“The point of marketing is to make selling superfluous,” according to Peter Drucker.
Connecting with people who are interested in what you have to offer and then regularly sharing with them (whether via social media or otherwise) is marketing.
It enables those people to say to themselves “I’m convinced that this guy knows what he’s talking about…because I’ve seen it happen day in and day out for a while now.”
A few weeks ago, Ari Goldberg of Radio Free Europe calls me up and says:
“My boss asked me to arrange a training session on marketing, social media, and getting the word out. I’ve been reading your stuff for a while now and even though I never comment or anything, I really like it. I also saw the video of your client talking about one of your sessions. I loved how she said that you “got the creative juices flowing.’ That’s what we need.”
Now, Ari and I are friendly and we see each other every 6-7 months or so and chat at that interval. Never before have we discussed business.
“So,” he continues, “here’s the date. Here’s the budget. Do you want the job?”
“Uh, sure,” I said, thinking “that was easy.”
And it was. Well, at least the sales part was. The marketing part wasn’t. That was what I did every other day leading up to it.
And, to prove it wasn’t a fluke, that afternoon, I got on the phone with Frank Arrigo, a Microsoft Director, whom I had ONLY met through Facebook.
He echoed the same sentiment.
“I've see the stuff you share and post. I need a speaker on Community Driven Marketing for my next team meeting and I’d like you to do it.”
(Of course, since I invented CDM, it was a natural choice :-)
Ari and Frank are smart, savvy guys. The only “permission” I had from them was to connect via Facebook, my blog, etc. and share what I thought was valuable.
And I NEVER did it thinking…”Oh, these guys will be clients.” I did it because I like them and wanted to stay in touch and build the relationship.
The business flowed from there.
That’s the “social” part of social media.
Welcome Frank and Ari to the client roster and the Never Stop Marketing family!
