Process – Profit
Series:
This is the fourth and final article in a four-part series on how Wiebe Industrial Services effectively generates business-to-business (B2B) sales leads for industrial companies.
Seeing the return on your investment in marketing is the fourth critical step in our proven four-point process for generating B2B sales leads for industrial companies. The four points are as follows:
- Assess = get the facts
- Plan = use the facts
- Build = leverage the facts
- Profit = benefit from the facts
Everything you’ve done prior to this, in terms of research-based planning and building, has readied you for the profit phase of your marketing program.
This phase is all about making you money rather than costing you money—which is the ultimate measure of any marketing program. It’s all about alignment, when who you are as a company truly aligns with what you do. Your clients clearly understand your identity and purpose. They have been won over by your story, and they trust you. Now you simply need to deliver value to them again and again and again.
Profit & Performance
Profit comes from a relentless pursuit of excellence.
In our day and age, the mystery is gone from marketing and sales. Marketing used to be like the iceberg with 15% showing and 85% below the surface, invisible. Now we can see everything. Through real-time metrics, we can know what happens. We know how colors drive certain decisions. We know how certain words help and certain words hinder.
We train your team to track everything. We teach them to watch, in real time, the leads that are being generated for your products, so that they learn what a quality lead looks like. They will be able to clearly see the relationship between quality leads and converted sales in a way that they can then accurately predict the company’s growth and progress.
The success of the profit phase depends on your ability to learn and adapt. You need to stay engaged with your clients, and you need to keep learning.
Let me give you an interesting example. In digital marketing, we use what is known as a “call to action” to trigger a viewer response. One that tested well was “Talk to an Expert.” The text of this simple call to action was placed into a button and, if the viewer clicked on it, they were directly connected via phone to a seller. We had been using it successfully for quite a while.
However, new research showed us that swapping out the word “Talk” with the word “Speak” in the exact same application had four times the higher engagement rate with viewers. Now understand, that change was then made in 25 different places on the website. Changing just one word had a 400% improvement in viewer engagement.
If you have a good product and aggressive telemetry, your profit margins have huge potential.
Sometimes, small changes make a big difference. We track those results. They mean something to us, because we were prepared, and we structured our planning in a way that almost guaranteed our success.
It costs something to set this up for a client, but it’s really not that expensive. If you have a good product and aggressive telemetry, your profit margins have huge potential.
When your team has a handle on real-time metrics, they are able to adapt their approach in ways that will keep your marketing program lean and efficient. We will train them to see which leads are generating the highest profit margins and which ones just aren’t working. This will enable them to know which products they should be taking off the offer sheet, and which products they should be pushing harder.
With our training, your team will be able to adapt and pivot quickly. If necessary, they could adjust your whole marketing program within 24 hours to capitalize on the most profitable opportunities. To nurture that kind of agility, Wiebe tracks daily with the teams that we are supporting. We believe that a well-trained team keeps learning and keeps driving the company’s business forward.
Wiebe is obsessed with performance. We help you repeat and learn, until you have an extremely strong marketing program. That’s our passion. And it’s all about generating revenue for your company—profit.
Integrity and Accountability
When it comes right down to it, your behaviour is your brand.
If a company drops $30,000 on a new website, they deserve to know right now how that website is going to pay for itself and more. We affirm that expectation and we understand the process. Our focus is on generating revenue for your company. We know what it takes to profit.
Industrial sales is all about building trust and delivering value.
Too often, we see companies that have departments within them that are not aligned with their overall business goals. Business development is going in one direction, marketing is going in another, and the sales team in yet another. What they need is a holistic view of revenue generation. We specialize in bringing that kind of alignment into a company’s vision, to make sure that your marketing plan is aligned with your corporate goals and objectives. The first line in any marketing plan should be, “In support of the overall strategic plan of the company…”
If your marketing is aligned with who you are and what you do, then you will see profit.
If there’s a disconnect between who you say you are and what you actually do in the marketplace, then that’s called corporate death. It might be a slow death, but you’re going to die because you can’t build integrity, trust, and value on that kind of foundatio
If your marketing is aligned with who you are and what you do, then you will see profit. If it isn’t, then what exactly are you paying for?
In order to have that kind of integrity, you need accountability. As Gerry Wiebe says, Accountability defines performance. And those who resist accountability are just afraid of their own performance.”
One of the companies that we’ve partnered with has been getting all-time record leads in 2020. That’s happening in the midst of a global pandemic! That’s a significant accomplishment. That’s integrity.
When we say that we can help you develop a business, and help you market your business, and even help you with your sales process, we do not presume do that without helping you create continuous alignment and continuous improvement.
For Wiebe Industrial, bringing unity and integrity to a company is our top priority, because we believe that’s when companies succeed and profit.
Hard Work
A lot of companies are frustrated with the performance of their marketing. There are so many unexpressed expectations and a lot of negativity surrounding marketing expenses.
Marketing should deliver on its promise of profit—and we understand what it takes. We understand what it takes to build trust with clients. We understand what it takes to provide exemplary service in the marketplace. And that’s what delivers profit. Because, ultimately, marketing is a value proposition. And your company succeeds when your clients perceive that value.
Marketing is like fishing. The website is your boat, but your boat doesn’t catch fish. The boat just gets you out there where the fish are.
Let’s say a company drops $20,000 on a great website. What should be expected? Will the company see a return on an investment like that?
Marketing is like fishing. The website is your boat, but your boat doesn’t catch fish. The boat just gets you out there where the fish are. It’s a powerful platform, but it doesn’t do the hard work of fishing for you. Some people just want to go out on the water in their boat, but that’s not fishing. In the same way, having a great website is not marketing. You still need to do the hard work of engaging your clients. But just a good boat puts you where you want to be, right in the midst of all those fish, a good website puts you into the marketplace and makes it easier for your clients to buy your products.
If you extend the metaphor further, your outbound marketing tools, such as email and social media, are like your fishing gear. They’re your rods, reels, lines, and lures. They are the tools that help you make contact with your clients. But again, you still have to do the hard work of fishing, such as baiting, casting, and reeling them in.
At Wiebe, we specialize in building sales systems and seller confidence to ensure that you actually bring the fish into the boat, i.e., sell your product and profit your company.
We help analyze your marketing strategies in the same way that any company analyzes their capital investments. So, let’s say an employee says to their employer, “Hey, we need $50,000 to buy this trailer.” The employer says, “Prove it.” He has the right to know if that trailer is going to earn the company back that $50,000. Will the purchase be worth it?
Profit doesn’t come without forthright planning, accountability, attention to detail, and tenacity. There’s always an element of risk, but it’s done in partnership with you, our client. Together we build a system that delivers profit in the way you have envisioned.
When it comes to the pursuit of excellence in performance, we are relentless.
Profit is never haphazard. We figure it out. We lean in, we repeat, we learn, and we adapt. And eventually we just run out of things that need to be fixed. The result is an extremely strong program, which will get you two or three years of profit. Then, if you’re smart, you’ll do it all over again, because a different perspective will get you enhanced results.
When it comes to the pursuit of excellence in performance, we are relentless.
Time to Profit?
If you’re ready to embrace our proven four-point process for generating B2B sales leads for industrial companies, then give us a call today at 604-556-6032.
Let us become your revenue-generation agency.
Wiebe Industrial Services.
Marketing that gives a damn.