I was approached by a prospective client recently for help with their blog. Problem was, their problem wasn’t their blog — it was their sales process and their products & services. They were getting hurt on price because they couldn’t reach the decision-makers until their message had already been weakened by gatekeepers so that it became about price only. The products they sold could be found for less elsewhere. The decision-makers they wanted to reach with their blog weren’t the blog reading type.
To their credit, they were addressing the product price issue by selling bundled, recurring services instead — a very smart move.
Blogs don’t fix problems. Blogs are the final product of your business’ processes. The culture, processes, methods, and results need to already be there to a large degree. Blogs are only a part of that. Blogs provide customer interaction, customer touchpoints, and customer education. Blogs provide a valuable feedback loop.
But blogs won’t patch that hole in your sales process or fix your flagging customer service. Those things have to come first.
I respectfully declined to work on the project. I just didn’t see a win-win coming out of that. I wish them all the best with their efforts.
Photo by Paul Everett
6 Comments
The good news is that fixing holes in a sales process is what a business coach does. Oh, wait, I am a business coach. Seriously, I love working with people on their sales process - I have not found one that could not be improved with a little training, restructuring, or research.
Hi Michael - so it sounds like the blog wasn’t really of any benefit to them then.
And really they shouldn’t be giving the price to gatekeepers anyway. There’s no point if the decision maker is only seeing the price and not the benefits of dealing with the company.
So I take it you told them to blog off?
@Catherine - I would never be that rude and unprofessional. Once they get some of these other issues worked out, that might point the way to a more focused content/audience strategy for the blog.
Also, I would not say the blog was of no benefit to them–it just wasn’t achieving the main goal they wanted. Nor could it as it stands.
But blogs are still a fantastic way for a company to provide news and raise their profile within their industry, be a voice among their peers… if that is the strategy in first place.
@Greg - if you’ve got the room to take on new clients, I can pass your name along to them.
Hey I was joking - I wouldn’t really expect you to tell a client to blog off!
@ Catherine - Yes, I know.
But not everyone gets sarcasm (especially in writing). I have to play the “straight man” on this just in case. I just don’t feel like I could join in that kind of joke. People often say what they really mean, but try to cover it up by saying they were “only joking.” It’s likely that the people I’m talking about read my blog, so I don’t want to be misunderstood in that way.