Stop Selling to Increase Sales

CMOs know what it feels like to be sold to by people who do not understand their market

​Buyers of financial technology have something important in common with heads of marketing at financial technology suppliers. They both get sold to all the time. Sales people know that they ‘have budget’. That simple fact opens the floodgates of unsolicited telephone calls, emails, newsletters, InMails and other spam.

​You have to become selfless to get the thing you want. You have to stop selling to increase sales.

When you run marketing for a fintech company, every day is an onslaught of spam from event organisers, trade publishers, and social media managers. CMOs know what it feels like to be sold to by people who do not understand their market, or the problems they are trying to solve for their company.
 
Only the very inexperienced or very bored will answer yes to the question: ‘do you want to schedule time with our sales person to discuss our product?’  So why do we inflict that same pain on our own target buyers?  How can we expect that the outcome will be any different: the email that goes unanswered, the cold call that is abruptly terminated?
 
You will tell me that is NOT what you do  - that your content marketing is all about delivering value, thought leadership and insight. Read it again and tell me how much of that ‘dispassionate’ content is shallow self-promotion or turgid techno-speak.
 
The thing with content marketing and thought leadership is that you cannot fake it. Your buyer can smell a sales pitch a mile off, just like you can every day when you are hit with vendor spam.  You cannot pretend to offer  ‘high-value content’ when you are short of data, insight, and writing skills to deliver.
 
You have to become selfless to get the thing you want. You have to stop selling to increase sales.