Content Strategy

Create the single best resource for your niche. And you won’t have to worry about selling your product.

Content is winner takes all. It’s the 1% that gets 99% of the attention. If you can create the single best resource for your niche you won’t have to worry about selling your product.

To explain the importance of content in sales enablement, I have a beautiful story to share.

The story is about a former pool guy at River Pools and Spas (RPS),  Marcus Sheridan.

( I heard this story while taking Sales Enablement course at Hubspot Academy).

Marcus is CEO and president of the Sales Lion.

Story | River Pools

The story is about how Marcus studied the buyer’s journey for RPS customers and used content to squeeze the sales cycle.

Year 2007:

1. 250 sales appointments.
2. Driving 2-3 hours to the client site.
3. Educating the client on various aspects of pool installation for 2-3 hours.
4. Driving back home for 2-3 hours.
5. Marcus hardly got to see his wife and kids.
6. After all this hustle Marcus converted 75 clients out of 250 appointments.

Year 2009:

1. Recession hits.
2. People could not anymore afford to pay for pool installations.
3. Marcus starts to receive cancellation orders.
4. The company lost quarter-million dollars in 48 hours.
5. Weeks and months pass by, bringing the company on the verge of bankruptcy.

Year 2013:

1. 150 sales appointments.
2. 110 converted clients.
3. Marcus now had sales and marketing teams to work for him.

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How did Marcus reinvent?

Marcus used buyer-centric content strategy.

Here is how:

Marcus took a hard look at the buyer’s journey for pools and here is what he found out.

Most of the buyers asked him more or less the same questions in the sales appointment.

Two major things that the buyers wanted to know:

1. How is the pool installation process going to look like?
   • The pool showing up.
   • Going in the ground.
   • Patio going around it.
   • All the cleanup.
2. Which options shall they choose for customization?
   • Whether to use a heater or not.
   • Solid cover or Mesh cover, which would be better.
   • Whether the heater should be gas or electric etc.

So he thought, what if he can manage to get all these questions answered even before the sales appointment.

Marcus followed: “They Ask, You Answer” plan.

Marcus, with his team, created two things:

1. An awesome video to walk the buyer through the installation process.
2. A guide to help buyers make customization decisions based on pros and cons.

The sales team was instructed to guide the buyer to use the video and guide them to educate themselves.

Here is how Marcus’s pitch looked like.

Buyer: Hey Marcus, I’m checking out your website, could you come out to my house and give me a quote for a pool.

Marcus: Sure, I’d love to come out to your house, but you’re getting ready to spend a lot of money,

and if you’re going to spend a lot of money, I know you don’t want to make any mistakes.

So, as to make sure you don’t make any mistakes, this is what we’re going to do.

As we’re talking on the phone right now, I’m going to send you two things that you’re really going to like.

The first thing I’m going to send you is a link to the video that’s awesome.

This video is going to show you the process of the pool showing up, going in the ground, patio going around it, all the cleanup.

This way you’re going to see the whole thing, and this way when I come out to your house on Friday, you’re not going to say,

so, Marcus what is this process look like, you’re already going to know.

The second thing I’m going to send you is this guide, if you will.

This guide is great because it’s going to answer all those little questions you have right now about pools,

like should I get a heater with my pool? What’s the best type of heater? Should it be gas or electric?

Should I get a cover? What’s the best type of cover? Should it be mesh? Should it be solid?

We’re going to answer all those questions.

It’s a little bit long, this guide, it’s about 30 pages, but I promise it will be well worth your time.

Will you take the time to review those things before our appointment on Friday?

Buyer: Sure! (In 90% cases)

Source: HubSpot

If you carefully observe the pitch, Marcus tells the buyer that he cares about the buyer’s hard-earned money.

Marcus is also inspiring the buyer to make an informed decision.

How to find out whether Marcus’s buyer centric strategy worked or not?

An advanced data-analytics tool gave the answer.

Marcus divided the leads into two groups.

Group A had the people who bought the pool installation service.

Group B had the people who did not buy the pool installation service.

The team then found out the differences between the two groups.

The major difference between the two groups was, Group A, the buyer group had actually read at least 30 pieces of content.

This was proof that the buyer-centric content strategy actually works!

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What is an anecdote?

An anecdote is a short amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person.

Why should you care about anecdotes?

People love to read stories.

Stories are a great way to deliver value to your readers.

Stories that come from your personal experiences.

Be it at work or in any other walk of life.

It’s like the cherry on the cake.

If you plan to establish thought leadership or create a community;

Knowing how to write great anecdotes, shall come really handy.

How to write anecdotes?

The other day I came across a wonderful set of action pointers to write anecdotes.

As you all know, Happiness for me is to share every interesting thing I learn!

So here I am 🙂

I got the below template from one of the webinars.

