TIGER Talk Recap: A Marketer’s Approach to Selling

Written by Innovate New Albany@InnovateNA6 years ago

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Most people buy things because they tell themselves a story. They believe their purchases will make life easier, solve a problem, or are necessities. They decide that the money they spend on those purchases is worth it.

Don’t be afraid of the word “selling” or having conversations about what you do. If you know who your customers are, and they believe that your work is worth more than the cash they are paying you to provide it, you should get in front of as many potential customers as you can.

Jay Clouse, founder of Unreal Collective, offered advice like this and more during his  “A Marketer’s Approach to Selling” TIGER Talk presentation at Innovate New Albany on May 3. TIGER Talks are held free of charge throughout the month and focus on the topics of technology, innovation, growth, entrepreneurship, and responsibility.

Jay said as you talk with prospects, you will begin to notice patterns in the places and conversations that turn those prospects into customers. He advised using those patterns to your advantage by creating a sales funnel.

A sales funnel’s four steps moves your prospect from the first interaction to a paying customer:

Step 1: Awareness. This is how your prospects first learn about your business, usually from your website, social media, a digital ad, or an email introduction.

Step 2: Interest. Their interest in your business may be generated after a conversation with you, referrals from your past clients, or testimonials. Or it may come from interacting with you on social media, reading your profile or online content, or downloading a free resource from your website.

Step 3: Decision. After submitting your proposal, your prospects must consider their options and make a decision. Research from Salesforce indicates it can take six to eight touch points before a prospect is ready to commit.

Step 4: Action. Your prospect decides to do business with you, and confirms that intention by writing a check, signing a contract, or entering their credit card information on your payment page.

Once you understand the sales funnel concept, it can be applied to any product or service. And you can sometimes bypass the earlier steps when you get a warm lead. A recommendation of your work from someone else is far more powerful than your own recommendation. By receiving high quality inbound leads from your network, you can skip the first two steps of the funnel entirely and move right to the decision and action stages.

Throughout all the stages of your funnel, it’s important that you can talk fluently about how your business can help someone, and give that information to others.  This is what Jay calls the EYES and EARS.

EYES: Establish Your Elevator Speech

When someone asks you what you do, it’s the perfect opportunity to talk about whom you help and how you help. Your elevator speech should be short, specific, and memorable. Memorize your elevator speech, and use it every time. Don’t be afraid to “specialize” what you do because if you chase anyone who will pay you to do anything, you’ll spend more time making less money. When you are the number one person for a segment of customers, you can charge higher rates.

EARS: Empower Advocates (to) Refer Sales

Your advocates could be former clients, friends, family, or people who admire your work. When your advocates are out talking with their network and hear about a problem, you want to be the first person they suggest to solve it. The specialized words from your elevator speech will help them remember to refer you.

Jay said that by having confidence in your work, understanding the sales funnel, and utilizing your EYES and EARS, sales becomes an easy, natural, and exciting way for marketers to grow their business.

For more information or to learn more, visit Jay’s website, listen to his podcast, or contact Jay directly.

Innovate New Albany, the city’s incubator for technology startups, entrepreneurs and small businesses, features 16,000 square feet of space within the New Albany Business Park’s Signature Office Building, 8000 Walton Parkway.