Say Less, Win More: Clear Messaging for Complex Deals

Welcome to the Oil and Gas Sales and Marketing podcast, where every week your hosts, Mark LaCour and Matt Bertram share proven strategies and real-world tactics to help you connect with customers and close more deals. Let's do this. Howdy. Welcome back to the Oil and Gas Sales and Marketing podcast.

I'm your host, Matt Bertram. We're at the CellWell conference. I've been meeting some fantastic people. There's all kinds of exciting things going on, and I have an exciting guest for you. I have Katie with Murphy Marketing here,

and we're going to talk about complex selling and how messaging is critical to that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, why don't you set the table for us? Yeah, so I think anytime you have a complex service and you're trying to sell into a, I don't know, complicated industry,

everyone's hungry for clarity and they're hungry for certainty. A lot of times, subject matter experts leading these organizations want to be very comprehensive in what they're saying or talking about or how they're presenting their brand, and it goes way over everyone's head. It is a fire hose of information and it's just too much.

I help businesses really distill down what's important to their audience, and we do that through a number of interviews, collaborative process with the owner, and then interviewing the customers as well, so they're interviewing their clients so that we can pressure test the message

and make sure that we're saying the right things. Give me an example. Mm-hmm. We worked with a consulting firm who was selling into oil and gas, and they're a new firm. We didn't have a whole lot of history with that organization

that could come into the oil and gas industry that really appreciates longevity, but because we were able to really be clear about what it is they do, what value they provide, how their process even works and what their relationship could look like, I think that made it really easy for them

to have a really good chance in those conversations. I think positioning is so important. I've talked on previous podcasts about when someone, if you reach out to them or they come look for you and find you or they meet you at a conference, what's the first thing they're going to do?

They're going to look you up online, they're going to look at your LinkedIn, they're going to look at your previous posts, they're going to look at maybe your previous blogs, what are you doing on social media? They're going to search you on Google,

maybe ask you how to TVT, who knows, right? You got to make sure that you're positioned properly of what people are going to find, and also what are you trying to communicate and to who, because you could be sending the wrong message without even knowing it and by not sending a message, you're sending a message in itself.

So there's all these things to consider. So I look at a lot of companies in oil and gas, you know, they've operated the same way for forever, but the things are changing now. What are the biggest things that you're seeing that are like the easy wins that someone maybe can run through

a checklist in their organization and go, okay, we need to be doing this or we need to be doing that? Mm-hmm. I think they need to really have intentionality around how they're talking about what they do, being intentional about who they're talking to,

and keeping those audience members in mind at all times. I think it's easy to lose sight of who your audience is because you're so worried about hitting every single talking point every time that you forget where they are in their business or even their life. And sales is a longer conversation, right?

It's a sequence of touch points. You don't have to get it all out the first time, and I think salespeople a lot of times like to, you know... You think you have one shot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so you want to get it out there.

And I can see there's a lot of times I feel like salespeople are bringing the gap between what technical people want to do and the customer, and they're translating how this applies. And now they're speaking to different people, whether it be cost savings or like to finance or moneymaking depends how you're viewing it.

They're dealing with different stakeholders like procurement or the executive suite or the people out there in the field or whoever it is who has the problem and maybe even their boss because the champion is somebody else. So it's very messy to try to speak to all the different stakeholders or buying counsel for some of these products.

Yeah. How would someone approach that? How would they approach the multi-audience piece? Yeah, how would you divide up the content or start the process of like you were talking about interviews or discovery and getting that clarity.

A lot of go-to-market is what I've seen with a lot of engineers have left a big company. They have some great idea. They want to start or I've seen a number of companies that are funded and they're trying to tap into the market or there's people that have a SaaS or something like that.

They're trying to sell into this market, but they don't have a place to start, like you said. I feel like you need to get a case study or do a pilot or like that should be where the conversation starts as well as has anybody even heard about your brand? Have you done any kind of surveys and you have to piece together?

Like what is your brand today? Right. And where do you want it to be? And is there product awareness or brand awareness around what you even do and building that brand is the beginning I feel like is when I think content.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think the other thing that a lot of people don't realize is that it continually builds as you get a new case study and as you have a new client and you get more information, you keep building and iterating on that. So then you can build the specific messages

as you speak into different departments and understand more what their problems were and how you were able to specifically solve them and the results that they saw. Then you can use that to continually build your library of case studies and examples and all those different stories

that you can keep telling to really iterate your message as you go along. From a content standpoint, what kind of assets have you seen to be most effective in marketing to oil and gas and enterprise? I think having a good website as like a tent pole

to really serve as a helpful authority piece so people can go back because it is such a long process. So we want to have all that information that they can reference. Different departments can look at it to really validate the legitimacy of maybe a new organization. But I think there also needs to be other strands

of ways that people get there. So I think LinkedIn is a really great place and pretty low risk. You can put stuff out there, test different messages. But I think like you were saying, you want to make sure that it is intentional.

