by Rick Baker
On Jul 5, 2012
Social Media is forcing business - worldwide business - to get back to the basics.
In business, the Marketing & Sales functions are about testing for value and, where it exists, exchanging value through transactions.
Social Media has blurred the lines around both testing for value and exchanging value through transactions.
That's the nature of new media. When innovations lead to new media, the new media complicates Marketing & Sales. For some business the complication is a boon. For others it is a bane. For example, when the printing press spread across Europe the common man had the opportunity to write as never before...that led to Shakespeare. Then, widespread plagiarism quickly led to patent laws [by Queen Elizabeth I].
Now, 400 years later, social media is creating an even larger communication/media change.
For some people it's a boon: marketing consultants and website designers are a couple of examples.
For some people it's a bane. Perhaps, B2B salespeople have suffered the most?
B2B salespeople have been (1) distracted then (2) taught how to dilute the relationships that link them to their clients and potential clients.
Diluting the relationship between B2B salespeople and their clients: that's the blur of social media.
We can and we must remove that blur by getting back to the basics...the basics of salesperson-client relationships.
Those Sales [and Marketing] basics are:
- testing for value and
- exchanging value through transactions