Doug Davidoff
In the last week I’ve had at least five conversations about the importance of content to support the sales and marketing process. It’s probably a result of the Making Marketing Work webinar we held last week, but the resistance seems to be the same with everyone.
We talk about the importance of content, the strategy to direct the content and the incredibly positive impact this approach has on sales results. Inevitably, the person I’m discussing this with acknowledges the weaknesses they have without it, and its benefits. Then I get the “but.” As in, “But, someone will have to write the content, and keep it fresh and up-to-date.”
My response? “Damn right someone has to do that!”
What do they expect? Look, we live in an incredibly intense and competitive marketplace today. There’s tremendous pressure on margins and differentiating is tougher than ever. Do people really think they can accelerate profitable growth, scale a company and maximize their equity value without expending significant effort?
Companies that do not have an adequate marketing cultivation system suffer extreme limits to their sales ability. Our research demonstrates that the results of sales efforts are reduced by 30 – 70%. The most direct way to doubling your profits isn’t hiring more salespeople, it’s implementing an effective cultivation program. But, yeah, that takes time and effort.
If you’re struggling to find the resources to support the effort, here’s my recommendation: allocate the expense of a salesperson to support the effort. Think about it, if you’ve got 3 salespeople and you eliminate 1 to implement such a program, you’ll still come out 25 – 50% ahead.
Full disclosure - my company develops, implements and/or manages marketing cultivation programs for small and mid-market companies. The reason we do it is because of the impact we’ve seen when a company has such a program versus what happens when a company doesn’t.