How do you sell to someone that doesn't want to be sold to?
If you haven't asked yourself this question and you work in sales, marketing, or business development it is time to embrace the new reality. The leverage in sales has been turned on its head and if you have something to sell you need to know that the person or persons you are contacting are better informed and have more information available at their fingertips (via a search engine) than ever before.
Prospecting still matters but the way to do it is changing. Cold calling can make you feel better in that you are doing "something" but it might not be the something that matters. Give them a reason to learn more about you especially if they are actively seeking an answer to whatever problem your product or service addresses.
How do you do this? This is about more than just cranking up the PR engine. This is about projecting your expertise not your marketing message, building a strong customer reference base, and actively nurturing and enabling it.
Think I'm kidding? Check out this post by Tony Wright. Tony runs a really cool company called RescueTime here in Seattle and is also a small businessman. My favorite part:
Even if they were introducing me to a class of software/service that I
wasn’t aware of and really wanted, the first thing I’d do is thank them
for the info and start googling."
Well said Tony. If you sell or enable selling for a living, print this quote out and put it on your wall. It defines your new selling reality.
Venture Vice 