Author Note: This piece was written originally by Terry Lancaster and published on TerryLancaster.tv. It has been modified to appear on AutoConversion.
Back in the days of yore, if you wanted to be a salesperson, you packed all your wares in a big black bag, hit the road, and started knocking on doors.
Then the telephone made it easier to reach as many people in an hour as you could reach all day on foot.
And now, the world has changed again!
The On-Demand Salesperson and Media Mogul
Over the last 10 years, the interactive web has made it easy for salespeople to reach hundreds, thousands, heck even millions of potential customers with the click of a button. From blogging to social media to video sharing sites like YouTube, we all have an infinite capability to share stories about ourselves and our products.
“But the rub,” as Terry says, “is that it’s never been easier for our customers to ignore us.”
It’s not like we can stick our foot in the door and immediately start our sales pitch or call at dinnertime because everyone will be home and, of course, they have a few minutes to talk about the exciting world of education contained in the new Encyclopedia Britannica.
Those days are long gone, and that would be a good way to lose a foot today.
Instead, salespeople need to develop a new skill set and a new mindset to compete in today’s world with today’s technologies.
Instead of pitching a product, we need get better at telling a story.
Instead of closing customers, we need to get better at engaging connections over time.
Why B2B Brands (and Salespeople) Need to Think and Act Like a Publisher
In my recent post titled, Why B2B Brands Need a Media Strategy, I go into detail about how small B2B brands must shift their thinking by setting different expectations and measuring what matters.
What are those expectations and what should we measure?
One shift is in how we define leads. If leads are defined as phone calls and website conversions, then the journey to qualifying those leads for sales is long, and the fail rate once they are qualified is high.
However, if we define leads as relationships with a vested interest in what we are doing, well then that changes everything.
And as for measuring what matters. Again, if we measure campaign effectiveness by reach/impressions, clicks, and conversions…well then, we are right back where we started. But if we measure effectiveness by engagement and growth, now you can actually SEE INFLUENCE.
Ryan Gerardi on the Get Ya Some Radio Show
Recently I had the opportunity to appear on the Get Ya Some Radio Show. This “media initiative,” produced and hosted by my good friend Terry Lancaster has been running now for more than two years. It is a perfect demonstration of everything we are talking about in this post, as was my conversation with Terry on the program.
Enjoy the conversation and use the comments section below to chime in with your own thoughts, opinions, and ideas.
If each of us would begin to think of ourselves a media companies, we can learn to program the right stories to attract the right audience and form the right relationships in mass quantities.
The sale is what happens at the end of that.
Once you have an army of stark raving fans clamoring to buy your product, knocking on doors and dialing for dollars will seem so last century.
Get Ya Some!