Even if you're testing something, you don't want to do something totally off the wall because it needs to look consistent. But I think it's a really great proving ground. So I would say like website LinkedIn. And then maybe there's an element of events,

whether that's in person or online or some combination of... Yeah, I've seen webinars be really effective because you need that long form content or you need them maybe engaged. And conferences are super helpful.

I feel like marketing and sales, there's so much that has to happen before the conference, like to prep to know who's going to be there to meet, to set up those additional meetings because you have everybody in one place. And I feel like post-conference,

there's so much fall off from a marketing standpoint. How would you speak to a sales organization of what kind of post-marketing, conference marketing they should be doing or considering? I mean, really basic. I think everyone should absolutely be adding people

If you've met them and had a conversation, I always like to reach out and say, I enjoyed our talk about X, Y, and Z, even for my own benefit. So I remember like what we talked about. Get them in the phone.

Get them in the phone. And give them that context. And then you kind of have your foot in the door to keep that conversation going. And then I think if it makes sense, if you feel like there's synergy there,

maybe go ahead and get a call on the calendar or set up a meeting if they're in person or plan something next so that you keep that momentum going and it just doesn't just fall off or get buried in your inbox when you get back to your desk.

I'm like all AI. So I'm like, create something with AI that's personalized to them and then send it to them. That's valuable. That's something I've never said before until now. I actually think it's gonna be the norm.

Yes, yes. The conversations that you have at a conference, you could totally put that in AI and just like your notes from it or what you remember. There's a pendant you can start wearing it and it just picks up everything.

It's crazy. That's where I think it's pointing. There's glasses now. Interesting. So it's gonna be multimodal. But you can use those conversations as inspiration

to create content or like to keep riffing on what people are talking about. Like let's continue the conversation. Exactly. That's the biggest thing I've found in sales is like you have this great conversation

at this moment in time. And it's like, how do you get back to that place with that prospect where they're in that mindset and you can continue that conversation if you had more time? Yeah.

I feel like that's what a lot of what it's about. Right, right. Well, and John in one of the sessions was talking about a collaborative article. And I imagine if we had a really good conversation, I could draft a blog post and be like,

I would love your input. Like why don't we co-write this? And then we could share it on both of our LinkedIn's or whatever. That could be an amazing way to keep the conversation going

and then reach their audience. Like it's a expansive approach. Yeah, like I would love for you to leave a review on the podcast after it's over about your experience. And we should do a follow-up where we do a Instagram live or a LinkedIn live

where it announces to both of our audiences that we're gonna be doing a Q&A, having those kind of follow-up things I think are important. And those connections, those ties, like they're like notes.

It's like everything that I'm thinking about or how I'm thinking is like a spider web. And it's like also how strong can you overlay that node of that touch point with that person? That example of a co-content piece is phenomenal. Yes, yeah.

Or social media, we'll take a picture together, right? And we'll post it. And then tag, building those connections are really important to establish that. You talked about a little bit before we got started about also selling in very competitive industries.

And when you talk about complex selling in a competitive industries, which oil and gas is one of them, if you think about like the RFP process, sometimes it's a race to the bottom. Totally.

How do you position yourself in that scenario? And I've seen different things of offering something that's unique enough that doesn't fit into that box or becoming a vendor that doesn't meet those requirements so you don't have to abide by everything that you're doing. I mean, what are some other ways to differentiate yourself

when you know that you're competing for the business because no one likes to be sold. Totally. And no one also likes to be the person at the dance that no one picks to dance with. Like selling a dance and it's tough,

I always like that, hey, we didn't pick you, but we think we could engage you for this over here, or if this doesn't work out, whatever, those kind of conversations where you get feedback. And many times it's like, you were a little too high. Yeah.

How do you deal with stuff in that realm? I think a really underappreciated way to stand out and to differentiate is to talk about the character of your leadership and the character of your business. So what I mean by character is kind of the combination of your values and your personality even

and how that comes to life in the engagement that you plan to have with that business. So for me, one of my core values is collaboration and everything I do is intentionally very collaborative down to the agendas of our meeting. I want my clients to weigh in and add to it.

I don't want to just produce content and then send it off like a content vending machine. I want it to be collaborative because they're the subject matter expert and I'm the marketing translator and we need to come together.

