Sales always carried a negative connotation for me. Granted, when I came to Cirrus ABS my previous jobs had been in government and politics so that might not be a fair characterization – but I always saw “salesmen” as someone trying to get me to buy something I didn’t need.
One thing has become clear to me over the last year, my new job isn’t really that different from my old job! At my old job I spent much of the day figuring out how to solve problems, whether they were issues a constituent was having with a government agency, an internal personnel issue, or addressing a potential political problem. I’d identify tools and tactics I needed to use to solve the problem and get to work.
While the focus is slightly different than before, the work is basically the same. Either customers (or potential customers) come to us with a problem or we identify a problem they may be having with marketing their company or organization to potential customers. We have a variety of tools and tactics we can use to solve these challenges and my job is to help these clients or potential clients figure out what they can afford that will deliver the most value to their organization.
My biggest surprise getting involved with sales and business development is how much we work with competitors for mutual advantage. Today across Indiana we’re having the annual Social Media Smackdown awards, a lunch where we recognize those who were deemed most influential in social media across the state. Over 50 people have signed up for the Fort Wayne event and it will include people from different agencies and solo practitioners who are all competing for the same business we’re trying to land for our company.
So why do we collaborate? There’s a number of good reasons for it:
- social media is an ever-growing world and there’s no limit to the number of tools and tactics you can learn about in this space,
- how you approach challenges and deliver value is what distinguishes you from your competitors, sharing information and experience will not change that, and
- best practices and building up knowledge are important if you hope to prevent bad practices from souring the marketplace on valid tools and tactics.
Now, I’m not suggesting that you open up the playbook and tell everyone exactly how you would solve every single problem. But honest, open discussion about best practices actually builds up the community and opens doors to opportunities that might not be available to you otherwise. Ultimately we’re all trying to help people, businesses and other organizations solve the challenges they’re facing in a way we thing brings the most value to the table.
Thanks for your time as I shared a little of what I’ve learned over the past year. I’m looking forward to an excellent year ahead and hope that some of what I’ve shared can help you improve your online marketing efforts. If you need more help, just give us a call, we love to help folks with online marketing strategy development!
