Applied to improving your business, the concept is:

1. Learn why your customers are hesitant
2. Deal with one issue today

That’s it. Basic.

In his example, the community he is building at Human Business Works has a $27/month fee (cheapest consulting ever?). Even at that low rate, people are still (rightly) concerned about what that fee gets them. So Chris’s response is to do one thing – a quick screencast showing what’s “behind the fence”, giving people the exact answer to their question.

For me, the hesitation around my consulting services was similar – what do I get for my fee? So, I rewrote my service descriptions to be more, well, descriptive. The result was a higher click-through rate from the top-level pages into the specifics and three new clients.

What 1 thing can you do, today, to improve your business.

If your market is that 18-24 (and really 15-18 and 24-35, if we think about it), that changes the calculus on whether or not to try location-based promotions, a mobile version of your site, or even a mobile app.

Why Websites Suck. Guy Kawasaki interviewing Gerry McGovern

Psyching themselves out

There were slightly fewer people in attendance this year, and a good chunk of them are likely earning less than before, but the core group of people who bid on and win the big-ticket items are not hurting for money. Still, they did not bid aggressively for signed jerseys, posters, and other memorabilia that has little practical – but high sentimental – value. Yet the items – bikes, wearable clothing, etc. – that had higher utilitarian value still sold for reasonably high amounts. The difference to these bidders was not a financial one, but a psychological one. Even though they are not concerned with losing their house or where their next meal is coming from, they still bid and spent more conservatively than they would have in a growing economy.

This post is not meant to excoriate these people, but to identify a psychological trait of recessions that affects us all – fundraisers, athletes, teams, and events. If a charity has to deliver items of utilitarian value, what does this mean for sponsored properties? It means you have to “move the needle”.

The Nike model

Nike has long been a master of this, sponsoring only those athletes, teams, and events that will result in increased sales of their products. Properties like Ohio State, LeBron James, and the Tour de France are sponsorships that return more through product sales than they cost Nike, and the measurement of this is easy.

Lately it seems that the talk has been about sponsorships that look past the “move the needle” metrics to larger branding and consumer engagement metrics. I’d be willing to wager that, given the current state of the economy, more sponsors are concerned with the effect on next quarter’s sales than are prepared to admit it. Accepting that as true, the challenge for you is now two-fold; how do you increase sales, and how do you do so in a way that is measurable by you and your sponsor?

There are no quick answers to those questions, but the first step is to ask them. Your pitch should focus mainly on the audience you can deliver anyway, while figuring out exactly how to connect to that audience is part of the discussion/negotiation. Soliciting feedback from the sponsor on how they want to best utilize their dollars sets you apart from the majority of pre-packaged pitches that focus on signage and impressions. If you additionally invest time and a bit of money into tracking metrics, it will return dividends for both your current sponsor and for you as you go out looking for renewals or new deals. While sponsors can be excused for focusing on the short-term, you must think long-term to ultimately be successful.

My dad was in sales, so he taught me a few basics, worked with me on my pitch, and then sent me off into the cold, cruel world. I was enthusiastic. I was going to sell so many sponsorships, I would make money playing hockey, and I was only 13! (we’ll stick with that age for now) I walked a long way up one side of Pearl St., going in every business, talking to the manager, and getting nowhere. I walked a long way back down Pearl St., going in every business, talking to the manager, and getting nowhere.

By this point, I was getting depressed. Not only was I not going to make money, I wouldn’t sell a damn thing and have to beg my parents for the full fee. This was not going to go over well.

Just as I got back to the corner of my street, I walked into a Great Cuts feeling pretty down. Still, I psyched myself up and delivered my pitch to the district manager, who happened to be in the shop at that particular time.

“Huh, that’s interesting. We could probably do an ad for you,” she said. “How big of an area do you cover?”

I was SO excited! “Man, if I tell her about all the different places we go to for games, she’ll probably want to take out a full-page ad! Maybe even a two-pager!” I told her about all the different places we go to; Detriot, Buffalo, even as far as Chicago and Toronto! Then I started counting the money in my head.

“Oh, for an area that big, we’ll have to run this through the regional office then. Give me the info and I’ll pass it along.”

As you might guess, nothing happened, I got no ad from them, and I was not a Pro pee-wee player. Weak.

The sales manager in me looks back on that experience and cringes. It’s a common mistake, and one that occurs all too often in sponsorship sales. A property walks in to a potential sponsor and spends more time talking about what they have and what they need than finding out what the sponsor is interested in and how they can help.

Thinking back, the audience for that yearbook – the parents and grandparents of the players in the Cleveland area – were exactly the audience she was trying to reach. But since I never asked what she wanted, the opportunity was lost for both of us. Too bad I didn’t have sales training videos to learn from…