“I see that salespeople need to start behaving more like marketers and it’s a kind of transformation that I went through about three years ago or so, and I started slowly building some of these skills that you typically be relegated to like the marketing department and it’s been it’s worked wonders for me.” – Scott Barker in today’s Tip 80
Do you think salespeople should start acting more like marketers? Do you think the generalists are going to win out over the specialists over time?
Join the conversation below and share your thoughts!
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. I’m really excited to share today’s tip with you, because I think it’s particularly strong. It’s actually four tips in one from Scott Barker. Scott runs partnership at Sales Hacker. He’s an Evangelist for Outreach.io, the General Manager of the Enterprise Sales Forum in Vancouver and he was one of the contributors to the new B2B Sales Mentors book which we’ll talk more about in a few minutes. Here’s Scott:
Scott Barker: What’s up guys? All right. I wanted to share with you the four skills that I see that salespeople need to build in order to be successful into 2019 and a lot of it stems from this kind of shift. I see that salespeople need to start behaving more like marketers and it’s a kind of transformation that I went through about three years ago or so, and I started slowly building some of these skills that you typically be relegated to like the marketing department and it’s been it’s worked wonders for me. So I wanted to share a few things. So Number one is “Learn copywriting skills”. And that’s not just how to write a good email and you know what you were taught in English in university. No, go out and test the markets on different clear, concise messaging and see what grabs people’s attention, what you’ll learn when you start putting messages out there, is nobody cares. So you have to find a way to make them care and you need to start thinking like a storyteller on the marketing side would and start playing around with different things and it will be extremely helpful. For me, it was helpful anyway to apply to my pitch. I was able to cut down my value prop from vote three, four sentences into luck. One very concise message. So that’s number one. Number two, “You have to start contributing to online communities”. This is no longer an option in my eyes. You know your prospects are living somewhere, they’re educating themselves in communities. You need to find where those are and you need to show up at least 20 minutes a day. And this is not to pitch. Again, this is not to pitch no pitching. This is to show up, add value to the community, engage and make yourself known as an expert and a consultant in your field. So that’s number two. Number three “Build yourself a brand”. Now I know about 70% of salespeople are watching this right now, just rolled their eyes. There’s this weird stigma and sales around personal branding. I don’t know why, but a lot of salespeople don’t like to do it. So here’s how I think you should look at it. In my eyes, it’s really around extreme ownership. That’s why I started building my own brand. I was tired of waiting for marketing to send me leads. I was tired of waiting for marketing to invite someone to a Webinar. I was tired of waiting for marketing to retarget someone on an ad, and I wanted a way to provide my own air cover for the activities that I was doing. So what I did is I started making content that my prospects would care about, and then when they were scrolling their feed, even if they ignored by last five emails, when they’re scrolling their LinkedIn feed, they’d be like “Ah, right. I remember that challenge. Me and Scott talked about that maybe I should actually get back to him. I’ve been meaning to do that”. So it’s this ability to provide your own air cover and it takes extreme ownership onto your plate. You’re not relying on anyone else. So I think that’s how you have to look at it. Number four is “You get to own the whole sales funnel”, which I think is key, right? I think there’s this great quote, I’m gonna butcher it, but basically along the lines of “As the world continues to specialize at generalists are going to start ruling the world”. And I agree with that. I think in sales we went through this kind of hyper-specialization with the BDRs, the CSMs, all this stuff, but technology through AI and machine learning and the ability to automate mundane tasks. I think over time we’re actually going to see the rise of the generalist. Again, someone who’s strong in marketing, someone who’s strong on sales, someone who’s strong and operations, who’s going to work as kind of an orchestrator of all of these sections of the process with the aid of technology. So if you build these skills now, you’ll be ahead of the curve on that. But anyway, this is a long video, but I wrote a blog on this on sales hacker with some, you know, do this now, tactical tips. So go check it out. It’ll be in the comments below. And I also gave some great examples of people who are doing this really well. Like Tito Bohort is a great marketer. He’s a sales guy. Andrew Newborn and Amy Volast, Katherine Berry. These are all people that you should go follow cause they’re doing this extremely well. And anyway, thanks for watching and have an awesome week.
Scott Ingram: I’m super curious about your thoughts on this. Do you think salespeople should start acting more like marketers? Do you think the generalists are going to win out over the specialists over time? Share your thoughts on DailySales.Tips/80 on that page you’ll also find a link to Scott’s article on this topic on Sales Hacker as well as other ways to connect with him.
Then if you want more from Scott I’ve got a few options for you. As I mentioned in the intro, Scott has recently contributed to two best-selling sales books: B2B Sales Mentors and Sales Engagement. Go grab a copy of both. Plus, I just shared Scott’s story from B2B Sales Mentors titled How I Beat Out 300 Candidates for my Dream Sales Job on the Sales Success Stories podcast. Go check that out, and if that’s still not enough, check out episode 53 of Sales Success Stories for a full 80-minute interview we did together back in October.
Then come back tomorrow for part two of Jeff Bajorek’s Phone a Friend tip.