The Cost of Doing Nothing

If you’re in B2B, you know that only 5% -10% of prospects in your Total Addressable Market (TAM) are ready to buy at any given time.

That’s a really small segment. On top of that, solutions are becoming more of the same (with no real differentiation), purchasing budgets are shrinking, teams are expected to do more with less, sales cycles are getting longer, companies have higher risk aversion, and larger buying committees are getting involved in purchase decisions to manage costs and mitigate risks. There's a lot of “wait and see” in the market.

No one wants to get in trouble for buying expensive software that turns out to be a complete waste of time and money. 

We focus a lot on proving ROI (as we should) to prove to prospects that this solution will help them improve their business in some way. 

But we don’t focus nearly as much as we should on educating buyers on the Cost of Doing Nothing.

The status quo is our biggest competitor because it’s the least risky option for the buyer. Even if the prospect knows that their current setup is not ideal, they would rather have an inefficient status quo than a productive but inherently risky solution where they have to justify the change (costs, training, infrastructure and integration implications).

The Cost of Doing Nothing includes the cost of manual/inefficient processes, the potential loss in revenue from customers leaving your company for one with better services, and the opportunity cost of lost revenue from new customer acquisition.  

ROI must be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.

And the Cost of Doing Nothing has to be greater than the cost and benefit of changing the status quo.

The Power of Community

👥 According to the CMX 2023 Community Industry Trends Report, 80% of respondents reported that community has had a positive impact on their business.

But what can you do to create a successful and engaged community?

Here are 5 tips:

1️⃣ Define your community goals and audience segments (customers, partners, employees, etc.)
2️⃣ Provide value through great content, networking opportunities, and learning resources.
3️⃣ Encourage user-generated content and peer-to-peer learning.
4️⃣ Leverage community ambassadors and moderators to keep conversations active and engaging.
5️⃣ Measure success through metrics like engagement, retention, referrals, and revenue impact.

Implementing Multi-Channel Marketing as a Team of One | The Marketing Starter Podcast

Are you a Marketing team of one?

I've been there. In this Marketing Starter Group episode, Tim Hines and I discuss being a Marketing team of one, and how you can prioritize the right Marketing initiatives at the right time and the right channels when you are a solo Marketer.

Give it a listen 👉 https://megaphone.link/MPNL2765630504

Management Best Practices from the Simple Sabotage Field Manual

Here are some management best practices that organizations have adapted:

1. Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.

2. Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences.

3. When possible, refer all m​atters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.

4. Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.

5. Be worried about the propriety of any decision—raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

6. To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.

Do any of those sound familiar?
I know I've experienced most of these in some form in a few organizations I've worked with.

The irony is that these so called best practices are actually from “The Simple Sabotage Field Manual,” an old CIA manual from 1944 (Declassified in 2008) designed to sabotage an organization's productivity.

So why do organizations follow practices that were specifically designed to disrupt productivity?

Lack of trust and fear of failure.

Sales and Marketing Targeting Technical and Business Audiences for Sales Success | Enterprise Thought Leadership Podcast Ep 8

While tech audiences seek detailed specifications, business decision-makers tend to prioritise strategic benefits when considering taking on a new product.

Balancing their needs is essential as buying decisions involve a committee with both technical and non-technical individuals.

How do you engage both audiences successfully? The key is a need for compelling storytelling and personalized messaging to engage buyers throughout their journey.

In this episode, marketing leaders offer solutions to a marketing challenge facing all technology vendors - how to reach and engage both technical and business buyers. Technical audiences seek detailed specifications, compatibility, and integration feasibility, while business audiences prioritise strategic and financial benefits.

Tim Bond, Founder and CEO of TechPros, dives deep with Dana Salman, a Senior Marketing Leader experienced in full lifecycle marketing strategies.

Listen in to discover insights from Rachel Chesters, Marketing Director of Start Communication Ltd  Melissa Liedkie Marketing Consultant, and Avi Bhatnagar, VP Growth Marketing at Commvault.

Leveraging Communities in the B2B Sales Cycle | CMO Convo Podcast

In a market landscape where we are bombarded by sales pitches and generic ads, we are longing for authentic connection and community so that we can learn from our peers and grow together.

