Cold callers on their own are no magic bullet for marketing success
This is part two of a blog series. Read part one here.
At its most basic, we believe this approach has been successful because today, buyers don’t like to be sold products; they like to buy solutions that solve their problems. Our integrated approach simply makes this easier.
Sales reps supported with strong and authentic content enable buyers to educate themselves and buy on their own terms and on their own time line. The sales professional now adds value to the buyer’s day as opposed to being another disruptive interruption (such as cold callers). Because once a prospect feels educated on a product or service, the sales pitch is no longer intimidating or overwhelming. It is providing value and helping them to reach a decision.
For example, you may want to buy a guitar amplifier but know little about electronics. A salesman going on and on about transistors and capacitors and signal conversion is not going to get you any closer to making an informed decision. However, reading a brochure titled, “5 Things to Look For When Choosing a Guitar Amplifier,” may help you (the buyer) understand what capacitors and signal conversion acutally are. You then feel more educated and can evaluate the pros and cons of the capacitors and their impact on the type of music you want to offer as your service to the world. Then, you and the salesman can have an intelligent dialogue around guitar amplifiers and you can leave feeling truly satisfied with your purchase decision.
Knowledge is no longer a tool for the salesperson. Knowledge is a tool to create wins for both the buyer and the company.
By offering valuable, educational content to early stage prospects that does not try to sell anything, prospects are able to engage with your company in a nonthreatening way. This digital engagement helps to slowly build trust, so when your prospect has a real need and real budget, they are willing to take a call from a sales rep, and no one feels that the call is ‘cold’.
Getting to this point in your sales and marketing process takes some time and requires a fair amount of patience. But after a year to 18-month commitment to the approach, your whole sales process changes for the better. Your cost of sales percentage decreases, your margins increase, and your deal flow accelerates exponentially.
Rather than searching through thousands of people at a multitude of different companies to try to find those in need of help, you can look at a dashboard, see who is interested and have specific topics to talk to them about.
If you would like to learn more about how sales and marketing have changed or our integrated sales and marketing process, read, “The Shift to Bought then Sold”. If you would like to learn more about our integrated sales and marketing outsourcing services, you can visit our services page.
Feel free to contact us with any questions.
