My so called job promotion has been an interesting experience and a good exercise in why I want to work for myself. However it has taught me a few very important lessons. The lesson that stands out in my mind the most is the importance of marketing. Of course I have heard the old adage that marketing just works but in the past I have always kind of put marketing in a box. I always saw marketing as billboards and commercials.
What I have come to realize it that marketing takes numerous different forms and some of those forms are much more effective than others. One of my main struggles with my 9-5 is that I really don’t care about what I have to sell. Don’t care to the point that I have invested very little time into actually learning what it is that we sell. Sure I can paint with the broad strokes but as soon as the questions get down into the weeds I am lost. This, I recognize as a huge problem but also a discussion for another day. What I am more worried about is the phone calls.
I have numerous numbers to call to talk to prospective new clients and build relationships with old clients. I have found myself in a standoff with the phone. I will check my email one more time or get purposely sidetracked so I can avoid the dreaded cold calls. One of my main problems is that I am just not all that chatty, I find it difficult to make a hard sale when I don’t necessarily want to shoot the breeze with someone I don’t know and don’t share an interest in what I am selling.
There are several systemic problems here but more importantly I would like to point out that during a scheduled absence my position was covered by a co-worker that is very proficient with cold calls and the telephone in general and sales wildly improved.
I will make the argument that in this day and age of instant mass communications the telephone is still the most important piece of technology that we possess. It allows you to cut out all of the noise and actually make a connection. Moving forward I will probably still find it difficult to make cold calls but hopefully I can overcome this hurdle by selling something I believe in and some good old fashioned discipline.
Marketing has taken on new life in my mind and what I have realized is that while the product is important the marketing of the product is almost more important. If you can convince people that they want and need what you are selling then you are without a doubt guaranteed loyal customers.