The webinar was presented by Adi Suja from Growthetics.

Action Pointers	Example 1	Example 2
Tell me about a time when you……	Had a major life change (moving to a new city, quitting job, starting new business)	Got rid of a bad habit (alcohol, etc.)
Short and Quick Summary	I started a new job and it was soul crushing	I kicked a banana addiction
Background Info & 2-3 Sentence Elaboration	I started a new job as a Skydiving Instructor, but quickly realized that I was afraid of heights and didn’t like doing this line of work. I quit after a few days and felt a lot better.	I had a bad habit of binge-eating bananas. I would eat seven dozen bananas in a day compulsively, then felt sick afterwards. I quit though and felt amazing afterwards.
What was the moment of highest drama?	When I had to write out my resignation letter after only 2 hours of employment.	When I decided to throw out over $2000 worth of bananas in my garage.
How did it make you feel?	I felt miserable.	I felt trapped.
How did it make others feel?	My boss was upset at first , but we’re still friends now.	My friends said that I was transformed into a new man after I kicked the addiction.
What did this make you realize?	I realized that you shouldn’t work a job that you don’t enjoy.	I realized that banana addiction is real and that life was a lot better after I stopped the addiction.
What was the lesson learned?	Don’t work a job that you hate.	Addiction will ruin you.

Well, as you must have guessed already.

The purpose of the above stories is just to make you laugh 🙂

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Here comes my turn to write a story based on the pointers as a learning exercise!

I am attempting to write a personal story.

Tell me about a time when you……

When I saw my son reading the Harry Potter book during his online schooling.

Short and Quick Summary

I felt shocked to see my son not paying attention in the class.

And I  decided to help him keep the distractions away.

Background Info & 2-3 Sentence Elaboration

There are 80 students with one teacher in a class over a zoom video call.

The teacher cannot keep an eye on all the students, unlike real classrooms.

Besides, the engagement in class should not be driven by fear of getting caught by the teacher.

What was the moment of highest drama?

When I asked my son, “Champ, Is it right to get distracted during the class?”

He answered, “Mamma, I know it’s not right, but I can’t help it!”

How did it make you feel?

I felt so touched.

I felt that his struggle is the same as mine.

It’s the same as myself getting tempted to check a Whatsapp message or a Facebook notification during work hours.

Three ideas crossed my mind to solve this distraction problem.

1. To check with fellow parents;
   • If they are facing the same issue.
   • And if they’ve figured out a way to fix it.
2. To seek guidance from experts.
3. To check myself, How do I fight distractions?

How did it make others feel?

A few other parents were also facing the same issue.

Most of them had a common suggestion.

Remove all the distractions from the device child uses for schooling.

Be it games, non-school books, kids messenger, etc.

I thought to seek help from my go-to person for any such issues.

Mr. Ajay Tyagi, Child Psychology Specialist.

Here is his words of gold:

As parents, we always declare very loudly about the study time.

Have you ever declared about …..

Fun time. Play time. Relax time. Favorite book reading time. Teasing sibling time.

Never na?

Just try and see the magic.

Even when you allow them some play time.

Check your attitute, how you say it?

“Ok you can play now”

As if you are doing your kids a favor.

Children do not pick the words.

But the music played along with it.

As far as checking myself on the distractions part is concerned.

I became more aware of myself and kept the temptations away.

I am a firm believer of practice what you preach.

What did this make you realize?

After receiving the advice.

Here is what I did –

On the following weekend.

I announced all the playtime stuff with great happiness and enthusiasm.

Gave my son more hugs than usual.

We played UNO and baked cookies together.

He read the Harry Potter book for hours.

He played his favorite game on mobile to his content.

I did not ask him to study at all for Sat-Sun.

All of us had a very happy weekend.

On Sunday night, I just reminded him not to get distracted in classes Monday onwards.

Believe it or not. It worked wonders.

It’s been 4 days.

There has not been a single distraction episode 🙂

What was the lesson learned?

Now, I shall always remember.

Kids do not pick words but the music played along with those words.

Now is the time to test the appeal of this story

First test:

Teacher’s feedback. Requesting Adi Suja from Growthetics to see if I understood the lesson well or not.

Second test:

If you read the whole story and liked it, please type a smiley in the comments at the end of this article.

Third test:

I am going to share this story on my parenting blog.

Observe, how people react to it.

And update this post with their reactions.

What’s your take?

Would you like to write an anecdote using these pointers?

Would you share this post with your content writers to write stories for your business?

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Yesterday I came across a writing course by “Craft Your Content“.

Their tagline is “Helping You Make Your Own Words Even Better”.

As a copywriter, I would definitely love to make my own words even better.

So I jumped in!

As a first step in the course, I have been asked to fill a questionnaire.

So here are my answers to the questionnaire.

