profile

Rod Aparicio

Seen that movie before

Published 3 days ago • 1 min read

Pre-S: Been swamped with a project and this past week it was all about findings —which led to more writing.

​

I've seen that movie before.

Lots of the businesses I work with face similar problems. And they usually come with the same self diagnosis: We need more better leads. We need more better marketing.

While this might be true, it's never the main issue.

One. It's not a numbers game.

  • The more quotes you send, the more sales you'll make.
    ​Sure. Under whose rules?
  • We are losing on price. Our prices need to be lower.
    ​Sure. So if you get a lower price to sell, you'll close 100%.
  • We can't charge more than what the market pays.
    ​Sure. What's the price the market pays for?
  • We have to give the buyers a win so they'll go to their boss and say they got 30% off the price.
    ​Sure. As they won't push for more.
  • We have to keep them busy and be quick with the quotes.
    ​Sure. Purchasing departments won't look for options.

I'll dive deep into these for this week and a few ways to get out of that loop if you're facing it yourself right now.

Rod Aparicio

Get one tip, question, or belief-challenge that just might change the way you market, to help your customers buy. A *daily* email for b2b founders on improving your business —without the bullshit.

Read more from Rod Aparicio

The fastest (and more efficient) way to get someone to do something is when THEY come up with the idea. In THEIR words. It's not your job to convince. Or to police them around. It's to guide them make the best-informed decision. And that only comes from their mouths. Not yours. It's their idea. It's you guiding.

about 7 hours ago • 1 min read

Usually, how we understand 'thinking' is as a scaffolding process, where one thing builds upon the previous one, taking you to a scenario. I don't usually function like that (been told I think backwards). Thinking backwards is jumping onto as many scenarios could happen, to then take the most likely ones to happen and start working backwards on how to get there, what could the obstacles be for each one, and ways to approach each one. This drives people crazy. If you give it a shot it can...

1 day ago • 1 min read

On the subject of "We need more better leads and more better marketing", here are some other phrases that happen in conversations with small business owners. We need results.Sure. What's your implementation and progress tracking?How do you know what's working and not? We have to wait.Sure. Till when?What's making this decision for waiting?So that we don't lose what we have now. So you'd rather wait and hope for them to agree with you then, than having the hard conversation now and getting an...

2 days ago • 1 min read