Education Based Marketing Can Increase Sales Results
Education Based Marketing Can Increase Sales Results
Now imagine being a Red Suit in the Sea of Gray Suits where your sales to earn ratio jumps over 50% and averages near 75% to 80%. What would that mean for your business, your view of yourself and let’s not forget your piggy bank?
First, let’s examine a couple of established beliefs that must be changed.
The first belief of traditional sales based marketing (SBM) focuses on establishing a monetary reward as quickly as possible so that the next reward can take place. Given that most sales (80%) are completed between the 5th and 12th contacts, this belief of quickly is somewhat in error. (Source: National Sales Executives Association).
The second belief is giving anything away for free is wrong because the goal is a sale hence the name sales based marketing. Professional sales people must be compensated for their efforts ASAP. Unfortunately, the 21st century technology driven global economy has changed the marketplace forever because free information is readily available through the Internet.
Second, let’s look as the role of the professional sales person in this new 21st Century technology driven marketplace. The role has not changed from years ago because today as in yesterday, the role is to become the trusted advisor.
Now the question is what behaviors does a trusted advisor demonstrate?
Sharing of information
Knowing who does what within the local business community
Being a sounding board for the customer or client
Simply speaking, the sales professional of the 21st century is an educator. To educate from its Latin’s origins means to lead out. As sales professionals are you not leading your customers out of the darkness and into the light?
This is a great time to establish a new way of thinking about your sales to earn ratio as the time from entering a tunnel to the time of existing a tunnel. Your task to keep the light burning bright enough so that your potential qualified customers who entered the tunnel with you will stay during the entire journey through the tunnel. Sales Coaching Tip: Leave the concept of a funnel as it does not provide the same visual as the tunnel. Remember, people hear words, but think in pictures.
Now, the trick is to not lose anyone during the trip through the tunnel. How you do that is by developing and embracing education based marketing. After all, are you not the educator? Should you not be actively sharing your information?
Education based marketing is where you educate the potential qualified customer while simultaneously showing your value as that trusted advisor without charge. Sales Coaching Tip: This marketing strategy also helps to disqualify potential customers who are not a good fit.
For example, when ending a conversation with "if you need anything, please call," what would happen if you ended the conversation with "Let me send you a white paper, article, etc. that may help you." Of course, the document must provide worthwhile information and not be sales based marketing in disguise.
Websites are a great place to begin to educate potential customers. Writing articles and driving them to your website helps to separate the potential from just the usual suspects.
Using auto-responders that promise a free report, free assessment or free white paper are great examples of education based marketing. Requesting specific information from your website visitors helps to further identify potential qualified customers from the potential customers. Sales Coaching Tip: Use the phrase potential customer instead of prospect because this builds an image of you potentially working with this individual or company.
Education based marketing has been around for many years. Successful sales professionals have been engaged in this behavior of leading out their customers. Only in the last couple of years, has this term gained ground especially within the professional services industries.
TAKE ACTION SALES COACHING TIP: If you want to increase sales, to create customer loyalty and to become the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, then now is the time to throw out the traditional Sales Based Marketing strategies and embrace Education Based Marketing. Watch your sales to earn conversions double and your bank account grow.
Education Based Marketing Can Increase Sales Results - To learn more about this author, visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website.
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Any day in the week, several gray suits enter the marketplace selling their products and services. Gray suits are those sales professional who act and, therefore, sell like everyone else. Their sales to earn ratios (sales to close for those gray suits who still believe in closing the sale) range from 5% to 25%.
Now imagine being a Red Suit in the Sea of Gray Suits where your sales to earn ratio jumps over 50% and averages near 75% to 80%. What would that mean for your business, your view of yourself and let’s not forget your piggy bank?
First, let’s examine a couple of established beliefs that must be changed.
The first belief of traditional sales based marketing (SBM) focuses on establishing a monetary reward as quickly as possible so that the next reward can take place. Given that most sales (80%) are completed between the 5th and 12th contacts, this belief of quickly is somewhat in error. (Source: National Sales Executives Association).
The second belief is giving anything away for free is wrong because the goal is a sale hence the name sales based marketing. Professional sales people must be compensated for their efforts ASAP. Unfortunately, the 21st century technology driven global economy has changed the marketplace forever because free information is readily available through the Internet.
Second, let’s look as the role of the professional sales person in this new 21st Century technology driven marketplace. The role has not changed from years ago because today as in yesterday, the role is to become the trusted advisor.
Now the question is what behaviors does a trusted advisor demonstrate?
Sharing of information
Knowing who does what within the local business community
Being a sounding board for the customer or client
Simply speaking, the sales professional of the 21st century is an educator. To educate from its Latin’s origins means to lead out. As sales professionals are you not leading your customers out of the darkness and into the light?
This is a great time to establish a new way of thinking about your sales to earn ratio as the time from entering a tunnel to the time of existing a tunnel. Your task to keep the light burning bright enough so that your potential qualified customers who entered the tunnel with you will stay during the entire journey through the tunnel. Sales Coaching Tip: Leave the concept of a funnel as it does not provide the same visual as the tunnel. Remember, people hear words, but think in pictures.
Now, the trick is to not lose anyone during the trip through the tunnel. How you do that is by developing and embracing education based marketing. After all, are you not the educator? Should you not be actively sharing your information?
Education based marketing is where you educate the potential qualified customer while simultaneously showing your value as that trusted advisor without charge. Sales Coaching Tip: This marketing strategy also helps to disqualify potential customers who are not a good fit.
For example, when ending a conversation with "if you need anything, please call," what would happen if you ended the conversation with "Let me send you a white paper, article, etc. that may help you." Of course, the document must provide worthwhile information and not be sales based marketing in disguise.
Websites are a great place to begin to educate potential customers. Writing articles and driving them to your website helps to separate the potential from just the usual suspects.
Using auto-responders that promise a free report, free assessment or free white paper are great examples of education based marketing. Requesting specific information from your website visitors helps to further identify potential qualified customers from the potential customers. Sales Coaching Tip: Use the phrase potential customer instead of prospect because this builds an image of you potentially working with this individual or company.
Education based marketing has been around for many years. Successful sales professionals have been engaged in this behavior of leading out their customers. Only in the last couple of years, has this term gained ground especially within the professional services industries.
TAKE ACTION SALES COACHING TIP: If you want to increase sales, to create customer loyalty and to become the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, then now is the time to throw out the traditional Sales Based Marketing strategies and embrace Education Based Marketing. Watch your sales to earn conversions double and your bank account grow.
Education Based Marketing Can Increase Sales Results - To learn more about this author, visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website.
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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John BrennanJohn Brennan Ed.D. Dr. Brennan is President of Interpersonal Development, LLC, a training and development firm. Interpersonal Development has provided sales training and coaching to more than 3,000 sales reps from over 100 companies. A native of Australia, Dr. Brennan received his doctorate from the University of Rochester. His dissertation researched the effectiveness of Behavioral Modeling Technology in training people in interpersonal skills. While he has spent most of his career designing or delivering training, he was also a Vice-President of Sales of a training and development franchise with operations in 25 markets. Dr. Brennan has designed and delivered sales training in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He has been a guest speaker at numerous national and regional professional conferences. When Microsoft wanted Best Practices articles on sales for their web site, they called Dr. Brennan. The results are at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011387391033.aspx His firm’s clients have included Volvo, The Prudential, Merrill Lynch, Eastman Kodak, Gannett, Equifax Europe, the Economist Group and countless small businesses. - Visit John Brennan's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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