How InBound Marketing Created a Generation of Order Takers
Prior to 2005 sales looked different. Just take a trip down memory lane and review depictions of sales in movies like Glengarry Glen Ross and Boiler Room: obtrusive outreach, high pressure tactics, cold calling and massive email blasts characterized the sales landscape. And we wonder why sales rubs people the wrong way?
2005 marked the introduction of Inbound Marketing. Co-Founder and CEO of Hubspot, Brian Galligan coined the term to describe the process of using high value, engaging content to produce inbound leads which were then passed on to salespeople to close. Inbound Marketing was disruptive in all the right ways and fast forward 16 years its alive and well today, and has dramatically changed the way we do sales.
But is this a good thing?
While Inbound Marketing has transformed how smart salespeople do outreach (unfortunately there are still entire industries where the only sales training provided revolves around cold calling...ahem WEALTH MANAGEMENT I'M LOOKING AT YOU) which is great, it's also created an army of order takers - a breed of sales people who hide behind marketing and are unable to move people towards yes.
An effective sales person is able to leverage goodwill generated through marketing for targeted outreach to warm prospects. They are able to quickly build rapport and identify what stage of awareness the prospect has, and can use resources and stories to educate and inspire the prospect towards action. Order takes...well they take orders. They can close sales, but only when the prospect has already arrived at a yes and simply needs some final details and tactical questions answered.
Some would argue that if you're marketing effectively, that's all you need your salesforce to do. This may be true of large companies with multi million dollar marketing budgets, but for the average business this just isn't the reality. And as a salesperson - would you rather take orders at McDonalds or work at a fine dining establishment, providing recommendations and upselling your patrons with wine and dessert?
Let me be clear - if you and your salesforce are order takers you are leaving money on the table.
Here's how to identify if you're an order taker vs a salesperson, and what you can do about it:
Outreach
Do you or your salesforce conduct outreach? If no, you're order taking. True salespeople do outreach and I'm NOT referring to those asinine automated LinkedIn Messages or IG DMs directing you to a product or program, free or otherwise, without knowing diddly squat about you. I'm talking about personalized, sophisticated, highly informed outreach. An effective salesperson will leverage company data (profiles, engagement and prospect lists) and will use this to inform outreach. The ask is simple - let's start a conversation. Maybe this turns into a sale right away, and maybe it takes a few months. That will depend on where the prospect is in terms of awareness.
Prospect Profiles
Do you or your salesforce have complete prospect profiles in your CRM? If no, you're order taking. To me there is no greater sin than a salesperson that doesn't keep complete prospect profiles in a CRM. I'd be fine characterizing this as the original sin. A profile is incomplete without the following:
Contact info
Website
Social channels
LinkedIn profile
Lead Source
Communication
Comms might be the most important part here. It's critical to note what your prospects are telling you - in their words. Sales conversations are rich with information and prospects are very good at giving you cues in the form of preferences, questions, objections, challenges etc. A good salesperson will catalogue comms to use for future sales conversations. Order takers will not.
Close Ratios
Do you or your salesforce have a 100% close ratio? If so - you're an order taker :) If you're closing 100% of the sales conversations you have chances are you're only speaking with decided prospects. This is incredibly common with order takers as they wait for inbound sales consults. True salespeople are using data to reach out to qualified leads to engage in conversation. They are using metrics to identify leads who want to buy...they just haven't pulled the trigger yet so they'll often end up speaking with people who need educating and inspiring to get to yes. Sometimes this means multiple conversations (if you want info on how to master the multiple conversation close read this) which will affect overall close ratios.
Rebounds
Do you or your salesforce go for rebounds? Here's what I mean: the job of well executed, inbound content marketing strategy is to educate, entertain and inspire your market towards purchase. Consider this the initial shot a basketball/hockey/netball player takes on the net. Some of those shots will go in (ie some marketing produces direct sales or inbound sales consults) and many of them will not. What happens now? Order takers will do nothing. Salespeople will pick up the rebound and go for another shot. Here are some examples of what that could look like:
Can you track cart information? Who abandoned cart without buying? Who has visited your sales pages without purchase? While many large companies have automation in place to address this smaller businesses may not. This information is gold. Use it.
Who's engaging with your content? Sharing, commenting, consuming stories, opting in for downloads, opening your newsletters. These are all people who are putting up their hands waving 'hey I might be interested...help me decide'. An effective salesperson will work these leads.
Manage Expectations
If you or your salesforce continually customizes offers, pulling rabbits out of top hat styles and expecting the delivery/production teams within your company to jump when you say how high - YOU ARE AN ORDER TAKER...QUITE POSSIBLY OF THE MOST EGREGIOUS VARIETY. Now this one gets me riled up. Not only is this an unscalable and ultimately unsustainable way to run a company it’s entirely unnecessary. Your clients come to you, because you are the expert in whatever service or product you provide. By all means, listen to their needs and customize the language you use to reassure them that their specific issue will be addressed (this goes without saying but do this ONLY if their specific issue can be addressed, if it can’t - direct them to another offering or make the call that they aren’t a fit. Anything less is trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and is, well, sleazy) but don’t feel the need to constantly customize. Those are the traits of an insecure, unseasoned salesforce and...you guessed it...order takers. An effective salesperson will direct qualified prospects they know they can 100% support to existing offers without having to throw in the kitchen sink just to close a sale.
There's nothing inherently wrong with order taking - but if revenues are not where you'd like them to be and if sales are sluggish or have plateaued ask yourself: am I order taking or selling?