B2B orgs have to have a solid community strategy to reach and nurture prospects and industry thought leaders.

Check out my discussion with Will Whitham from CMO Alliance on the power of communities as a lever of growth.

Minimum Viable Scope

I was talking to a founder embarking on a national customer engagement project for a client.

He mentioned that the scope was too big and that he was under-resourced.

This project launch would consume all of his time and resources, preventing him from sourcing other clients and working on other projects.

The client would also need to make a large payment at once to launch the project.

I suggested that he start small.

What is the minimum viable scope?

What is the best and smallest group of people that he can start with, to achieve the project objectives?

This would allow him to pace the rollout, and would allow the client to sparse out payments, and have wins to share with the leadership team.

If you're doing a customer nurture program, start with your best customers.

The ones who are raving fans.

The ones who will give you real and honest feedback to help you improve.

Reward them for their time and generosity.

They should get the VIP treatment (whatever that looks like for you and your business).

Capture the feedback, apply what you’ve learned, and expand the scope.

But start small.

The Golden Rule of SEO

Golden rule of SEO: One page => one core keyword.

Yes, you can have secondary and accessory keywords, but only one core keyword.

Pretty simple.

Core:
#seo

Secondary:
#seostrategy
#searchengineoptimization

Accessory:
#website
#websitetips
#websitestrategy

Record Players and the Metaverse

I’ve always been amazed by people who love vinyl records and record players.

Why would anyone choose to listen to a tinny and scratchy record when you can listen to any song ever made on your phone?

When CDs came, records were pronounced dead, much like 8 track tapes. When digital music came along, records would definitely be gone for good, right?

Wrong!

According to MRC Data, 41.7 million vinyl albums were sold in the US alone last year, surpassing CD and digital album sales.

Audiophiles from all generations are buying, collecting and listening to records, in 2022!

People like the physical rituals that come with records.

Going to the store, flipping through the vinyls, picking their favorite find, bringing it home, placing the record in, and moving the needle to play it.

There’s the sense of ownership and the identity that comes with a record collection.

It’s the nostalgia for some who remember buying records in their youth, but for others, it was the magic of a past they never lived.

It made me think of all the hype around the metaverse.

In person events will end! We will work, live, breath, and play in the metaverse!

The same things were said when Second Life launched in 2003.

I am an advocate of remote work and virtual events. The benefits are great; being able to continue working from home, realizing we don’t miss the commute and crowded offices, spending more time with family and friends, going for a walk or a workout on our lunch breaks.

But after mostly working, meeting and attending events virtually for the past 2 years, we realized the importance of in-person connections.

There is no doubt the metaverse is coming, and it’s going to be a part of our lives (how big or how small is up to us to decide) but there will always be a place for the physical world.

We like our rituals, our in-person gatherings, our communities, and physical belongings.

They are markers of our identity and who we are as humans.

30–60–90 Day Marketing Plan

When you join a new company, regardless of your seniority level, you should have a 30–60–90 day plan.

It’s great that companies are starting to include what’s expected of new team members in the first three months right in the job description, and interviewers are also asking candidates that question during the interview process.

The plan doesn’t have to be super detailed. It can’t be just yet because you don’t know enough.

BUT, you should have a high-level plan of what you’ll do in the first 3 months to fully immerse yourself in the business, begin establishing trust-based relationships with your team, as well as others, and focus your efforts to support the business’s objectives.

Here is what I recommend (Marketing focused but can apply to other roles):

Do your Homework

Research the company’s history, culture, mission, vision, strategy, objectives, targets, budget, challenges, wins, competitors, opportunities, and the current state of the industry. Understand the problem the company is trying to solve, who are the people it serves, and why this particular role exists within the organization.

Interview Team Members

Throughout my career, I’ve always started any new job by scheduling one-on-ones with different team leaders, even if we won’t be working together directly.

I’ve found it to be a great way of introducing myself, gaining a better understanding of what everyone does and each person’s (and team’s) specific goals, challenges, expectations, and how we can work together to achieve our individual and company goals.

