Learn what fishing is, what makes a jackup different, tips for marketing to the oil & gas industry and how to tell if your son is going to be an oilfield worker.
Transcript of Session –
Hey, folks. Let’s learn some more about the oil and gas industry.
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All right. This is the monthly program where we answer e-mails. So these are actually June e-mails.
First one. What is the marketing tips for the oil and gas industry?
All right. Couple of things that are really important for you marketing efforts. Number one is focus on your target customer. There are so many different variables in this industry and there are so many different segments that you need to have a laser focus on who your potential buyer is, understand their problems, and then pitch your product to solve those specific problems.
Number two. Build strategic partnerships. Doing business in this industry is hard for new companies who have never done it before. So if you can partner with somebody that’s already selling in the oil and gas industry, that gives you a lot of street credibility and will help you get in front of the right people much, much, much quicker.
And then finally, engage with your sales team. Too many of the people that I talked to, their marketing sales group don’t communicate. The sales teams are vital to get customer information that is real. So not just data on a spreadsheet somewhere, but actually what are the customers looking for, what issues are need to be solved.
So, if you do these three things that will go a long way in your marketing efforts in the oil and gas market.
Number two. What is fishing?
So, I know it sounds ridiculous that there’s a part of the industry called fishing, but it’s really quite simple. So anytime you’re drilling a hole in the ground like a wellbore, if you drop something down that hole and it gets in your way. So whatever you would drop down an oil well while it’s being drilled, think of a tool, a piece of drill stem, or some debris is called a fish and fishing is the process of retrieving that debris from the wellbore so that drilling can continue.
In the old days, it’s really kind of crude. They would basically shove some hooks or some magnets on the end of the drill stem and try to drill through whatever it was they dropped down the hole. Nowadays, it pretty damn sophisticated. They use cameras, they get impressions, there’s a multiple of tools that they can lower down the hole to remove that fish. So that’s what fishing is.
Number three. What is jack-up?
A jack-up is the rig that when it’s working it’s suspended on top of fixed legs, but when it’s not working they can retract the legs and the rig itself can actually move around. Some of them are self-propelled and the other ones are big enough where they use a tugboat, but it makes it quick and easy to get rigs started with a jack-up. Now, the limitations of a jack-up is they can’t go in very deep water about 300, 350 feet is the deepest you can use the jack-up.
Number four. How do I put together a great sales presentation?
All right. I see this screwed up all the time. When you’re putting a sales presentation together, you need to focus on the problem. In fact, 80% of your presentation should be on the problem, not on the solution. And then another 15% of your presentation should actually be on the benefit and then finally 5% or 10% should be on the actual solution, what you actually sell.
I see way too many sales teams screwed it up and spend three quarters of their time talking about the bells and whistles of their solution. Clients don’t want to hear that.
And then, five. Would Halliburton be a good company for us to target to introduce new technology to the oil and gas market?
Halliburton is about a $25 billion a year company, about 100,000 employees globally. They’re a bit of a big old ship, but they’re in a very competitive environment with companies like Baker Hughes, Weatherford, Schlumberger. So if you bring a technology to them that gives them a competitive advantage and if you’re talking to the right person, yeah, they’ll have an interest in it.
So, a lot of the technology companies that I engaged with whether software or hardware, typically we target the service company first ‘cause they’re the first adapters of the new technology ‘cause then they take it and use it to serve their clients which is a big, you know, super majors and independents, you know, Anadarko, Shell, Exxon. So, in the right situation Halliburton would absolutely be a great client to target.
So finally, I kind of want in the show I had a discussion with my friend the other day who happens to be a preacher. And he has a son that’s 18 years old and like most 18-year olds these days, he really has no idea where he’s going in life. So my friend whose dad thought he would do a little experiment. He placed a dollar bill, a bottle of whiskey, a Playboy centerfold on the kid’s nightstand and waited and see what happens when his boy came home.
The way he was figuring if the boy pick up the dollar bill first, he’s probably be a businessman. If he pick up the centerfold first, he’s probably be chasing skirt his whole life. And if he pick up the bottle of whiskey, he’s probably be a drunkard. So he waited and the son came home and the son pick up the dollar bill, stuck it in his pocket, open the bottle of whiskey took a big swallow, and was looking at the Playboy centerfold. And my friend look at me and goes, oh, my God, he’s becoming an oil field worker.
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