"Once Upon A Salesman..."
And Now a digital marketer to engage with or better said a “salesman to trust”. That was my idea when I came across the concept of digital marketing. I don’t know, I thought to myself that maybe I can introduce myself like: “Hey, my name is Emerson and I come from the very traditional world of sales”.
When I started drafting my ideas for this blog post I wrote something like “every Lion is a Cat but not every Cat is a Lion” . And when I was doing my keyword research, ideas like “from sales to marketing” or “Marketing experience” came along as the possible search queries to rank for.
But something in the middle between sales and marketing wasn’t matching for me. In my experience, sales as a concept is always the transaction and not a;ways about the buyer’s best insterest. Even more in-depth, sales to me meant the act of profiting within someone else’s profit indicating that if I had to have a conversation, money was the language and I would probably do all the talking. How different does that sound for what a digital marketer does on a regular day under the sun? Very different!!!
Geting Into Real Concept of Marketing
If a translate now what it meant for me Marketing when I first came across the concept I will have to refer to the word “AGORA” a word that I actually learned later on and way after I became heavily invested in a career as a marketer. But because we all here trying to keep this conversation casual I’m only going to refer to marketing as I do to my boomer clients:
“The act and effect of participating actively in a singular or multiples channels of communication with the intention of catching the attention of the right type of people in order to get to know them to understand how my product can be a better fit or solution for their particular needs”
Do not worry I do never say this at loud or all at once, I always build my way to it, and if is too complicated to deliver, there is always a way to (Get ready for a corporate reference) circle back to this later on right? LOL or LICM (Laughing In Corporate Misery)
But again “Participating actively in a singular or multiples channels of communication with the intention of…” This is it, here’s where the difference between the cat and all the big wild lions out there in the jungle of living resides on, with what and how you complete this sentence.
If I start to give you examples on how this sentence completes itself for me after a long debate with myself thinking that all my prior experience in sales was going to be just a vague anecdote from my 20’s, I would tell you something like: “Participating actively in a singular or multiples channels of communication with the intention of Be open-minded about how different people have different definitions of value” or “Participating actively in a singular or multiples channels of communication with the intention of realizing how much the word engagement is not just a way to justify your social media campaigns but also a word to realize that we are looking for the right type of attention, we are trying to translate your intentions using our SEO (search engine optimization) language”.
Not knowing how to switch from sales to marketing looked a lot for me like not knowing how to complete this sentence if not with a catchy phrase or a punching-line-alike question. If you are wondering how to get into marketing from sales like I was, just take those two words home with you (Purchasing and Engagement) and put them side to side, if you feel like you are always leaning to the transactional side of this Sales and marketing field let the salesperson that lives secretly within your skills as a marketer have a rest and chill in the back seat because if you are looking for a career path in sales the second, is the one that will drive your knowledge in how to communicate “technical value” into the wisdom of how, when, to whom and with what you will try to engage within a stream of data and information in order to know what you need to know about who you need to know it about. And see you don’t have to fully resign to the idea of always ending your paragraphs with a quote alike punching phrase, at the end, you and me, are only trying to grow our manes.
Growing Your Mane!
As I said in my other post Search Intent vs Interruption Marketing, Show Up to the convo!
Get excited talking about what your products are all about. Get excited about the value you’re adding by just listening to the market in a different digital way. And say what it’s relevant, what actually needs to be added to the conversation. Show up, outside of the script, no Cat when to the wild playing it only by the outdated book.