Voice & Vision Questionnaire

1. The brand/name of my team is:

I am part of Team Concurate.

2. The tagline of my team is:

People Pay Us to Stop Their Revenue Leaks.

3. The web address is:

www.concurate.com

4. How long have you been doing this?

I joined the team on 3rd February 2020.

5. How did you get into this?

I am an Electronics and Telecommunications Engineer by qualification.

I was the Editor of my College Magazine.

I am a mom of two 9 years old boy and 2 years old girl.

In the past, I have worked with TechMahindra, Infosys, Enbake full time.

I took a career break to embark on the beautiful journey of motherhood.

In last ten years, I have done lot of social media on personal level.

Youtube Channel. Facebook Blog. Parenting blog.

Because of the knack of writing I got an opportunity to join Concurate.

Currently, I am a copywriter at concurate. 

6. Why did you get into this?

It’s an opportunity for me to help people through my writing.

7. What skills do you bring to your business/brand table that lead to success?

Copywriting. Empathy. Understanding of User Experience and ability to enhance it.

8. In two or three speedy sentences, tell us about your business/brand:

Our company helps businesses bring systems in their companies, as that’s the only way to take the next big leap.

We help businesses create their buyer personas and buyer’s journey to identify the revenue leaks.

Once we know the leaks we help them work towards various aspects like:

a) Sales and Marketing Alignment.

b) Sales Playbook Creation.

c) Bringing the internal chatter out to create cult following.

9. What about your business/brand makes you hit the snooze button and hide your head?

Hmm. I can’t think of anything at the moment.

10.  What about your business/brand gets you out of bed in the morning?

When I see that people are reading what I write. Thanks to Google Analytics.

Seeing such a low bounce rate is a treat 🙂 

I hope, the readers are benefitted from what I write.

Thanks a lot everyone for reading :)!

11. What are the biggest stumbling blocks you are experiencing with your business/brand currently?

Visibility to the target audience.

12. What are some other businesses or brands in your space that you look to either as 1) a mortal enemy and/or 2) someone simply doing something well?

Can’t think of any.

13. If you could pick your ideal reader/customer off the street, who would it be?

14.  Why does this ideal reader/customer choose to work with you?

To overcome his challenges.

15.  Why should they care?

If they don’t want to burn their fingers. We have burnt ours and we are here to save theirs.

16. How does your business/brand change or improve the world for your ideal customer?

Our ideal customer will be able to stop revenue leaks and grab more business opportunities once we help him bring systems in his business.

17.  How will your ideal customer feel after they have purchased from or worked with you?

Let me tell you upfront that what we do is grunt work. It takes time to show the results.

18. What do you really sell to your customers, other than a product or deliverable?

We sell them better version of their own business.

19. What type of customer do you NOT like working with? What is it about them that is not a good fit for your business/brand?

We like to work with people who like boutique experience and not the ones who don’t care about our approach to work.

20.  In an ideal world, how will content affect your business/brand?

Content is a medium to reach our target buyers.

Content is a way to bring our internal chatter out.

Content is a way to showcase our approach to work.

21. How often are you creating content?

Everyday.

22. Why is now the time for you to improve and focus on quality compelling content?

It’s always on our mind to write better to bring more value to our readers.

I support my content with examples so that it’s easy to understand. Also, the suggestions in my content are actionable.

However, I am yet to discover the recipe to go viral 🙂

23. What would you rather no one mention about your current content?

Could not understand this question 🙁

24. What keeps you talking about your content for hours?

All of our content is aimed to benefit the readers.

Most of the content is learning-based; comes straight by interviewing successful entrepreneurs.

Or based on training received from experts.

Or my own first-hand experiences with different businesses and products.

25.  How often do you write?

Everyday. If I am not researching.

26.  What do you not-love-so-much about your writing?

I wish that it was more compelling.

27.  What do you not-love-so-much about other writing in your industry? Are there particular topics, phrases, or ideas that make you want to throw up in your mouth a little bit?

Nah.

28.  If someone reads a piece of your content, what do you hope they will take away?

An actionable step to improve their business.

29. What are your Top 3 Priorities (high-level) for your business/brand right now?

1. Creating Value for our Readers.

2. Thought Leadership & Community Building.

3. Creating automation tools for sales and marketing.

30. What is your end game? How do you see the brand of your team succeeding?

Helping businesses grow their revenue 2x or more.

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31.  If your team brand were your best friend, what five (5) words would you use to describe it?

Helpful.

Intelligent.

Experienced.

Guide.

Teacher.

Why should you care about this questionnaire?

Honestly, it depends on how the course unfolds in next 10 days.

Stay tuned with me to know more about it!

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Meanwhile, Explore the plethora of resources to help you out your business! If your organisation wants its content marketing strategy designed by Concurate, let’s connect over a short call. Block our calendar today!