When "Overwhelment" is Your Biggest Competitor

Apparently "overwhelment" is not a noun -- but I wish it were!  What would you call that state were someone gets so crazy-busy they cannot even do the basic things to help themselves?

Let me explain.  Earlier this year I lost a sizeable piece of business because my DMO client was so busy, so overwhelmed with work and personal commitments, that she could not spare 5 minutes to read and sign our contract.  The project was time-sensitive and by the time her to-do list became manageable, the opportunity was lost.

My colleague Meagan experienced a similar situation; because of workload, her association client took five months to approve work that should have taken place last June.  Now we're in September, the event is next month, and we have to rush to get the project done.

Sound familiar?  Executives on the planning and supply side are so crazy-busy they cannot find the time to read a contract so they can get help!

It's easy to get frustrated, but perhaps it's an opportunity to improve?

For one thing, it made me realize that our proposals and contracts were too long; we needed to find a way to make our clients' lives easier.  Our 3-4 page contract is now a one-pager, with a standard set of terms and conditions.

And thanks to my good friend Jeremy Tyrrell of the Scotiabank Convention Centre in Niagara Falls, I've also learned of the "5 sentences movement." I received an email from him this week and his signature:

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Q: Why is this email five sentences or less?
A: http://five.sentenc.es
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When you click through to the site, it explains:

The Problem

E-mail takes too long to respond to, resulting in continuous inbox overflow for those who receive a lot of it.

The Solution

Treat all email responses like SMS text messages, using a set number of letters per response. Since it’s too hard to count letters, we count sentences instead.

five.sentenc.es is a personal policy that all email responses regardless of recipient or subject will be five sentences or less. It’s that simple.

* See also: two.sentenc.es, three.sentenc.es, and four.sentenc.es.

Isn't that brilliant?  Now if we could only do something about the volume of emails...

What are you doing to manage the avalanche of information coming your way?  And what are you doing to make your customers' lives easier?

When Even Your Friends Go Silent

As a salesperson, have you ever had a stretch where every client and every prospect you try to contact is unavailable?  A time when no one responds to your voice mails, your emails, your texts, not even your friends**?

I certainly have and I hate the feeling.  Many hotel, DMO and meetings industry colleagues have shared their story... Ms. Big-Wig has a tentative contract for a large meeting and she stops communicating.  Your boss is breathing down your neck to get the deal signed.  You've left countless messages.  You really don't want to tick her off (this could mean quota) so what can you do?

1.    Make it about them:  Your prospect could be going through a nightmarish period in their life (think catastrophic situation with their child or parent), could be out of the country on vacation, or could be having mobile connectivity issues.  All three situations happened to some of my clients recently, and their silence wasn't about me.  Don't take offence.  Make it about them in all your inquiries.  "Are you OK?" is a simple subject line that often works!

2.    Expect that it's temporary: There's no room for melodrama here.  If your prospects aren't getting back to you, it's no time to wallow in your sorrow.  Look at your approach, shake it off, but most importantly stay positive and know in your heart that it's only a matter of time.  Research by psychologist Dr. MartinSeligman shows that optimistic people, those who expect negative situations to be only temporary, do better in sales.

3.    Vary your touch points:  According to insidesales.com, leaving a voice mail and immediately following up with an email  boosts response rates.  If phone and email don't do the trick, and the response is urgently required, try getting a cell number and sending a text too.  A drastic measure perhaps (so make sure you don't "cry wolf" and overuse).  The point is, the more diversified your contact points, the more your prospect has a chance to understand and react to the urgency.

4.    Get creative:  A few months ago Jeremy Tyrrell of the Scotiabank Convention Centre shared with me how he got Ms. Big-Wig to finally sign his contract by sending her a video.  His phone messages and emails hadn't done the trick, so he posted a plea on YouTube and got other people to tell her about it!  Gutsy? You bet.  But what did he have to lose?  And now this meeting planner will never forget the extent to which he was willing to go to land her business!  (Click here to view a modified version of the video).

5.    Use humour: One our most challenging projects was the MPI Foundation Canada's Economic Impact Study of the meetings industry.  As the data gathering partner, we had to convince at least 650 meeting planners to take this long online survey and reveal detailed financial information about their events.  The email with the highest open and click through rates had the picture of a cute little girl in pig tails, with a quivering bottom lip; the subject line said, "OK, now we're begging." 