For me, that would be something that I call out in my RFPs is like, this is how it's gonna work together. We're gonna get the best result this way and that's what it's gonna look like. So for each business, it's gonna be different. Like whatever their value or character looks like,

think about how that intersects with the work that you do so that you really become one of a kind. Yes, you're up against other businesses in an RFP and your services may be very similar. They may be priced very similar, but you want to stand out in a way

that no one can compete with. And I really think that comes down to the character of the person behind the business. People do business with people. Exactly. And I feel like something that I haven't talked

about enough is people make decisions based on emotion. Okay, how did you make them feel? Not logic, many times. AI maybe logic, but humans make decisions based upon emotion and a human is buying from you. So you need to stand out differently.

And that's where I think the LinkedIn bridges the gap or videos bridge the gap because you can connect with somebody even when you're not there or they can connect with you and they need to know who you are. They need to know, like, and trust you

as talked about a lot. And from a conference, you meet them. So there's a framework that we use that Google put out like 2004, but it's still applicable because humans are humans, right? Seven, 11, four, okay?

So seven hours of engagement. That's why conferences are so great. Like we hang out at the conference, we get to know each other. We're ticking up to that seven hour mark. And after that, you kind of move

from the public facing persona. So like, I'm wearing a suit jacket. Like you get to know the person, like who they are in their personal life to a degree. And that usually happens around seven hours. And then they need to see you many times

to be comfortable with you. And they also need to see you in different settings. 11 times is like, you might not remember someone's name or you might not remember someone's business if you're not carrying a big logo. So you need repetition.

And then they need to associate that with value because the brain's always just sorting the suit through stuff. They need to see it. And that's when the advertising and marketing and demand generation come in and they see you, but they're not comfortable with you yet

because they haven't reached that seven hours. And then they think about, well, can this person deliver, right? That's the big thing. Like are they established? Have they been around a while?

I've actually have a study about billboards and we've been doing some like digital billboards and the trust factor goes through the roof because if someone sees you on a billboard, it's like they made it. That's like the pinnacle.

And so we've been doing the tests with digital billboards where it's paper click for a couple hours and doing like measured tests in certain geographic areas, gangbusters. Okay? Really?

Because, and that's where the four comes in, four different channels. They need to see you on multiple channels. So it's like, oh, you see me on LinkedIn. And then you look at Instagram or Facebook or whatever. And then, oh, we have an email exchange.

And then, oh, there he is on LinkedIn again on the CellWell conference. And let me listen to his podcast. All those things, it's very hard today to measure attribution, right? Yeah.

But kind of popping around like a, what is it called, pinball machine? Oh yeah. Right? Like you really want that happening with someone that you meet

and that builds that level of trust and authority. And it's produced. It's like a perceived authority. Yeah. And that grows over time. And certainly there's ways to expedite that.

And we're talking about sales. This is how marketing and this is how content can help you bridge the gap when you're not with that customer. I can't handle the two hour lunches anymore. My schedule is pretty good.

Yeah. Like I can't do that. And it drains the day. Like COVID was great for me because, well, we can do that. Now they're coming back. I see value in it because you're trying

to get to the seven hours, but you can get to it through a recorded webinar. You can get through it through a podcast. You can get through it through social media. They're still trying to get there. They're just trying to get there a different way.

It depends on where your capabilities are, your knowledge of MarTech, marketing technology, and how to leverage it. I think that marketing can make salespeople great. And we talk a lot about how salespeople need to go drag your marketing person with you to the sales calls.

They need to understand what's going on because you talked about that. You talked about the knowledge transfer that has to happen, the partnership that has to happen with the consultant or customer to understand that business.

Because no one can be an expert in everything, or on gas. No, absolutely not. It's too big. Like I'm like, yeah, I don't know on gas, but I don't know about that widget or whatever.

Well, and there's external realities that are always kind of coming in and out of the picture. So what was a problem six months ago may not be as big of a problem today, but maybe there's a new one. And getting that continual feedback woven back in,

it's not like marketing is gonna hand it to sales and then sales is gonna, it's not a chunk of time. It's almost a weaving in or a braid together that they need to be like really working in sync. I think what you said, I love the braid analogy and also that I think we talked about that at the beginning

going back to that moment, right? Where I wish I could pick up that moment where I left off. Not possible, might not be an issue, different thing. I've found many times like I'm about to close a deal and then the person that I'm talking to leaves the company. Yeah, yes.

And I'm like, I didn't know anything about this. They kept it close to the vest or whatever happened. I'm like, now it's just like- Now you're toast. Right, it's just like it starts over, you know? And many times either that person will stay in touch

with you and bring you along or maybe come get you later or sometimes they like have to disappear or people are thinking about their perspective. And I think it's a lot about how is that person? I think it's about how you make that person feel. I think it's about the feeling they have of you

when they think about you and then it doesn't matter where it is in time that you fall on the spectrum but certainly if this changes, you still may or may not be able to help them on how they feel about you and you've positioned yourself like do you cover that area of expertise?

