The following was originally published, Monday September 17, 2018 at dansaso.com
Hello internet, how’s it going?
I’m pumped to let you all know what I’ve been up to lately and to get this project off the ground. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Dan Saso. I’m a Sales Account Executive at a company called Malwarebytes. If you don’t know what that means, it means I sell cyber security software to businesses across the Midwest. Our company located in Santa Clara, California better known as Silicon Valley. This is where I’ve spent the bulk of my childhood and adult life. It’s where I went to school, high school even college (Go Spartans!) on yeah and it’s also where I got married.
When I’m not selling at Malwarebytes, you can find me taking care of my three animals, Oreo, Pixie and Buster (2 dogs and 1 cat). I’m also happy to fish at any of our local beaches – if there’s water I’ll fish it. When I’m not doing either of those things you can find me following my other passion which is helping people.
That’s why I started this blog, to help people learn from my mistakes, my successes and of course my failures. While this blog is going to be about me and my journey it should also be about you.
So, who am I and why should you care? Well, I’m someone who is starting from scratch when it comes to building his own brand. If you’re reading this it’s likely you’re in the same boat, starting out with your own business. You’re looking for new ways to market and sell, to make your business appeal to a younger more tech savy audience.
Whatever the case may be, I’m glad you’re here. I’m going to pour my blood sweat and tears into this. Everything I’ve learned over the past 12+ years I’ll share with you. I’ll also catalog my journey going forward for posterities sake. I’m glad you’ll be coming along for the ride.
So, without further ado let’s get started!
Full transparency, future blog posts will be shorter. I felt like I needed an introduction. The following is an account of a meeting I had recently with Joe Harris – Sales Executive.
Joe Harris is a Sales Executives who works alongside me at Malwarebytes. What Joe needed (and also the reason we sat down to begin with) was a better way to reach his customers. He needed an upgrade to the emails he had been sending out. He needed to make an impact with his readers. We strategized on this for hours. We reviewed past email campaigns, messaging tactics, and hammered out a new way for him to sell. You see, this needed to be more than a simple feature and benefit dump. We both felt that was ineffective, played out and the reason why his audience was no longer calling him back. We needed a reason for his prospects to feel compelled enough to respond and engage.
You see the problem with his old emails is that they focused on the product and not the customer. This is a big deal and shouldn’t ignored. The simple truth is there was no reason for Joe’s readers to have ever responded to his old emails. They lacked relevance or a reason for his readers to care. While they addressed how the product worked, they didn’t address the customer. You seeJoe’s past emails had missed the point . The customer needed to be the focal point of Joe’s outreach, NOT Malwarebytes!
So what did we do? Well, by the end of our meeting we had accomplished 2 critical things.
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We wrote 10+ emails
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We got crystal clear on why these new emails (and not his previous ones) could matter to his readers
The new emails took a different approach and focused on the reader. The intent was to show how the reader was being affected by the absence of our product. Joe’s emails were now about the customer and his/her hardships. It wasn’t about us anymore, it was about them; and that was the difference.
Here’s the key point to take away from this. What you and your company may be saying to your customer isn’t always what they want to or need to hear. Take a step back and consider how your words and actions may already be affecting your customers. Get humble quick!
Unless you first consider how your customers want to buy any outreach you do is meaningless. When it comes to email marketing, give your readers a reason to care, make it about them and watch what happens. Your emails should make the reader the hero of his own story. It should be about them and their journey, and not about you.
In closing I hope you found this of value. I promise future blogs will be shorter.
Be sure to follow me on Twitter @dansaso or connect with me on LinkedIn for those who want to collaborate.
I’m excited to get your feedback and will strive up my game. Treat these posts as an open forum. Voice your feedback, your criticisms your praise and your responses.
Thank you in advance for all the above. Till next time.