Do You Own Your Marketing?

Do you own your marketing? If it’s easy, then everyone can do it!

“If no one knows who you are—or they don’t trust you—your marketing efforts won’t matter” - Marcus Sheridan.

I couldn’t agree more with Marcus, and I strongly recommend following and buying everything he does/shares.

There is no better way to own your marketing and safeguard ideal client acquisition and retention than by referral.

Why? There isn’t another form of marketing that more clearly identifies who you are and what you are about, along with sharing your trustworthiness than referral-based sales and marketing.

If it's easy, everyone will be doing it and that's why it won't work really well.

Instead, you and your organization (of any size) need to focus on referrals within a system that is predictable and scalable.

You need to be able to dial in on what everyone is not going to do in the world of AI:

Face-to-face, deep, discovery, curiosity, compassion, all those things that make you absolutely authentic, and starting with your customers is where it's most important in the current cacophony of marketing messages.

I think of traditional marketing in the age of AI, like trying to play a kazoo at a heavy metal festival. You might be really good…but nobody is likely to hear your song.

As a former B2B salesperson (copier sales) and financial advisor, I am more and more convinced that what you and your team call marketing isn’t really that. My viewpoint is that marketing should be predictable and directly tied to increased revenue AND profit.

Everything else, to be very generous, is branding and public relations.

There is value in branding and PR…just not as much and not as essential as real, professional marketing. Since referrals, done properly, are marketing…that means we have the opportunity to elevate how we perceive and utilize them at an accountable and confident level.

“Marketers create customers. And to create customers, we must create awareness for our products. Rising above the noise to earn attention has never been more challenging. Media channels are fragmented and, as we see with TikTok, tentative!

Consumers have become their own streaming media entities. How do we get into those earbuds? And then you have AI swarming the media landscape. Sheesh. Marketing is hard.” - Mark Shaefer.

An uncomfortable truth about buyers today and in the future is that, if at all possible, they prefer to wait as long as possible in their buying process to interact with a salesperson.

How do we adapt to this reality?

 

By referral. We need to enter our ideal client’s world before they enter the buying process. The reality is that if you enter the buying process near the end…you have little chance of getting the deal.

However, when you are at the beginning and/or initiate the buying process for your ideal clients, you often control the entire thing for you and your client's benefit.

I don’t know of anything better than an endorsed and personal introduction to get meetings with ideal prospects when they aren’t in the market to buy than referrals…and you don’t either. If I like and trust you to ‘borrow the car,’ I can get you in front of these people socially well before they decide to buy and allow you to influence and own their buying process with welcome arms.

Think about it: what happens when your ideal prospects have met you and know who you are and what you do…accompanied by the endorsement of someone they trust and respect?!?

I will tell you: you get a significantly increased chance of being their top choice in the future and often a move from not being in the market to buy to now thinking about it.

Most ideal prospects aren’t motivated to make changes until they have a trusted source to help them navigate the process…let’s make sure that professional is you and your company.

I know that successful sales professionals and business owners face unique challenges as their career matures. My goal is to help people like you manage the transition from producer to successful business leader while enjoying life now. To learn more about how we do that, subscribe to Can I Borrow Your Car on Substack.

Related: Sales in an AI World: If It’s Easy, You’re Not Differentiating