Digital has changed the world, it has become a great leveler.
Now, anybody, regardless of time or location can go online and look up your product and service. People are searching for your product and service right now and you don't even know it.
They can be anywhere in the world, it can be at anytime of the day or night. They can be searching during (your) working day and (your) night. They can also be searching at the weekend.
The problem for you, is getting them to realise that you are the solution to their problem.
It's at this point that the sales people step forward and say "this is where we pitch our products, people will understand how great we are and they will buy".
This is where Marketing say "we have a 2,000 word white paper, written by the best marketing agency in the world, it has the best images in the world and the best copy in the world" they go onto say "we will tell these people that we are market leader, we are "best in class" and will list all our features and functions. When they have read this, they will buy."
Of course, you can say this and do this. BUT and it's a big but, the problem is this.
Nobody gets up in the morning and says "do you know what, after my yoga I'm cannot wait to talk to a salesperson". Or "After my decaf soya latte, I'm going to read a 2,000 world white paper". None of us do.
But the problems go deeper than that.
Nobody looks at adverts anymore, adblocker use grows at 30% year on year. In a recent research by an email marketing company where they evaluated 12 Million Outreach Emails and guess what? Nobody opened the emails. They didn't say if any revenue was generated. Cold calling, while not dead, as a SAP sales person said to me recently, "the view that I can ring the CFO of any of my accounts and get put through is a fallacy".
Technology and legislation is pilling on the pressure. Anybody that cold calls me gets blocked using standard iPhone technology. GDPR, while not stopping you from calling me or emailing me, I now ask for my right to remain forgotten.
A top sales guru recently released a book and there is a chapter on prospecting. His advice is that you keep calling and calling and emailing and emailing. The thing is, this thinking is obsolete. I can block you with technology or legislation after the first call or the first email.
We have CMO after CMO coming to us and saying, "marketing isn't working anymore".
But there is some good news. You and your company have something that nobody else has. Your people. Your people have unique skills, they are the accumulation of all their unique life experiences. They are where your clients are, on social media.
It's time to activate them.
Not to stuff them with that corporate content that nobody likes, empower them to talk in their own voice. This will totally transform, sales, marketing and human resources for you.
People will want to work with your brand, people will want to buy from you and people will want to work for you. That's what we mean when we say that by being human will give you more growth!
Organizations of the future need to embrace fully the concepts of empowerment, learning and balancing technology with the individual if they are to succeed, by using the power of technology and automation to rehumanize -- rather than dehumanize -- the workplace.
