- Nothing good happens until someone sells something
- It's never really a sale until the customer is deriving the benefits of their purchase
- Loyal customers are the foundation of sustained success
- Marketing people are big on fluff and low on accountability for qualified leads
Yet, as a salesperson, there is much to learn from marketing, especially as you embrace the principles of 'social selling'... most of which is actually 'social marketing'. Sales and marketing need to be one thing, not two separate functions because 'the buyer's journey' usually starts before sales engagement. The disciplines of marketing can transform the way salespeople operate.
As a salesperson, accept ownership and take control of personal pipeline generation. Treat leads from others as a bonus and if you are fortunate enough to have outbound people on the phone sourcing leads for you, help them with their narrative so that your inside sales / BDR / SDR people are being as effective as possible. Here are key things to focus on:
- Know the problem you solve for markets and buyers who care about achieving a far better state of affairs. Where is the strongest market fit for your product, market or solution?
- Identify the attributes of a 'dream client' so that you know where to invest your precious time with the highest probability of benefit for you and your customer. Do you really understand your best existing customers and why they embarked on the journey of change that led to your 'solution'?
- Know what you're looking for and how to monitor trigger events that signal opportunity? Sales Navigator is ideal for role-based trigger events. How can you automate through social monitoring?
- Focus every day on generating referrals. Be in the habit of asking. We see what we're looking for. Take the quick awareness test below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=Ahg6qcgoay4
On this foundation, you must then embrace personal marketing.
Here is an article on 'Creating an Awesome LinkedIn Profile' and it takes you step by step through everything you need to do to create a strong personal brand. Beyond the foundation of a personal brand, you need to become a micro-marketer. Even the most successful take personal ownership and Richard Branson and Elon Musk are excellent examples. They decided to lead the charge with marketing their own companies and they both obsessively focus on innovation in human-centred service augmented by elegant technology. They both create awesome customer experience.
These next two examples are less well known but brilliant at creating huge levels of free publicity with their manscaping products. The founders of the businesses do their own advertisements... truly brilliant and hilarious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=ZUG9qYTJMsI
But not to be outdone, Dollar Beard Club blew the ad out of the water... hilarious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69C3md2f6P0
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Tony Hughes is ranked as the #1 influencer on professional selling in Asia-Pacific and is a keynote speaker and best selling author. This article was originally published on LinkedIn where you can also follow Tony's award-winning blog. Also, visit Tony's keynote speaker website at www.TonyHughes.com.au or his sales methodology website at http://www.rsvpselling.com/.