Lunch and Burn

Having done my time in those brainstorming sessions where lead generation was the central topic, I confess to advocating the use of the “lunch and learn” tactic.

For the unfamiliar, this is where our company would pay and invite senior level executives to a lunch at a mid-tier restaurant, limited menu of course, in exchange for 60 minutes of the attendees’ time.

At the end of the entree we would share a presentation in which we would describe the wonderful life that awaits those who chose to utilize our solutions.

It sounded so copesetic. We would provide lunch for hungry executives and they would be so grateful that they would give us their undivided attention and support. We were so confident, one person on staff was assigned to have a copy of our contracts ready to go in the event that someone was moved to heed the call, sign on the dotted line, and put the $250,000 license fee on the company American Express.

Sigh.

If there isn’t a stupid section in your biography, just wait, by the time you reach my age, there will be.

Our efforts failed miserably for the simple fact that we lacked the three key elements that would resonate with our target audience:

• A Compelling Message
• A Unique Sales Proposition
• Connecting the Dots Between What We Offered and the Prospect’s Needs

Q. What makes a message compelling?

A. The receptiveness of the target audience.

It really doesn’t matter what you think. (Read that again, let it soak in)

What matters is what the prospect thinks matters.

As a SVP (Schmuck Vice President), there are three things that matter to me:

1. Increasing Income
2. Managing Expenses
3. Effective Risk Management (Credit, Reputational, Operational)

If I can not immediately put your solution into one of these three areas, you and your solution will be ignored.

Q. What is a Unique Sales Proposition?

A. It is a brief, concise, credible series of facts that describe why you are better than your competitors.

Ex. Our Enterprise Knowledge Management platform will help improve production quality, increase regulatory compliance, and minimize days lost due to employee accidents, by providing learning content specifically designed for your organization, delivered via Web, PDA, or Kiosk. In addition our solution is used by many regulatory agencies to train the same inspectors who are assigned to your type of facilities.

These are not Unique Sales Propostions:

• We offer the lowest cost of ownership
• We have the best customer service
• What sets us apart, is our people
• Our executive team is one of the most seasoned in the industry
• We are the party of change (Ok, just kidding. Is it just me or is McCain’s VP pick unreasonably attractive?)

Q. What Does it Mean to Connect the Dots?

A. Dot from the Vendor: Our system has a Virtual XML Layer

B. Dot from the SVP List Above: Lowering Expenses

Connecting the Dots: Our system offers a Virtual XML Layer which enables you to reuse the same content in multiple forms on multiple devices quickly and cost-effectively. For example, if you needed to deliver key information to a wireless platform, this would allow you to do so at 10% of the cost of a typical deployment.

Here’s How We Screwed Up Our Lunch and Learns

• We didn’t have a compelling message so we were ignored by decision makers. We invited users, who would attend, but couldn’t buy anything.

• We used email only is some markets. CTOs would receive these emails from an unfamiliar company with the most compelling item being “free lunch”. They would delete the email or worse, pass them down to an Executive Admin who would attend (and eat) for “preliminary research”.

• We were pushy. We would follow up with phone calls and emails with a tone of disbelief that the targeted executive would not put his schedule on hold while he came to hear our message, we were offering free nachos for crying out loud.

By the way, if you or someone you know works at an event planning company whose having one of these events in Nashville in a few weeks, I’m one more pushy email away from sending my admin to eat Italian with you.

Sasser