Answer
Jul 29, 2018 - 11:12 PM
Hi @AlyssaGoodman,
Firstly, congrats on your success and growth!
Secondly, I agree 100% with your thinking and assessment regarding the need to hire someone to focus on sales and marketing, freeing you up to focus on the business. The short answer to your question is no, it is not unrealistic to look for one hire who can run sales, marketing and SM.
With that said, I’d like to provide some context for my answer, as well as some tips and guidelines as this is easier said than done.
When it becomes financially feasible for a small business or startup to invest in growing the team, strategic choices must be made. In most cases, there are many roles and/or functional areas towards which that employee investment could be made. For businesses with a growth mindset looking to scale, it is critically important to bring on a sales specialist. In my experience, it is one of the top factors that determines which businesses thrive and which fail.
However, the reality is that “sales” has widespread negative connotations, and for good reason. It is an entirely unregulated discipline and quite frankly, by and large, the way it is practiced is overwhelmingly broken and out of sync with today’s business landscape.
So yes, it is a good idea to invest in sales talent. It is also a good idea to arm yourself with an understanding of the changes that have shaped today’s B2C or B2B landscape and how to avoid common mistakes and pitfalls and instead ensure that your sales practices are in sync with the changing needs and expectations of your buyers.
We are living through an era of unprecedented rate of change. What was true about your business, market or industry last year , last quarter, will not necessarily be true this year, this quarter or next. The landscape today looks very different than it did even a few years ago. One example of this is the seismic and irrevocable shift in the buyer/seller dynamic.
Here is a quick overview-
Today’s Buyers:
What does this mean for the seller/vendor/business owner?
There is a critical need to:
Vis a vis your specific question, I am going to expand on the last bullet point: Aligning sales and marketing efforts.
There are many ways to categorize and visualize the buyer’s journey- each with varying levels of complexity and specificity. For our purposes here, we will break down this journey into 3 main phases:
Please feel free to contact me directly if I can be of service.
[email protected]
206.683.1760
Firstly, congrats on your success and growth!
Secondly, I agree 100% with your thinking and assessment regarding the need to hire someone to focus on sales and marketing, freeing you up to focus on the business. The short answer to your question is no, it is not unrealistic to look for one hire who can run sales, marketing and SM.
With that said, I’d like to provide some context for my answer, as well as some tips and guidelines as this is easier said than done.
When it becomes financially feasible for a small business or startup to invest in growing the team, strategic choices must be made. In most cases, there are many roles and/or functional areas towards which that employee investment could be made. For businesses with a growth mindset looking to scale, it is critically important to bring on a sales specialist. In my experience, it is one of the top factors that determines which businesses thrive and which fail.
However, the reality is that “sales” has widespread negative connotations, and for good reason. It is an entirely unregulated discipline and quite frankly, by and large, the way it is practiced is overwhelmingly broken and out of sync with today’s business landscape.
So yes, it is a good idea to invest in sales talent. It is also a good idea to arm yourself with an understanding of the changes that have shaped today’s B2C or B2B landscape and how to avoid common mistakes and pitfalls and instead ensure that your sales practices are in sync with the changing needs and expectations of your buyers.
We are living through an era of unprecedented rate of change. What was true about your business, market or industry last year , last quarter, will not necessarily be true this year, this quarter or next. The landscape today looks very different than it did even a few years ago. One example of this is the seismic and irrevocable shift in the buyer/seller dynamic.
Here is a quick overview-
Today’s Buyers:
- More empowered & informed than ever before
- No longer reliant on the seller to get information about product/services/solutions
- Engage with sellers + vendors much later in their buyer’s journey
- Experience information overload and describe buying experience very negatively
- Increasingly cynical, distrustful of vendors
What does this mean for the seller/vendor/business owner?
There is a critical need to:
- Understand how and why the dynamics have changed
- Adapt & develop new skill sets, new sales “playbooks” that resonate with the modern buyer
- Build trust through authenticity, transparency and curiosity
- Align sales and marketing efforts
Vis a vis your specific question, I am going to expand on the last bullet point: Aligning sales and marketing efforts.
There are many ways to categorize and visualize the buyer’s journey- each with varying levels of complexity and specificity. For our purposes here, we will break down this journey into 3 main phases:
- Discovery- awareness of a need/challenge/desire/opportunity
- Consideration – exploration of possible solutions/options
- Decision – justifying and then making the purchasing decision
It used to be that buyers would engage with sellers very early on in this process- right around the time of discovery. Marketing would own the messaging for this part of the process and then sales would take over. This often resulted disjointed messaging and value propositions, but the consequences were negligible as buyers didn't have access to information in the ways they do today and the seller was very much in the drivers seat. Today- buyers do not engage with the seller or vendor until they are, on average, 70% of the way through the process and well into the final decision phase.
To those on the seller side, this means 3 things:
- We have much less time with our buyers- we must make it count. We must engage in a buyer-centric modality using the principals mentioned above of authenticity, transparency and curiosity.
- Marketing and Sales can no longer effectively exist as separate functions. They must work in partnership to align and customize the messaging the buyer is receiving because in most cases they are receiving the message and forming opinions *before* they personally engage with you.
- Social Media is a reality and it isn’t going anywhere. It is a core part of any modern sales/marketing strategy.
Please feel free to contact me directly if I can be of service.
[email protected]
206.683.1760
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