Most of you find our posts through LinkedIn or Twitter, and 522 (as of today) of you have subscribed to our blog and receive them in your inbox.  Either way, I’m flattered and overwhelmed by how many people read our ideas each week.

Because of this, I think I owe you an explanation of what we believe about sales and marketing at least once a year.  The concepts I share each week are tactical and narrow.  An unfortunate outcome of a practical approach is a lack of understanding of a higher-level philosophy – sort of a “forest through the trees” example.  So, I’ve decided to share my beliefs as my first post of the year.  I started this practice at the end of 2016 and shared a list of bullet points each of the last two years that define our beliefs.  This year, I’d like to share more of a narrative about the core beliefs of our company.

At the core of Vector Firm’s beliefs is that every sales person, sales manager, marketing manager, and company needs to consistently follow a sales & marketing process.  The actual process is secondary.  The most important factor is having the discipline to vigilantly follow the same process week in and week out.

Sometimes there are legitimate reasons to interrupt the process, but these are rare exceptions.  Unfortunately, most sales people practice in a mode of reactive distraction most of the time and very rarely follow a process.  This … and this alone … is the most common reason that sales people do not fulfill their potential.

So, what kind of process?  The second core belief we have is that your customers do not believe they need you anymore.  They don’t believe they need any sales people or marketers anymore.  For decades, selling was all about pushing one’s way into an account, but today it’s about making your marketplace believe that you’re more competent and easier than Google.  If you’re not perceived as an expert, then you won’t get the calls until they need a price.  Customers don’t take calls anymore.  Customers don’t open their doors anymore.  Customers don’t respond to emails anymore.  The great sales people know this.  The great sales people follow a process that creates a perception of expertise that causes their customers and prospects to call them when they need something … and not just a price.  The great ones don’t consider their competition as the competition – they consider Google as the competition.  Their process is one that creates a perception of expertise, and this perception pulls them through the sale cycle in a more expedient and successful manner than any other method today.

So that’s it.  Everything we do has to do with following a process and accepting that the marketplace doesn’t believe that they need sales people any more.

Hopefully you’ll continue to tune in for our posts in 2019 – we’d love to have you.

Happy New Year everyone.

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