https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daiVj5g34_s
Which company has single-handedly destroyed the sales profession? Starts with a G, double O – it’s GOOGLE!
Google has single-handedly destroyed the sales profession. The days of asymmetrical information are gone.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; Google is a great company, they are a great partner of ours and they offer great services. But they have dramatically affected the way buyers buy and sellers sell.
What is Google? Why does Google exist? Taking a page from my friend Marcus Sheridan‘s playbook here: Google is in existence because they are the place to find answers to questions.
Google is striving to provide an awesome customer experience every day. Google is focused on giving you what you want when you want it, to the extent that they provide instant answers. Google gives you instant answers right on the results page of a search. Is this a good or bad thing? It’s awesome if you’re a consumer; not so great if you’re a business or a brand looking to pull people off of the results page and onto your own online properties.
Let’s think about what happens when anyone can get instant answers at any time. In a sense, consumers become spoiled; if they don’t get what they want when they want it they become impatient, easily frustrated and potentially confused. This is a dramatic shift that affects the way buyers buy and sellers sell.
This presents an opportunity; it’s a great opportunity for marketers. This shift has elevated the marketing profession because you can teach when customers are learning by maximizing and optimizing your web presence.
As far as the sales profession is concerned, the question becomes “Has this dramatic shift in the way consumers access information destroyed the sales profession?” The answer is “No, not exactly.” Any sales leader that has evolved and taken this opportunity to become a curator and a teacher to help their buyers filter out this noise and all of this activity. If you’re a curator and a teacher you are providing a great service; you are being a great resource to your buyer, to your partner. This presents a great opportunity for you to evolve from a sales leader into a thought leader. A thought leader is someone who has a strong opinion, a great depth of information, be a resource to your buyer and help them through the buying process and help make their jobs easier.
I would love to hear your stories of how you’ve evolved from a sales leader to a thought leader and how you’ve used content to help improve your relationships with buyers.
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Think like a marketing and sell like an animal!