As a Marketing leader, you should establish strong working relationships with the senior leadership team, sales, product, and customer success teams, and leaders as a priority, since those are the people you will be working with the most.

You should also establish good relationships with finance and People Ops/HR who will support you in hiring, budgeting, training, etc. You may be able to help them with their internal communications needs (if this role doesn’t exist in the organization).

Understand the Current State

Dig into the CRM, understand closed-won deals, closed-lost deals, your most loyal/long-standing customers, your newest customers, customer verticals and segments, and prospects in the pipeline.

Identify top customers and partners you should talk to. Talk to sales and customer success teams for guidance in the selection process, and a warm introduction to the customer.

Interview Customers

Once you have a good list of customers, and a warm introduction, reach out and introduce yourself and schedule a one-on-one. Some of the most valuable insights I’ve gotten were from talking directly to customers.

Have a few questions prepared, but let the conversation flow to get valuable insights. The key things to understand are what caused them to look for a solution, what other solutions did they consider (including leaving the situation as is), what made them choose our solution, how was the onboarding, what went well, what didn’t go well.

Record the session (with the customer’s permission), and transcribe it to share internally with the team.

Interview Partners

Most B2B companies have a partner network. Partners are key stakeholders that marketing and sales need to support as they can bring in a significant number of customers.

Much like the customer interviews, have a few questions prepared, but let the conversation flow. The key things to understand are what problem they were solving with this partnership, which other partners did they consider, what made them choose us as partner (may not be an exclusive partnership), what went well, what didn’t go well, and how can we best support them moving forward.

Record the session (with the partner’s permission), and transcribe it to share internally with the team.

Analyze and Present Findings

Once you’ve dug into the CRM, and interviewed the team, customers, and partners, you have enough data to analyze and you start seeing some common patterns. Share your findings and analysis with the team so they can contribute to the strategy.

Create Strategy

You can now create a solid marketing strategy which includes:

• Customer Journey Map

• Ideal customer profile

• Market segmentation

• Account segmentation and qualification

• Marketing Objectives and KPIs

• Content gaps

• Positioning

• Messaging

• Competition

• Identify priority tactics and channels

• Marketing Plan

• Budget

• Resources

Begin Strategy Implementation

Once the Marketing team and Sales and Product and Customer Success team are aligned on the Marketing strategy, you can now start implementing it with the team starting with the highest priority initiatives you identified.

Grace and Space

One of my favorite new practices I learned from the team is to ask, “What are you bringing into the meeting?” at the start of every team meeting.

The question prompts team members to share (whatever they are comfortable with sharing) what’s going on in their personal lives; the good, and the bad.

We all share our current joys, excitement, struggles, and challenges that may impact our ability to be present, perform, respond, or just our general well-being.

Sometimes, a request is made for grace and space.

That request is always met with team members jumping in to provide cover, support, and raised hands to step in where needed.

It’s truly heart-warming to witness.

We all have our personal joys and struggles outside of work that can impact our well-being, our performance, our ability to focus, and communication.

It’s human nature.

Especially in these times, people might be dealing with illnesses, family struggles, anxiety, depression, stress about the pandemic or otherwise, among other challenges and stresses.

I will take this practice with me and I encourage you to do the same.

Ask the question and give grace and space where needed.

The Dark Funnel

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

This familiar Marketing adage was said by business owner John Wanamaker over 100 years ago.

Despite the multitude of tracking tools we have today, some insights in the buyer journey are unknown and aren’t trackable -> aka The Dark Funnel.

Buyers are researching products in places that cannot be tracked.

Private forums, podcasts, influencer mentions, industry events, word of mouth, and private slack channels are some examples of Dark Funnel spaces.

But these spaces can have much higher engagement than other trackable digital channels.

I was recently looking for a simple video tool. I did my research and picked a few contenders. I also asked a private group I’m a member of, and got a recommendation from another member.

Guess which tool I went with. Yup, the recommended tool from a trusted peer.

The challenge with a lot of trackable channels is that they are saturated and noisy, so prospects may be tuning them out.

We also can’t start tracking the buyer’s journey until after they come to our website, and in some cases it’s hard to know what brought them there.

