The Thawing of Sales & Marketing

As a marketing strategist, I am often asked “What’s the best way to attract WARM leads into our new client pipeline?” Let me start the way my curious, creative brain loves to start when answering a question: With another question!

What’s the passionate spark behind the solutions you offer?

In my role as a social scientific methodologist, I teach that questions come in three basic sizes. Each has a place in all phases of marketing and sales (research, networking, promotion, advertising, or even face to face sales).

• Small yes/no or true/false questions are great for sorting out basic assumptions, knowledge, or readiness. When you ask for a show of hands, you invite curiosity about a specific opinion or experience. The limitation of small questions is that they actually make assumptions and hold the recipient to a pre-defined box or category.

• Medium-sized questions offer multiple choice answers. These allow for a little more nuance and thought. While medium-sized questions are useful in inviting some connection, the categories you offer are based on pre-conceived ideas about how each individual might think or behave. If you are looking for deeper connection and insight – the AHA moments that motivate people to act – you’ll need to move beyond such limited scenarios.

• Big questions are where the magic happens. Although these are open-ended, they can still be quantified to inform more personalized identification (using agree-disagree scales, for example). Big questions are more about the “why” than the “what.” These questions are attitudinal and behavioral “psychographics” that form the substance of high-quality lead quizzes and personality assessments.

When I ask about your passionate spark, I’m asking a very big question. Mind you, I’m not going to accept your first answer. In fact, it takes a few hours of prep plus 90 minutes of my proprietary Strategic Bubble Mapping process to just begin to redefine most of my own clients’ fundamental propositions. And they ALL benefit from this non-habitual way of thinking, no matter how long they’ve been offering their products and services.

In today’s marketplaces, businesses often lock in on succinct descriptions of features (what they provide and how they do so). If they are heart-centered “ConsciousPreneurs,” they do their homework and extend the focus to benefits (what’s in it for the client). Yet in this age of emotionally triggered, A-I influenced, 24/7 messaging, it is critical to go even deeper than features and benefits. I do this by tricking my clients away from their habitual thinking and into their inspired minds. Once we strip down and delve into what we truly hope for, we open the boundaries of what’s possible, and we can more fully excavate the charged motivations behind our products and services. THIS is where the gold lies in attract- ing like-minded, emotionally charged, motivated clients. The only thing left to do to attract the right warm leads is to educate them and give them some personal insight as we do.

Shifting from Masculine Models to a Healthy Mix of Femininity

Commerce has traditionally capitalized on shared perceptions of accepted behavior by overemphasizing the downsides of non-compliance. Marketing campaigns have been designed to trigger negatively-charged emotional reactions – our fears, insecurities, and desire to fit in. The product or service then swoops in to save the day. This is the masculine-minded iceberg of big business.

It is time to put what I call the masculine inner mentor to work for us alongside the more feminine inner muse. The mentor helps us identify features and benefits that have a high probability of appealing to our known audiences. From there, we can structure our offers and clearly advance our solutions. At the same time, we must listen to the inner muse, who comes from a place of passionate conviction, seeing the audience emotionally. In this way, we can effectively stop “COLD” calling in its tracks and replace it with “SPRING-loaded” heartful engagement.

The Anatomy of a Thawed Conversation: What Can You Do?

The best way to attract warm leads is to jump-start a two-way conversation between the Brand and the prospective customer, using three keys to thriving connection that embrace both mentor and muse mindsets.

1. Re-energize your passion – This is the underlying mission or vision that gave rise to the Brand in the first place: Set aside a strategy hour or day and dig into the reasons behind everything you offer. Using creative activities such as journal prompts, collage, or photo cards, ask yourself and your clients the biggest questions you can: What do you really desire for the world you are in? Why is it yours to do? What becomes possible when you exchange the value of your deep expertise?

2. Clarify the outcomes – Once you have explored your passion-infused offerings and identified the big picture outcomes, you can craft a clear through-line from features and benefits to the quality-of-life enhancements accessible through the Brand. From my process, a visual Bubble Map emerges to reveal the outcomes that forge a powerful connection between the Brand and the client. When I go on to build an application form, quiz, or assessment, these outcomes inevitably organize into specific measures that educate and provide personalized insight.

3. Value-based Engagement – Now you are ready to dive into a twoway conversation that recognizes the individual’s motivations, making the Brand’s particular “through-line” irresistible. The insight you offer both helps the prospect feel seen and heard AND helps them get to know, like, and trust you, leaving them with a clear incentive to continue the nurturing conversation.

I’m happy to report that I see more and more organizations finding ways to reach audiences where they are – appealing in an uplifting way to the fundamental desire to be included. Even with greater reliance on digital communication, we have more opportunities to reach out to others where they are internally, thus reinforcing and drawing upon the feminine heart of nourishing empathy. As the iceberg of fear-driven behavior thaws, we are invited to cultivate (rather than “capitalize on”) compassion-driven joy and connection.

About Ellen Koronet

With 40 years of corporate strategizing, LNKcreative.com designs quizzes and assessments that bypass habitual thinking, explain, and predict behavior. LNK’s interactive quizzes and assessments beam out compelling brand brilliance. Start with a free consultation at https://bit.ly/LNK-talk or visit https://QuizQueen.fun to see more examples and learn more about quizzes.