BOLD Prediction #2: Sellers Need to be Better Marketers

Hey Sellers! It's time for a wake-up call.

You're dealing with crazy-busy buyers who don't act like they're supposed to anymore. That means you need to do things differently.

Today I interview Chad Levitt, the New Sales Economy blogger and a practicing salesperson. I think you'll be real interested in what he has to say!

Jill: Why do you think normal cold calling and prospecting is insufficient in today's marketplace?

Chad: I'm in the sales game too and I know what it's like to make cold calls to people who have no idea who you are. I know how challenging it can be to find well-qualified prospects. Everything I'm about to say comes from my own sales experiences and lessons learned. Normal cold calling and prospecting is insufficient because many of the old sales rules have changed.

Here are three realities in the B2B sales profession:

1. It is harder to reach your customers and prospects by phone and email.
2. Your customers and prospects are less willing to meet in person.
3. And, they are busier and more distracted than ever before.

Your normal cold calling and prospecting activity is the minimum requirement as a sales rep. The new frontier and where the biggest opportunity hides is in your creativity and ability to market yourself to your buyers on top of what is required to exceed your quota.

Jill: You're preaching to the choir here. You've stated that you think sellers need to become better marketers. Why?

Chad: Because buyers are more distracted than ever, busier, and better at blocking unsolicited messages from sellers. Your buyer is constantly moving, running from meeting, to strategy session, to cramming a sandwich down their face, to a meeting. You get the picture.

Sales reps need to find ways besides their normal outbound activity to connect with buyers. This process needs to be repeatable so you can scale, trackable so you can measure it. Most importantly, it needs to be memorable so you can create hyper levels of awareness in the account.

Here is the big idea. You need to stop seeing yourself in the business of sales and more in the business of creating content that sells. It is a subtle but huge difference. Take some time to think about it.
 
Jill: Lots of people would say, "That's marketing's job." What do you say to them?

Chad: Your marketing department does not go to sleep at night thinking of you exceeding your quota. They are not dreaming of you making club or getting your bonus. That is up to you.

Your marketing department may or may not already have some great YouTube videos, Slideshare presentations or blog posts that you can leverage to get started. If not, it is up to you to create some remarkable content that you can use to your advantage with your customers and prospects.

I've sent my prospects many e-mails with a valuable piece of content and used it as a catalyst to start a conversation. I've found this sales strategy to be more engaging and effective. But, I have only used these social media platforms in a tactical way and I'm now building a more strategic process to help me sell.

Here is what I'm doing to stay ahead of the game. I'm building my own simple website to help me create more credibility, deeper relationships, and hyper levels of awareness with my buyers. It will feature YouTube videos with me speaking, videos of customer testimonials, blog posts of customer testimonials, blog posts on challenges and interesting trends in the industry, Slideshare presentations, maybe a short series of podcasts.

It will be simple, easy to navigate and something I can use repeatedly with my prospects and customers. It will be my virtual sales rep - he can sell for me even when I'm sleeping

Jill: Let's talk specifically about inbound marketing. How are companies using it today? What's working?

Chad: Inbound marketing is a new approach to marketing that helps customers find you on the web using social media, blogs, and SEO. Smart companies have realized that their customers use Google to search, read blogs and participate in social media.

The really smart companies are creating remarkable content, optimizing it for search engines and giving it reach through social media. They are listening to what their customers have to say and participating in the conversations online.

The results speak for themselves - the companies that have embraced the inbound marketing culture are receiving more leads and converting more of these leads into paying customers.

Here is a question I love to ask, “If inbound marketing and social media is changing the way companies do business - is it logical to think it will change the way sales reps sell?”

Jill:  I agree with you entirely. It does change how we sell. What are your thoughts re: how sellers can use inbound marketing to differentiate themselves today?

Chad: Start creating remarkable content and begin sharing it with your customers and prospects. Get on Linkedin and while you're at it sign up for Facebook and Twitter. Make a YouTube video, a SlideShare presentation, write a short ebook, video customer testimonials, or write some blog posts on customer stories.

Start small and keep it simple - maybe start with a YouTube video of yourself and then build from there. Eventually you should organize all of this remarkable content into a simple website or blog that you can share.

The best sales reps in the future will know how to use both inbound and outbound strategies to their advantage, layered on top of their world-class sales skills. That combination is lethal.

Jill: What advice would you give sellers who've never ever thought about doing this?

Chad: Try something different. Get on board. Stop resisting. Start learning all you can about the new rules and social media platforms that can help you be a better sales rep. It is going to be a fun journey - a very, very profitable one for the sales reps that connect the dots. I would also pick up a copy of David Meerman Scott's The New Rules of Marketing and PR - despite the title it is as much a book about sales as it is marketing. Read it twice.

Jill: It is an excellent book. I recommend it too.

And thanks so much for your insights Chad! You are ahead of the curve here. This is exactly what sellers need to be doing to stand out in today's business environment.

_____________

Chad Levitt is the author of the New Sales Economy blog that explores using social media, sales 2.0 and inbound marketing as a  B2B sales strategy for the Web 2.0 world.

Comments

[Chad Levitt]

Hi Jill,

Thanks for the opportunity to do the interview -- it was a lot of fun!

What does everyone think out there? Do sales reps need to become better marketers? Please feel free to disagree or agree! Let's get a great discussion going.