Prospects may also feel overwhelmed with the sheer number of options available in some cases.

To meet buyers where they are, we have to run programs that are hard to measure, like:

- Switching to ungated high quality content
- Becoming a guest on relevant podcasts and creating your own
- Engaging with industry influencers’ LinkedIn posts in a meaningful, non-salesy way
- Creating video content from blog posts
Spend time on one-on-one conversations with prospects

Marketing programs have to touch on as many channels as possible to reach, educate, and empower the buyer.

Even if some of these channels cannot be tracked, they may be the thing that empowers the buyer to buy.

Sales and Marketing Alignment

We did all the right things.

Gathered data from the CRM, reviewed successful client case studies, got intel from sales, and picked the accounts.

It didn't matter.

There was no alignment between us.

The sales team didn't see the point of what we were doing and were just being polite. Leaning on what they know and do well.

Cold calling clients and trying to get a demo.

But then something happened.

We invited our Sales Director to an Account Based Marketing event.

2 companies (sales and marketing) presented their success with ABM and a light bulb went off.

Our Head of Sales was finally motivated to collaborate with us.

He saw how ABM can help accelerate the sales cycle and increase engagement and reach within target accounts.

It wasn't just a nice to have.

Suddenly sales were more open to collaborating with us, as opposed to just requesting brochures.

That alignment took months to achieve and was critical to the success of all the programs we were now running together.

Marketing cannot succeed in a vacuum.

Sales and Marketing absolutely need to work together to achieve business objectives and sales targets.

Without alignment, you will fail before you even begin.

Sell with a Story

Founders, Marketers, and Business Leaders have to be great storytellers.

It’s the best way to capture your audience’s attention, share a unique message, and build relationships based on trust.

So what makes a good story?

Paul Smith highlights these six elements in his book Sell with a Story:

1. A time: Back in 2012, last month, or the last time I was on vacation.

2. A place: I was at the airport in Boston, it all started in the cafeteria at our office, on my way home.

3. A main character: The main character is usually a person (your customer) but can be a company or a brand.

4. An obstacle: This is the villain in the story. It’s usually a person but can be a competitor/the status quo/ or a negative external force.

5. A goal: The main character in the story must have a goal that is worthy in the eyes of the audience. This is not YOUR goal, it is the goal of the main character in the story.

6. Events: What happened on the journey? What were the challenges and obstacles? Talking about your product’s amazing features is NOT a story. If nothing happens, it is not a story.

These are the basic building blocks of crafting a great story.

Your customers want to be entertained as well as educated.

Be original and tell a good story.

The Winding B2B Buying Journey

To no one's surprise, the B2B buying journey is complicated.

👇The illustration below from Gartner really hits this home.

🙅‍♂️~95% of buyers are not-in-market to buy today, and will not be in-market for months (sometimes even years), according to a study by Prof. John Dawes for the LinkedIn B2B Institute.

5⃣ The report also found that on average, companies change their solution providers every 5 years, which means that ~20% are in market each year (5% a quarter).

👩‍💼👨‍💼👩‍💼 To add to this challenge, a typical B2B buying committee includes 5-10 decision makers. The more complex or costly the solution, the more decision makers are added to minimize the risk of making an expensive mistake and regretting it.

🤝 Gartner research found that B2B buyers spend 17% of the time meeting with potential vendors, which goes down to 6% when they're comparing several vendors.

So what does this all mean to B2B sales?

How do you make the buying process easier?

👨‍🏫 Educational content is extremely valuable. Share thoughtful and educational content freely and often (no gates!).

📋 Help prospects shape the selection criteria through educating them on what they should look for in a solution and why.

⏳ Shift focus from short-term sales goals to long-term goals- this is a long game.

🎯 Have a solid understanding of your ICP and best target accounts.

✨Define and show how you are different than your competitors and/or the status quo.

🧭️ Show prospects what would happen if they get your solution (should be good things), and show them what would happen if they don't (should be not so good things).

💯 And of course, make sure your solution is a good one that solves a problem in the market, no amount of stellar marketing and sales can make up for a crappy product.

