It's curious to me that at every different type of business-to-business company I've represented over the years, every salesperson I've talked to, without exception, has personified the prospect as this frumpy, unimaginative, cynical, overloaded, territorial middle-aged man. Ouch. It would seem the world's full of them. Is it any wonder why b-to-b companies don't attract the kind of creative talent, and therefore generate the excitement, that business-to-consumer companies are known for?
I haven't given up on b-to-bs because I've met enough dynamic people to know there's fun to be had in this space, and though it's going to be a challenge I want to become known for turning a sense of playfulness into a competitive differentiator. As the cluetrain manifesto says, getting a sense of humor does not mean putting some jokes on the corporate Web site. Rather, it requires big values, a little humility, straight talk and a genuine point of view.
I'm not allowed access to prospects as a general rule, which is troubling because I'm tasked with finding ways for companies to relate to them, so I can't say that the salespeople I've talked to are wrong about their prospects. But what I can say is this pervasive stereotyping is not only a serious buzz killer for those of us willing to market these companies, I think it's adversely impacting their profitability.
Here's a case in point. One of my customers asked me to recommend something they could give away at a synthetic rubber trade show. I subscribe to Daily Candy, an e-newsletter for a Web site that bills itself as the ultimate insider’s guide to what’s hot, new and undiscovered. I saw something in there that I thought would create a buzz. I recommended Reef flip flops, with the catch phrase being "where the rubber meets the road." I thought flip flops would be something fun and different. The salespeople weighed in, and no, they said, these guys dress like nerds and they won't appreciate them.
Fair enough. But I'm sure that whatever they did decide to give away wasn't quite as memorable, and certainly not as functional. Lots of people who don't have a sense of style find flip flops simply to be comfortable footwear. And perhaps the company's choice of give-aways resulted in lost opportunities to strike up conversations especially with prospects who might walking by the booth in uncomfortable shoes, and it might even be likely that it resulted in lost sales. Not only quite the buzz killer for those salespeople, but a bottom-line killer for the company. Fun is almost always more profitable than boring.
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