This article was written by my colleague Brandon Lee
My goal is to help millions of people globally on 3 levels.
1. Reduce stress and maximize quotas for end users like sales reps and small business owners
2. Empower marketing leaders or marketing agencies to provide highly effective communication, lead generation and revenue creation services through our software
3. Organizations of all types have “champions,” “ambassadors” or motivated sales reps or independent reps that are all working hard to create income or donations for the organization. Our goal is to amplify and empower all employees to become ambassadors of the companies they work for
This is My personal WHY and HOW I see our platform changing the game in 2020…
The Internet and social media have made it possible to connect to just about anyone.
Prior to the Internet, company branding and communication efforts were very different. Marketing was in charge of branding and messaging. Sales…well, they sold. There was very little overlap at the enterprise level. In smaller companies, overlap occurred only out of necessity and scarcity of resources.
In today’s reality, buyers control the buying process. That means that buyers buy products and services differently than they did even 10 years ago. Buyers research, reach out to people they know, ask questions, read reviews and do over 60% of their research before they ever engage a seller or vendor in the buying process.
According to CSO Insights in 2018, 65% of buyers said they would engage with sellers at the beginning of their buying journey IF they believed they were valuable sources of information. Buyers who responded to this survey said, if they felt a person, even a sales rep, had their best interest in mind and could help them do their research to discover the best solution, they would engage with sales reps.
WHEN a buyer has a relationship or knows someone who they see as an expert, influencer, or trusted advisor, behavior changes!
Buyers will gladly reach out to sellers who provide insights and research in order to ask questions, seek advice, gain input, etc. They seek out information to help them solve their problems. Buyers don’t reach out to buy as their primary objective. They seek to learn and find solutions.
The Problem!
Sellers have not changed how they sell. They still “cold call” buyers. Sellers cold call differently than the past 30 years, 20 years, even 10 years. But, it is still cold pounding on prospects based on the sellers’ belief of who a prospect is. Guess what buyers do?? They ignore them. Why? Because they can.
Buyers use technology to block out sellers. They don’t want to talk to anyone they don’t want to talk to because they don’t have to. If and when they need or want information or research, they will go find it. Until then, they are thinking “don’t bug me.”
Unfortunately, that is exactly what most sellers and their organizations do. They bug prospective buyers like sellers and marketers have done for decades.
How do successful companies grow marketing and selling efforts? They build relationships.
They share brand messages but mostly they build trusting relationships. They use marketing and sales activities from a strategy of sharing insights and information, while treating humans with respect. This adds value to people (even if it is not related to the business objectives). This is the subtle difference between sharing information as a strategy vs cold-calling prospects to buy, buy, buy.
Most Companies are not equipped with a solution to help their sales teams and key leaders do this well with their social networks. Our social networks are the most powerful channel for building, growing and sharing relationships. The best that organizations offer to teams currently, is either training… “This is how you do it. Now go do it for yourself,” or libraries of content that sales teams don’t have time to search through.
That means companies are trying to turn everyone on their team into their own marketing departments. It is not efficient or effective because most people can’t and won’t complete marketing activities for themselves.
The other option is “just share our messages.” The problem with that is that brand messages don’t help people build relationships with people. Plus, it’s still challenging and time consuming for people to track down the right messages and share them on their personal profiles. Add on the challenge of a full-time job and posting efforts typically don’t last beyond a day or two.
CSO Insights research showed that in 2018 over 56% of B2B sellers did not even meet minimum quota. That means a lot of people made a lot less money than they expected. They missed their commissions. That means that families had to live on less money than they needed. I hate that. I get upset when small business owners struggle because sales and marketing is too difficult. I hate it when sales reps put their hope and belief in a company with a good opportunity to be successful and end up missing the mark, being fired or live in extremely difficult work environments because a sales manager expects them to be successful while providing unsuccessful tools. We have to work to change this for millions and millions of small business owners and sales reps all over the world. That is my personal WHY and Mission.
Briefly, I grew up with a dad who was a stressed out small business owner. He wore too many hats and was always working and always stressed. I saw the negative side to stressed out business owners (sales reps are really just small business owners within a company) and how it affects families. I hate it. I want to do my part to reduce that type of lack, stress and disruption in families and people all over the world.
The Solution!
My goal is to provide a solution that is efficient and affordable so companies can adopt new methods for their sales team and leadership to engage with their online network.
We provide a software that empowers 1 person or a small team to provide the necessary, brand-approved or brand supported messages so individuals have the opportunity to be successful with their sales business or small company.
The software can also empower a small marketing agency (white label partner) to provide these types of services to a network local businesses (like Realtors, lawyers and other professional service providers) at a good value for their clients and a good profit for our white label partner.