The B2B Buying Committee

Knowing who makes up your B2B buying committee is essential to understanding their specific goals, pains, worries, and potential objections as it relates to your product or service. This will guide your messaging, content creation, sales process, and objection handling. 

The B2B Buying Committee is not one size fits all, and the individual roles may vary across industries.

Here are the typical roles that you need to consider in a SaaS B2B Buying Committee as an example: 

✅❎ The Decision Maker(s) - The decision maker could be the head of the department or a CXO. They have the final say (to buy or not to buy) after consulting with the rest of the buying committee. 

👨‍💻👩‍💻The Influencers - Those are the gatekeepers that influence the decision maker’s decision. They may not even have a high authority role but they have the trust of the decision maker who listens to them. They could be the person tasked with researching and evaluating solutions in the market (IT), the budget keepers (Finance and Accounting), or the head of the department/team that will use the solution.

⛹The Champion(s) - This is the individual who is driving the decision internally and most likely the main point of contact. They want to implement the solution and drive change within the organization.

👩‍💼👨‍💼The end users - Those are the individuals who will end up using this solution to simplify and improve their work and to help them achieve the business objectives.

Once you understand who makes up the buying committee, and the roles they play in the buying journey, you will need to support the champion with content assets that satisfy the influencers and the decision maker, as well as reassure the end users on how this will be a positive change for them. 

The Key Elements of a Positioning Statement

1. Who are you?

2. What do you do?

3. Who's it for?

4. How are you different?

These are the key elements of a positioning statement.

Pretty simple right?

Yes, BUT it takes some work to arrive at these answers.

- Talk to your prospects

- Talk to your customers

- Look at your CRM and intent data

- Talk to customers/prospects you lost

- Talk to the product team

- Talk to the sales team

- Really look at your competitors [without ego]

- Define the status quo and how you are changing it for the better

Many companies try to build their positioning in an echo chamber without taking external factors into account.

That is a recipe for disaster.

If you take the time and effort to do it right, your positioning will guide your messaging, content, and sales, and it will give your customers and prospects a clear message: This is who we are, this is what we do, this is who's it for, and this is how we are different.

I like this positioning statement template from Geoffrey Moore (Crossing the Chasm):

For (target customer) who (statement of the need or opportunity), the (product name) is a (product category) that (statement of key benefit – that is, compelling reason to buy).

If you put in the work to get the complete picture, the rewards will be well worth the effort.

The Rick and Morty Story Circle

I'm a huge fan of Rick and Morty - the popular animated show about the brilliant and morally questionable scientist Rick Sanchez and his grandson Morty Smith, who go on interdimensional adventures. You may be wondering what this cartoon has to do with business and customer journey mapping.

I recently came across The Story Circle, a storytelling framework from the show's creator Dan Harmon. The Story Circle is the guiding framework Harmon and his writing team use to write Rick and Morty episodes.

If this was the storytelling framework that helped create one of my favorite TV shows, I wanted to explore if it can be applied to messaging and positioning, to make the customer the center of the story, not the company or product features. 

The Story Circle (Embryo) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG4WcRAgm7Y&ab_channel=AdultSwim

Dan Harmon explains The Story Circle

The Story Circle is an 8 step story process that guides the hero’s journey.

1. You - a character/protagonist/hero you can identify with in a state of comfort

2. Need - The hero has a need/wish/incompletion 

3. Go - The hero crosses a threshold where the story changes direction

4. Search - The hero goes on the Road of Trials - searching for something

5. Find - The hero finds what they are looking for

6. Take - The hero takes it

7. Return The hero returns to where it all began

8. Change The hero is forever changed by the journey

Dan Harmon's Story Circle

Dan Harmon's Story Circle

Here’s an example from Rick and Morty as told by Dan Harmon:

1. You - Morty lives in comfort knowing Rick is a brilliant scientist

2. Need - He finds out Rick is an arms dealer which is an ethical dilemma for Morty

3. Go - Morty crosses the threshold and tries to undo the ethical damage from Rick

4. Search - Morty steals Rick’s ship

5. Find - He kills an assassin and saves Fart (the victim’s name - no really)

6. Take - The act of saving the victim’s life will cost a lot of other people their lives

7. Return - Morty crosses the return threshold getting Fart to his portal. Morty realizes that this will risk all carbon based life

