It’s Not B2B or B2C It’s H2H

Recently, I attended a marketing seminar by author Mark Schaefer. It was called “The Uprising.” And during that presentation, one of the speakers had had a fantastic quote and I jotted it down as fast as I could…because I’m like “that is blog article gold!”

It’s Not B2B or B2C It’s H2H

So the quote is: It’s Not B2B or B2C It’s H2H.

And I thought, “Man, that’s just awesome!”

So what does that mean, really? What does that mean to you?

Probably nothing, but I thought, “You know what? That’s going to be a great blog article.”

So here’s what’s going on today…I am trying an experiment. And my experiment is to do my blog article today with a video and not write the article.

And the reason I’m doing that is because I want to be more human. I’m really a proponent of human-to-human marketing.

What I really want is for you to see me as a person.

If we had some science fiction technology and I could be talking directly to you and we could be having a conversation that would be preferable, but because we live in the reality that we have today…Um, that doesn’t exist.

So you’re stuck just listening to me for the next couple of minutes.

Anyway, what I really want to unpack here is “what does that phrase mean?”

The phrase remember is: It’s Not B2B or B2C It’s H2H.

So we all know that B2B means, business to business, and B2C is business to consumer, but what does H2H mean?

Human to Human

H2H, of course, is it’s human to human.

And what we’re trying to think about here is that as human beings, sometimes we get lost in the sales and marketing shuffle. So we really need to understand that. And I think that idea could really help your business.

If you’re trying to build more sales growth, I want you to understand and look at how you can inject some human-to-human thinking into what you’re doing.

And I’ve got a couple points on this, so let’s think about that.

100% About the Customer

So, it’s going to start with its “100% about your customer.”

It’s not about the product that you’re selling or the service that you provide or your turnaround time or any of that stuff that you’re always talking about.

It is about your customer.

So it’s about their pain points.

It’s about what they’re struggling with.

It is about what they like. It’s not about what you like, it’s about what they like and think.

Many times when I talk to business owners, they’re so focused on pushing out their agenda rather than trying to understand what the customers really want, and things get missed a little bit.

And so, you can do this…you can really understand what your customers want simply by…I know it’s scary…asking them.

So by getting more involved and, you can do this with simply some, ideas here.

Surprise and Delight

The first thing that I want you to think about is the ultimate goal with anything is that we want to “Surprise and Delight” our customers.

People buy on emotion.

They don’t really buy on data points so much. We buy on what…how…something makes us feel.

Does it feel good to us in our soul, in our inner core, do we really like it?

And if we do, we’re going to do that.

And sometimes, of course, price is relevant…if you can’t afford it… But most of the time price isn’t the big sticking point that you think it is.

Because what we’re looking at is understanding your customers on an emotional level.

Remember, it’s a human-to-human thing that we’re doing. And if we can do that, then we resonate more with our customers and that’s how we’re going to build our sales.

Meet Your Customers

So what I want you to do is “Meet Your Customer.”

And a lot of times, especially with online sales, it is hard to meet our customers because they’re off wherever they are on the web…but we have this magic tool called the internet and we can do a Zoom call.

I use UberConference. You can use Google Meet. You could use Microsoft Teams.

There’s a lot of platforms out there that you can use to actually meet your customers. And you can do that with a super powerful tool that I’m using right now.

Video

You’re watching it in the tool.

Of course, it’s video.

Using video more in your sales process is a really great way for you to get into a more personal relationship with your customers and find out what they’re about.

It’s all about understanding them.

It’s about asking questions.

It’s about understanding the struggle and their problems and their challenges.

Treat Them As People Not $$$

And, you know, just getting to know them as people, because I want you to understand that we need to be treating your customers as people, not just as dollar signs for the order.

A lot of times I think salespeople get hung up in the dollar sign part of it, not really understanding them as people. If you can build up the trust by having a quick Zoom meeting for five minutes or twenty minutes or whatever, you can get to know your customers a little better.

Something that I just recently did and I’ll probably be doing this more…was I simply met somebody the other day for coffee.

And we did that through a Zoom call and it was a lot of fun.

It wasn’t about selling. It was about getting to know them and understanding what they’re about. What their problems are and what they do all day. And, you know, they were actually in California, they’re nowhere close to me.

It was a 20-minute conversation and it was fantastic. That’s how trust starts.

It starts with understanding the other person as people…getting to know them a little bit, not as a company.

I think that’s something that’s really lacking these days. But you can do it, right?

How Can You Make An Impact?

So it all comes down to this: At the end of the day, we want to make an impact on our customers.

We want to be there for them.

We want to help them.

We want to help them grow or thrive or raise money, or what are we doing? And if we start off with treating them as people and understanding what they’re about, it’s so much easier to get to the impactful state because now we know what they’re about and how they tick and all that kind of stuff.

So, here’s my challenge for you, and I’m going to leave this for you today.

I want you to go through your sales history and I want you to find two or three customers, that maybe that you haven’t talked to in a long time. Maybe they haven’t ordered since 2019, because of COVID and problems going on. And maybe things had kind of gotten off to a place where you don’t want to be with them.

I want you to see about meeting them for coffee, with a Zoom call for 15 minutes or 20 minutes.

That’s all it is. And, see if you can make an impact. See if you can just find out what’s going on with them.

You’re trying to reestablish the relationship and that’s your goal.

So test that out.

I want to know, how it works. Please, please, please…at the bottom of this blog article, if you could leave a comment about how it worked or what you thought about this blog article actually being a video, I would really appreciate it.

So anyway, that’s it. If you need more help or want to talk to me about anything you can reach marshall@marshallatkinson.com.

Thanks a lot. I appreciate you guys. See you. Bye.

Meet me for “coffee”

Want to get to know me better? Let’s hook up with a short video call!

I live in Arizona, so I’m probably finished drinking coffee by about 9:00 am, but I’d love to meet you any time of day. Maybe I’ll be drinking something else!

Click this link and schedule a 30-minute call. No sales. Let’s just talk human to human. Even if we already “know” each other, I still want to know more about you and how you are doing these days.

“I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.” – Lily Tomlin

“Progress is man’s ability to complicate simplicity.” – Thor Heyerdahl

“Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.” – Mel Brooks