I think that sales and marketing are both undervalued by the organization because it's not, you don't put a bow on it and hand it over. It's an interesting dance or braid that we would like that. Is there anything that we have not talked about

that you wanted to make sure to share or get out there or any kind of frameworks that you use, like the 7-11-4, we use that a lot. It helps my team and my account managers look at an account and say, what are we doing in each bucket? Are we running enough ads?

Are we on enough social media channels? Are we producing enough content? In that framework, it helps me know that we're measuring something with the client because it's not perfect but 85% of the time, if they're not doing these things, then they should be.

And if they are doing these things, it's usually pretty easy to identify. It could be just their messaging is just horrible and we'll do like a quick survey and there's even these tools that I'm testing out. It's like a synthetic persona.

And it's like, this is what AI thinks that the person will say or do. And you can test ads and things really quickly. And you can use data if you're running AdWords. You can put a bunch of different slogans or words and then pictures and videos

and just throw it out there in like a Pumax campaign and see what it gets produced. That helps inform the salespeople on maybe the content or the collateral or the messaging or the case studies. I love boosting posts that are value-driven and you can take a couple of different case studies

and then boost the different case studies or papers and see where the response is. And many times it's like you change the title and it changes everything. There's a lot of different components. So yeah, what other things in your mind

are maybe something we haven't covered that you think are supremely valuable and something that you use? Yeah, so John Way and I, we've really been talking a lot in our workshops that we're doing, especially at the conference.

We're talking about when you think about your elevator pitch. So like really simplifying your whole messaging down to maybe 30 seconds or 60 seconds and making sure that you're always hitting on the obviously what you do, but the why you and the why now are so important

because it helps you have the framework around what are your differentiators? Why should they work with you over the other guy? And why now? So many times at a networking or even online, you're telling what you do all the time.

Everyone knows what you do, but they don't feel the urgency and not urgency for urgency's sake to manipulate and control people or scare them even. But it's like, what's at risk if they don't make this decision?

What's at risk if they keep the incumbent and never switch to something better? There are things that they would be leaving on the table and we want to authentically call those to there. To their attention. What are you missing out on?

Right, right, right, right. Everybody's saying learn AI like that. Give me an example of a professional way to fan those flames. Thinking about the external pressures that are at play with any business or any industry,

there's going to be seasonality probably or deadlines for different regulatory requirements or compliance things. Like there are factors at play that are just plain true. I think as you can position your service

or offer along those lines, it doesn't feel gross because it's just true. This has to be done by this date or this thing is changing on September 1st. You have to be in compliance or there are those things that you have to have.

And also by knowing those about your industry, you're the expert. You're telling them what they need to be doing. I think that's one way that I've seen work really well. The other is if you legitimately have a limitation of you can only take on so many clients a year,

people need to know that. And I think there's a level of excitement or exclusivity that is it's true that you can only work with 20 people. Are you going to be number 19? Like, I don't know. Scarcity. Right, right.

Well, Katie, this has been great. I would like to ask you, we've talked a lot about LinkedIn. What would you say a big LinkedIn fail or tip would be that you've seen recently? I will share my own fail.

So I have been using it as a experiment and I've tested a bunch of things and some things have worked, some things haven't. But I think the overall feedback that I feel like is a fail is that it confused people. They were like, I don't know what you are doing.

What are you working on right now? I was so one surprised because I thought, oh no, I've broken the whole system. But then I was encouraged because people are reading it and they're seeing the consistencies and even the inconsistencies.

People don't comment, but they read. They sure do. My best referral came from a lurker. So I'm here for it. I think that's the thing that I would say is that people do pay attention

even if you don't have the engagements or comments that you're hoping for. People are definitely paying attention and I think being consistent about what you're saying and talking about is really important. Even if you're maybe experiment

with how you're saying it or the length of post, but maybe don't share all of your offers in a week. It's too much. I'm taking photos for anybody that's listening because we need to make sure people know what we're doing. It's like, we're at the Selwell conference.

So Katie, how do people get in touch with you or follow what you do or may not be doing or post it? Like definitely LinkedIn. You can call me out if it's inconsistent and I'm experimenting too much.

Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. That's my primary social. Lantuk is my last name, L-A-N-T-U-K-H. And then my website is murphy.marketing and I send out a email that's a quick how to improve your messaging by 1% each week, so.

I love that. Everyone go check out Murphy Marketing. We'll put it in the show notes. Thank you, Katie so much for coming on. Thank you so much. Everyone remember, make a difference, not a sale.

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