8. Change - Morty decides to kill Fart to save carbon based life 

How can we apply this to business? Can we use this framework to make the customer the center of the story? Let’s take the example of WealthSimple (no affiliation):

1. You - Jane is saving money but she wants to grow her wealth

2. Need - She doesn't want her hard earned money to lose value and sit idle in her account

3. Go - Jane starts searching for investment opportunities and platforms 

4. Search - She explores different options but finds them overwhelming, hard to use and expensive

5. Find - Jane comes across WealthSimple

6. Take - She signs up through a referral and starts building her investment account

7. Return - Jane grows her savings and her wealth

8. Change - Jane is now able to automate her investments through the app and feels confident that she is securing her financial future.

Jane is the center of the story - not the product features, not what the company thinks is important, not the bells and whistles, but the customer. The story circle framework can guide messaging and positioning across all channels to be centered around the customer, shifting the focus from features to benefits. Yes products and features can be mentioned, but ultimately you need to answer the question: How does your product/service make the customer’s life better?  

Using this framework, how would you capture your customer’s story?

"Can we have a 5 minute call?

My inbox gets flooded with "Can we have a 5 minute call?" emails from sales and marketing folks.

I get it, you need to reach your targets and make stuff happen. And I am guilty of including that phrase in past emails (not anymore though).

HOWEVER, I don't know who you are, what your company does and why I should care.

Most of the time it's a problem/pseudo-problem I'm not even thinking about at the moment while I'm trying to get through important tasks and solve immediate problems.

So before you hit send, please take a moment and ask yourself if your email will serve me, a potential customer, or you. And if it's the latter, your email will probably end up in my deleted folder.

8 Things you Need on your Business Website

With website trends changing faster than Taylor Swift’s boyfriends, it can be very hard not to get swept up in the hype of the latest web trend. Since the beginning of the web, there are a few key principles that are still vital to any good website. Here are 8 things I need to see on your business website to give you my money. Let’s break it down. Anybody else remember Netscape? Just me? Ok. 

Welcome-to-Netscape

 Source: http://home.mcom.com/home/welcome.html

1. Tell me, what do you do?

No buzzwords, no fancy words, no jargon and no corporate speak. As soon as I get on your website, you have about 3 seconds to tell me exactly what you do in a simple, straightforward statement. Avoid words that have become meaningless like leverage and monetization. Don’t be overly philosophical either. I don’t have time for that. If you sell awesome chairs, just say: “We sell awesome chairs.” It helps if you can quickly tell me why they’re awesome. “We sell awesome chairs that were made by elves.”  A short video (less than a minute) would be helpful here too. Of course, the more complicated your products or services are, the harder it is to explain what they are concisely, but try. Something like this:

http://www.getwashio.com/

 Washio is a California based wash and fold laundry service that picks up your dirty laundry, cleans it, and delivers it to you. The Washio website tells you exactly what they do in 8 words. 

2. Tell me, why should I care?

I talk about this quite often with founders and executives who think their company is the greatest thing since < insert awesome thing that isn’t a huge cliché like sliced bread here>. I will try to be gentle.NO BODY CARES ABOUT YOU.NO BODY CARES ABOUT HOW COOL AND SHINY YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES ARE.NO BODY CARES HOW MUCH TIME, MONEY, BLOOD, SWEAT, TEARS AND BROKEN RELATIONSHIPS WENT INTO CREATING YOUR COMPANY. People only care about how your products and services are going to solve their problems. And not just any problem, but the problem they are thinking about and searching for a solution for when they stumble upon your website.  Your product may be a great solution to finding great winter tires. But if it’s July and I’m not really thinking about winter tires, I won’t care. 

useronboard-supermario-2

Source: User Onboarding 

3. Tell me, why should I give you my money?

Let’s assume that I understood what you do, and how your product solves my problem. You still have to tell me why I should buy from you and not the other guy that’s cheaper or more popular. Why should I give you my hard-earned money? It could be: our product is faster, better, stronger, unique or the answer may not have anything to do with your product at all. It could be: we’re in your local area or we won’t keep you on hold for an hour or we give a portion of our profit to a good cause. Something like this:

http://www.toms.com/

TOMS Shoes is a company that sells shoes and eyewear. "With every product you purchase, TOMS will help a person in need. One for One.®" That promise was a main factor of TOMS success, because customers felt good about buying TOMS shoes since they knew that it was also going to help someone in need. 

