Jeffrey Gitomer is talented, no doubt. But (inadvertently) he taught me one of the most important lessons about marketing: It's more about what you share, then what you sell (providing you share in the right places, at the right time.)
In one of his books, I read that he thinks business owners should respect and take all calls, even intrusive and irritating ones from telemarketers. So I set up a test. I told my administrative assistant (at that time we didn't have direct voice mail) to put through all calls to me regardless or origin, unless I was obviously in a meeting or not in the office. I asked her to log the calls from marketers and salespeople.
After a month, I tracked the results. The time spent in courteously declining wasted offers was minimal, about an hour overall. At the time, I thought at least one of the calls had actually led to a useful innovation -- a government-funded training program that brought a "free" IT specialist into our office. I estimated (wrongly, as the guy turned out to be useless in the end), the value of this work at about $70,000. So I wrote a column about my experiences and forwarded it to Gitomer's office in Charlotte, NC.
A few days later, his senior administrative assistant told me that Gitomer wanted to thank me for my contribution, and set up a call. Then, I made my big mistake. Gitomer asked if there was anything he could do for me. I told him I had a publications serving Charlotte NC and wanted to know if he could help me find a local representative. Suddenly things turned cold. .
Now you might say, "What is wrong with making that type of request?" The point is I had the perfect opportunity to continue to be a giver rather than a taker -- and there would be a time and place to earn the reciprocation, but it wasn't there.
Lesson learned, I put these principals to the test a couple of years ago when I proposed writing a story on social networking for
The Marketer, the journal of the
Society for Marketing Professional Services. One thing led to another, and I had the opportunity to interview and write some positive things about other industry leaders and gurus. Some of them asked me, "you've been really helpful to me, is there anything I can do for you" and I was able to give the sweetest response possible: "Absolutely nothing. I'm just happy to be doing this work and frankly I just don't need anything from you."
If you are wondering what happened next, it is this -- these individuals are now in my "Roladex". They call me from time to time, helping out on various initiatives, and they've offered me worthy opportunities and projects. (The
Design and Construction Report results from these relationships, for example.) There is absolutely no "selling" here, no cynical "tit for tat", just real respect and connection -- with people who have much influence and relevancy to my business.
You can see this sort of symbiosis happening, for example between Contractortalk.com and my blog. When I post here, I can track more visitors -- and of course earn some valuable "link juice". But it is a two way street. Quite often I send people over here without expecting anything in return. Overall, the blog has now achieved a high
PR for its relevant keywords, meaning more valuable in-bound inquiries and business.
Next project is the book -- it is written, but needs a final edit. But it is time to stop procastinating and I will put it together for publication by the fall.
If you want to go out and pound on doors and canvass reluctant people, or use high pressure sales techniques to get business, or be an intrusive telemarketer, go ahead. Its a lot more fun when influential people call you and offer you real opportunities and business because they trust and respect you: And you've earned that respect by putting your need for immediate gratification aside. These are the lessons I learned from Jeffrey Gitomer.
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