Selling as Influence

From Open Source Ecology
Jump to: navigation, search

From Joe Polish on marketing as storytelling and selling as influence:

The first use of the term ‘Entrepreneur’ came from the French economist Jean-Baptiste Say in the 1800’s who said “The entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield.”

If an entrepreneur is creating value and making the world a better place by creating jobs and innovation, and they aren’t making money, then maybe the solution is marketing.

What most people think of as marketing is something negative. They think about a high pressure salesman or saleswoman trying to talk them into something.

Here’s the truth: Marketing is the oxygen that makes everything in your business work. If you have an organism gasping for air, it’s because it isn’t getting enough oxygen. If you have a business gasping for cash flow and customers, the oxygen for turning this around is the marketing. If you frame what you’re doing in a better way, you will get more enrollment.

Think of selling as influence and marketing as storytelling. If you tell a better story, everything will work better.

You need to go and tell your story.

You need to learn how to convey what it is you’re doing and how you’re doing it.

Marketing is what you say and who you say it to.

Focus on doing this, and your business will work much more effectively.

Best,


JOE