Chad Levitt

[Anup Mody]

Chad is right. There are 2 challenges that sales people could face: "not enough time" and "meaningful content", the latter being the tougher. Content has to be of value to a prospect, therefore needs to be business-centered. e.g. issues around Customer Service metrics and how they can be improved, or, how a company can address inventory control issues, etc.
But do sales people have the business savvy to uncover and then develop content around things like that? Too much emphasis is STILL placed on developing tactical selling skills, and not enough on developing the "business person" side of a sales person. This is hugely important to develop "meaningful content" and then have business issue-centered conversations.

[Cody Boardman]

Chad/Jill - Thanks for the interview.

I sell services to a sophisticated audience in F1000 companies. I REALLY love the idea of creating a small, intuitive and easy to use site to do exactly what you're suggesting.

My question is simple though the answer may not be: What do you do when the corporate marketing function of your business does NOT want Sr. Sales Executives representing the brand in an uncontrolled fashion (like what your suggesting)?

I would also love to know what tools/services your using to create the site. Perhaps you're building it all yourself? Outsourcing it?

[Chad Levitt]

@Cody: You asked a great question, one that I'm sure more readers are wondering about. So let's jump into it.

It is unfortunate but there are some marketing organizations that are control freaks; these are the same marketing organizations that are not on Twitter and haven't adopted business blogging even though many organizations are bringing in tremendous value due to social media. They are forever late to the party and are stuck in the OLD WAYS of doing things. They are wrong. If you do something that helps you close a deal are they really going to have a problem with it? If they do it might be time for a new company.

I'm probably going to use the Thesis theme for Wordpress. I am also looking at ways to make this very easy for sales reps and I will be rolling out some content on my blog to help walk sales reps through it. This series is a work in progress so stay tuned.

Thanks Cody!

[Chad Levitt]

@Anup:You bring up some interesting subjects too. Yes, it can be an initial challenge to begin creating content.

Here are some tips:

1.) Focus on the problems that your company helps solve and create content around those major themes.

2.) Think of the ways your past customers have benefited from your solutions and tell that story. It is even better if you can get your customer to video a testimonial or case study. Be creative, try new things and you will find what works for you.

World class sales skills are the ante to get in the game. The reality is that the sales reps that learn how to give their message more reach, make it sticky, easily shareable, and valuable to their customers and prospects are going to make much more money than the sales reps that don't.

Thanks for your comment.

[Jill Konrath]

@Chad: Thanks for the great interview as well as the insightful commentary.

Here are my thoughts re the topics brought up by @anup's and @cody's

- As an individual, you can start a blog with a focus on the key issues, objectives and challenges facing your targeted customers. You do not have to blog as a salesperson representing the firm. My daughter has done this very successfully at www.getfreshminds.com. Her interest in innnovation. She works for an innovation company. But she doesn't write about it. However, she is developing a personal brand and it's been very beneficial to her professionally.

- Re content development: I'm not sure that's the best use of a salesperson's time, especially if it is not their natural skill and talent. However, you can create content by writing some very short posts that link to articles, white papers, webinars, etc. that your prospects would be interested in.

Over the last few years, I've discovered that you don't have to create all the content. Think of yourself as someone who continually brings good resources to your reader. That in itself is valuable.

[McDonoughTim]

Good conversation!

I agree that salespeople need to continually market themselves, their company and their products and it's important for their organizations to support this. Much like when the Internet and email first came to desktops and not every organization embraced these as critical tools. I've heard of social media being shunned at some organizations because of concerns over just what was mentioned, time and brand.

Marketing departments should recognize the need to foster and encourage the personal brands of their salespeople, and therefore their company, by providing content that can easily be relayed, personalized and/or customized when necessary by the salesperson for their audiences.

[twitter.com/fearlesscomp]

This is a great post because marketing play such as huge role in sales today. Prospects are not looking to buy -- they are looking to solve business problems. You make an excellent point that you do not have to be a great writer like Jill, but you need to be relentless in looking for and aggregating great information from many sources.

If one is creative and disciplined, one can create a blog, videos, podcasts, etc. and really engage prospective buyers.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor
Find New Customers
http://www.findnewcustomers.net

[Cody Boardman]

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm as interested in being a valuable contributor to the communities which I serve in terms of content as I am in helping them embrace new forms of communication/technology.

As for the creation of content, I have no shortage of ideas, I just need to share them!

I'll keep my eyes/ears open for the series on building a blog.

Thanks and happy selling to each of you!

Cody-

[Steve Richard]

Chad mentions video and You Tube. I love the theory, but am struggling with the execution. Do you think it's important to have professional quality video or can we get away with just using a flip camera? I'd love to see replies from everyone on this.

[Chad Levitt]

@Steve: The Flip Mino can shoot in HD but,when you post to YouTube it will not be in HD quality. 90% of video views online are through YouTube so it is a good idea to post your own video there and create your own YouTube channel. The quality is good enough and many large, medium and small businesses are using YouTube. You can also try Vimeo, Viddler, and Blip.

Here is a good post with some online video tips from Kipp Bodnar over at Social Media B2B.

http://socialmediab2b.com/2010/02/b2b-online-video-tips/

Hope this helps!

[Paul Johnson, Sales Operations Manager]

To piggy-back on Anup's comment about the challenges of providing "meaningful content"...

ALL salespeople need content anyway.

Why? To successfully make cold or follow-up calls. The first time you call someone, you better offer something of value or they won't take your second call. Offer access to an article, or tell them something they don't already know. Now you need something new for your next call. It's like Pavlov's dog. When they see your name on Caller ID, you want them to start drooling.

Keep your head up and you can find content to share with your customers and prospects.