Monday, March 31st 2008

Oh, no! I’ve been influenced by a marketer. I’ve succumb. . .  a marketer just reshaped my ideas on leadership communication.

John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing and the Duct Tape Marketing blog wrote a two-part series (well, loosely a series — you have to check it out to see what I mean) last week that began with the entry, “Those idiots in marketing just don’t get it.” In it, Jantsch provides his personal definitions of marketing and of sales. He writes, “marketing is – getting someone who has a need to know, like and trust you. Now let’s blend in my definition of sales: sales is – taking know, like and trust and converting it to try, buy, repeat and refer.”

So, yeah, I agreed with that and it that struck me as interesting. As did Jantsch’s point that marketing owns the idea, while sales owns the relationship. Again, yes, interesting and I agree . . . so what made me blog about it?

While I don’t consider myself a true marketer but rather an organizational communication expert, I see marketing as an essential element of org comm, particularly of leadership communication. Effective leaders understand (intrinsically or otherwise) that communication requires sound ideas, supported by a demonstration of humility and integrity and an active pursuit an audience’s trust.

But until this post, I don’t know that I’d put together the notion that effective leaders (at every level) function as individual, walking, talking sales and marketing teams. I myself hadn’t separated the communication of the message from the sell. Here’s how they’re different. Effective communicators:

  • Not only pass a message along, they invest personally in the grand ideas within it (idea + relationship).
  • Not only understand (are not told, but understand) what message needs communicating, but also who needs to hear it (let’s face it: over-communicating is as fundamental a problem as a lack of communication).
  • Not only communicate the big idea to their audiences, but move their audiences to action, to “try, buy, repeat and refer” the idea (communication + sell).

The point to Jantsch’s series is that sales and marketing need to come together. He writes, “to be more effective sales teams should learn how to be more about ideas and relevant conversations (more like marketing), to be more effective marketing should learn how to build better relationships (more like sales).”

The point to me is ownership: ownership of the ideas (you don’t have to originate it to have a stake in it) as well as ownership of the relationship with those who need to buy it. If you as a communicator feel as sense of ownership on both sides of the equation, you’re chances of a successful close (sale) are high. It’s when you lack ownership that your buyer begins to see right through you.

More to come next week on using a relationship for the benefit of all.