent and specifically what she needed. She too is in the younger generation.

Relying on text and email solely, particularly at this generational point is not effective. As in case number one, a sale could have been blown - REVENUE LOST because of a lack of appropriate communication. In case two, the wrong materials were brought or may have not even been acknowledged.

This also goes to the importance of backing up emails and marcom with some type of point contact. With any other marketing channel, email, social media, web will become cluttered with crap - tons of it, more than ever with greater filtering and scrutiny to the point that much of it will be ignored making it REALLY difficult to reach anyone effectively. As long as phones exist, particularly desk phones or published cell - a phone call can make the difference between revenue and "out of business".