Content Sells
In the 21st Century to sell your product or services you have to have some sort of foundational marketing process in place to sell more of whatever it is you're selling.
The more products and services that you have to offer the more aligned you'll be to help potential clients line up with the proper product or service when you're pitching them and trying to close them and get the deal done.
Frankly, not all potential clients and customers are created equal, therefore you must have multiple products and services to offer. In addition to that you need to be creating content around those products and services to help them sell.
Ask yourself a question: "What content do I have, or what marketing do I have in place, to help sell my products and services?"
That's the question. What do you have?
Some people have a lot of content. Some people are content producing machines, but what is content, and how do you create it?
Frankly it has never been easier for a business owner, an entrepreneur, a wantrepreneur, or a professional sales person to be able to create content around their marketing to pitch their products and services. What do I mean? Well, look at this blog for example. This blog is content. I am creating written words on a website that will be indexed on Google and help people find me. I create content so that people can find me on different mediums, in different ways, to find my products and services to make their life better.
So what content are you creating to help draw people in?
Different Types of Content
Number One: A Blog
Just like I said above, a blog is one of the best ways to create content around for your potential clients and around your products and services. Blogs are easy, free, and something that anyone can set up. Obviously they are time rich. What do I mean by time rich? I mean that you have to invest a lot of time into blogging for a few months before anyone's ever going to find your blog when they Google or go to Yahoo.com and try to find you. Most people don't even go to Yahoo, I'm just throwing it in there for fun. But, that being said, people cannot find you if the do not know about you, and they're not going to know about you if you're not doing anything with marketing.
If content creation is not part of your marketing technique then you are going to fail. So create a blog right now. Go over to Word Press or any other blogging platform, although I recommend Word Press because it is going to give you the ability to be found on the major search engines.
When someone buys something in 2017 they go to Google first. If you cannot be found on Google you cannot be found.
Period.
Number Two: Facebook
Facebook groups, Facebook pages, and everything on Facebook allows you to create content posts and everything else that will help people find you as well. Are you on Facebook as a sales professional? Do you have a business page that your potential client, and former clients, can like? Do you have a Facebook group where you can take the people that you want to work with, or that you already have worked with, and continue them down a sales funnel. It's easy, it's free, and much like a blog when you move forward in 2017 and moving into 2018, this is something that you must have in place to be able to be truly successful as a sales professional and as an entrepreneur.
Number Three: Video, Pictures, and Everything Else
There are so many ways to create content in the 21st Century and for sales professionals right now, that frankly it's overwhelming. We have people like Gary Vaynerchuk who do Instagram videos, Facebook Live videos, blogging, speaking, and is truly a content creating machine. We have people who teach you that you must have podcasts, that you must have inspirational quotes, that you must be able to make a daily vlog and go out and serve in all of those different ways. But those things are not true. You do not have to be creating content across all channels.
Obviously the more content that you create, the more marketing that you are doing, and the more people are going to be able to find you. Your content is king. I'm going to say that again, your content is king. You must be creating content that is going to speak to your core audience. You have to find content that is going to speak to your potential clients. If you are selling an underwater basket weaving course to people who do not have water it is never going to work.
Make sure that all of the content that you create is focus 100% towards your core audience and your true potential client avatar. Don't get overwhelmed. So many people get overwhelmed when they think of content creation. It is not hard. Do not overthink this. Anyone can go to Fiverr.com and spend five dollars and have lots of content created for them. Anyone can pick up their cellphone and record a video and post it to a blog. Anyone can go live on Facebook right now and speak to their target audience. The more content you create the more of an audience that you will have, and the more audience that you have the more potential clients you have. And the more potential clients you have the more sales you'll be making once you have the proper sales skill sets and mindset in place.
This is not as hard as it looks but it is also time heavy in the beginning. Unless you're outsourcing everything and have a budget to outsource everything you do have to invest a few hours integrating blog posts, into creating things for other social media platforms. But the more you do this, and the more you speak to your client avatar, the more they are going to feel served. So go create content, go serve your audience, and approach sales with a servant's heart.
Marketing in sales are hand in hand in the 21st Century
If you're not marketing yourself you are failing. One of the key components of marketing yourself is content creation. So go create some awesome content today. You'll be glad you did.