By the Ocean
Sunny 75 Degrees
6:33 a.m.
I worked with a guy once who was an extremely good salesman…
“Good salesman” is an interesting phrase. You don’t really know what that means when someone says it. You know it means SALES happen, but it gives you no clues about HOW they happen.
In this case, they happened by brute force. By relentless follow-up. By constant calls, text and emails.
This guy was a “player,” so if he could get somebody on the phone, there was a good chance there’d be a sale coming out the other end…eventually.
While this is how a lot of people get through life, it comes with some serious drawbacks.
First, it’s really tiring. Second, you never build momentum. Third, you end up creating a trail of people you have harassed to a point they never want to hear from you again. Fourth, when anyone gets around you, their defense systems go on high alert.
Needless to say, our approaches didn’t mesh for a long term relationship. You could say we had a slight difference in our core values (cough). But during our work together, with the changes I started making and the results those produced, he saw the power of a MARKETING DRIVEN organization. Once you see this, it’s hard to go back to manual labor!
Sales driven means the power of selling drives the success. This requires a relentless forward pushing force that can never let up.
Marketing driven means the power of marketing makes selling largely unnecessary. They show up ready to buy. This allows for the building of momentum and a forward pushing force that creates results many times in excess of invested effort.
I started writing daily emails for him. Emails that taught, inspired, empowered and motivated people to action. I started creating systems to qualify, follow-up and nurture people who were prospective buyers. I created an endless stream of ads that generated a ton of leads.
We grew that into millions of dollars a year pretty much the first year we worked together.
You can succeed with either option really, provided you are prepared to pay the price.
The problems come when you start mixing these two strategies together. If you don’t do it carefully, everything can blow-up.
If you want to be a trusted advisor, running a sales driven organization is probably a bad way to do that.
If you want to be a “hardcore closer,” then running a marketing driven organization is going to drive you crazy! You won’t have the patience to watch the magic unfold, you’ll just go beat heads together and create a sale, TODAY, for yourself. And then tomorrow you’ll get up and do the same thing.
How to Sell Yourself is for people who are tired of traditional selling. It’s for people who want a different process for creating sales that doesn’t require pushing, or coercing or doing any of the slimy junk we all see. If you’re coming, enrollment closes FRIDAY.
Do you really want to work with someone you had to push to say, “Yes?”
I never did. Which is why I had to find another way.