6.    Have lots of leads in your funnel:  Most sales experts will tell you the best way to remove the stress around closing business is to have lots of opportunities in the works.  This way you CAN walk away from that prospect who doesn't respect your time and effort by not responding.  (Read more about Greenfield's Lead Generation Resources here ).

**Yes, just recently, an old friend "went silent" on me.  I was really torn up about it.  

I had contacted her on a business matter.  When I followed up, I got nothing. I followed up again.  Repeatedly.  With a friendly approach, a business approach, a humorous "you-can-tell-me-NO-I'm-a-big-girl" approach, and even a pitiful "what-have-I-done-to-upset-you?" approach.  As it turns out, I should have applied rule #1; she was going through stuff, and she didn’t think I could be so insecure… J

4 Reasons WHY We've Become Time-Starved & Crazy-Busy

Hot off the completion of the data gathering phase of the MPI Foundation's Canadian Economic Impact Study, one thing I can unequivocally say about Canadian meeting and event professionals, both planners and suppliers, is that they seem to be suffering from time starvation and overwork.

Based on my own experience I had a hunch time was becoming a scarcer resource, but talking to hundreds of meeting planners and meeting venue managers confirmed it.  This has been in the making for some time, and it is seriously affecting how we market and sell everything, from events to hotels.

Let's first examine why this may be:

We're Creating More Information

Google CEO Eric Schmidt was reported as saying that, "Between the birth of the world and 2003, there were five exabytes of information created. We [now] create five exabytes every two days. See why it's so painful to operate in information markets?" I'm not sure how much information even one exabyte represents, but from the company whose mission it is to catalogue ALL of the world's information, I take it it's a LOT.

To give but a small indication: the World Wide Web circa 1993 had 130 websites; in 2012, whoishostingthis.com reported there were 634 million websites. And according to Bowker, a leading American bibliographic firm, the number of books published also is growing, thanks to the explosive growth of self-publishing. 

Whether it's online or in print, humankind is producing more information than ever, and there is no sign this will slow down any time soon.

We're Accessing That Information Through More Channels

In a presentation at BizBash Elevate New York in July 2013, social media expert and professional speaker Gary Vaynerchuk asked event professionals attending his session how many of them watched TV with their smartphone nearby so they could answer emails or texts.  About 3/4 of the room's hands went up.  Then he asked how many watched TV with their phone AND a tablet or laptop; almost 1/2 the hands were raised!

At first I thought these people were "over the top", but then my own daughter pointed out that this is exactly what I did when we were catching our favourite reality show together:  I was watching, tweeting about the show, all while trying to finish work...

And I'm not the only one becoming more like my teenager.  According to techcrunch.com, "the number of mobile-connected devices [exceeded] the number of people on earth by the end of 2012. By 2016, there will be 1.4 mobile devices per capita." Not only is there more information, but now we're accessing it from multiple sources and multiple devices.  

We Have More Consumption Choices

With the internet smaller companies and retailers can compete with the giants.  And the giants have expanded their buying options to the online world too.  All this translates into more choice. 

Most consumers welcome having more options on what and how they buy.  But there is a dark side to this added flexibility.  Adrian C. Ott, author of The 24-Hour Customer, explains, "[In the U.S.] time use studies have shown that the amount of time spent purchasing goods and services has remained relatively constant since the 1960s. Viewed together the increase in the number available products, coupled with a relatively static time spent buying, presents a considerable challenge for executives. Ultimately, more and more goods and services are attempting to push through a small window of time."

...And So We Have the Paradox of Choice

In his 2004 book The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, American psychologist Barry Schwartz actually argued that too much choice actually creates anxiety for most people.  And what happens when we're anxious and we lack time?  We shut things out. 

Adrian Ott asserts, "Businesses are stuck trying to get through to consumers that are actively avoiding them, or to consumers who are so over-saturated with marketing messages in media that they can't hear or see even the content that would interest."

So what are marketers to do when confronted with the mounting hurdles to getting buyers’ attention? How should meetings industry suppliers – hotels, DMOs, AV companies, DMCs, etc. – strive to engage meeting professionals in new business relationships?

We'll be exploring this very question over the next month in this blog.  Join the conversation by posting a question or comment!