4. Tell me, who are you?

Tell me who is on the management team, and if it’s a smaller company, tell me who will I be dealing with. It’s not only reassuring that I will be dealing with real live humans but it will give me a feel of who is behind the brand. It is also a great space to share key experience and achievements of the managerial team to build credibility. Something like this: http://www.freshbooks.com/our-team.php 

FreshBooks - Meet Our Employees

Freshbooks offers a cloud accounting solution designed exclusively for small business owners. Their team page gives a great intro about each team member along with a nice picture. It personalizes the company and shows the team's experience. 

5. Tell me, why should I trust you?

Even if your product sounds great, and it’s exactly what I’m looking for, I still need to know why I should trust you, especially when I’m paying you or giving you my personal information. How do I know I’m not wasting my time and money on you, especially if I have a pressing problem to solve? At the very least, it’s reassuring to see that you’ve been doing this for a while, or you have certain standards that no one else has. And I would feel more comfortable giving you my money if I see familiar logos of companies that use your product (B2B), testimonials from real customers (and don’t bother faking this because I will know) and the number of customers you have because “1,000 small businesses can’t be wrong”, for example. The last one only works if you have a significant number of customers. Something like this: https://trello.com/ 

Trello is a project management web app. Let's say you were searching for "project management app" and clicked on theTrello website. Even though you may never heard of Trello, seeing companies like Microsoft and Google listed as their customers will make you trust them more. If you’re just starting out, it may be a good idea to give away some free trials and get customers to give you feedback and recommendations that you can share. Unless of course your product sucks, in which case, forget about the website and fix it or kill it. 

6. Tell me, why shouldn’t I worry?

Try it for free, money-back guarantee, we will set it up for you; these types of assurances convince me that I am not taking a huge risk by giving you my money. Something like this (again):

https://secure.freshbooks.com/pricing.php

freshbooks

 The Freshbooks signup page has 6 statements (see image above) that ease my fear about signing up with them and making a commitment. 

7. Tell me, how do I get started?

Ok, so you’ve convince me to try your product, so how do I get started? This part is where some websites go overboard and give you too many choices of actions to take, while other sites give you no actions at all. The idea is to have one clear and concise Call-to-Action that shows your customer how to get started. DON’T:

http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2014/25894/close-the-gap-between-sales-and-marketing

Marketing Profs

 MarketingProfs offers real-world education for modern marketers through training, best practices, research and other content. I subscribe to this email newsletter, but once I get on to the actual site, I find the various calls-to-action (CTA’s) distracting. 

8. Tell me, what happens next?

Once I sign up, I need to see some sort of confirmation that everything went through and what the next step is. “Thanks for signing up! Look out for your confirmation email” for example. This is also a good opportunity to let me know what I can do with this product or how I can get started. Something like this:

https://www.yammer.com/

yammer 1

 Yammer is an enterprise social network established to enable employees to collaborate in real time. You need your work email to sign up since this is an enterprise product. Once you sign up, you get a simple thank you page telling you to check your email to complete the process. Once you confirm your email, you are directed right to the signup page. This is pretty basic but it clearly explains to the customer what to do next. 

Confirmation page

Confirmation email

yammer 3

Confirmation link in the email takes you right to the sign up page.

 Don’t get caught up with the latest web trends. Stick with what works for your business and tell your story:

1. Tell me, what do you do?

2. Tell me, why should I care?

3. Tell me, why should I give you my money?

4. Tell me, who are you?

5. Tell me, why should I trust you?

6. Tell me, why shouldn’t I worry?

7. Tell me, how do I get started?

8. Tell me, what happens next?