‘Ostrich Marketing’ is the single biggest challenge that we’re up against everyday when it comes to teaching sales and marketing.

More commonly known as complacency – the single biggest reason why businesses fail.

There’s also the type of business people that think they know everything there is to know about sales and marketing.

Either way, both of these attitudes mentioned lead to the same problems:

• an unwillingness to learn and understand
• a lack of interest in developing new ideas and approaches
• a complete failure to recognise that things are changing

 

Essentially, what we find is that the majority of business people put their heads in the sand and hope that marketing will either a) get easier or b) it will stop changing so quickly.

I can tell you right now that a) it’s getting harder and b) marketing is changing faster than ever.

Even the people that I would consider to be at the top of their game in sales and marketing would admit that they can’t afford to stop learning.

You’re never done.

Success in business, marketing and sales is really all about having the right mindset and attitude.

All that being said, you are here right now reading this article. So we can safely assume that you are prepared to learn, develop and improve.

It’s our job here at CMA to change the way that people, organisations and businesses communicate forever. We do that through teaching the principles of content marketing (sales, marketing and communications).

If you’ve been in business for a while I’m sure you’ve been to your fair share of workshops and seminars.

You may well be considering attending one of our sales and marketing workshops, or perhaps sending a few members of your team.

If so, here are 10 solid reasons to consider attending our sales and marketing workshops.

1. Marketing is moving faster and it’s getting harder

I think we can all agree that consumer behaviour is changing rapidly. This is mainly due to the advances in technology and the Internet, and the convergence of both of these factors.

The way people consume content and research products and services is changing all the time. As businesses we need be on top of it if we want to stay relevant.

At our recent TCMA 2016, Mark Schaefer shared this with us:

“It’s getting more and more difficult to be in marketing. Content works, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to compete.”

• 2014 – 2019: Increase in content and information on the web by 500% (5 more Internet’s!)
• 2016: We are consuming 15.5 hours of content per day
• 2015 – 2020: From 1 exabyte to 60 exabytes of information

We need to be smarter. We need to understand how these changes impact the way we communicate with our potential customers.

Marketing is by far the fastest changing landscape in business today, which means that for you and I, we have to continually learn, develop, and sharpen the saw.

2. Everyone in the business plays a role in sales and marketing

That’s right E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E.

Sales and marketing should not be a silo in your organisation.

Every single member of the team plays a role in sales and marketing, particularly any team member that has a touch point throughout the customer journey.

That journey includes before they’ve ever heard of you before, though to the first content, to the purchase, to building loyalty and trust over a longer period of time.

As the owner of the business, it’s your responsibility to ensure that your team understand how they should be communicating with your audience and customers at every step of the journey.

Either getting your team along to a workshop, or hosting an ‘in house’ workshop will be a hugely valuable investment.

3. Improve internal and external communications

When we teach content marketing, sales, and marketing, what we are really teaching is effective communication and leadership skills.

When you start to break down how you should communicate with your audience, you will naturally become a more effective communicator at a personal level.

In order to communicate effectively with your audience and customers, you need to consider how your team communicate both internally and externally.

Ideally, we want to have a business full of people who are great communicators.

One of the major aims of our sales and marketing workshops is to improve the culture of communication from within the organisation.

4. Marketing is the only factor that differentiates you from your competition

In most cases a potential consumer can solve their problem by purchasing a similar product or service, at a similar quality, at a similar price from any where in the world.

So why should they buy from you? How do you stand out from your competitors?

In 1954 Peter Drucker said “the purpose of a business is to create a customer. The business enterprise has two – and only two – basic functions: marketing and innovation. And of those, “marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business”.

This was over 60 years ago and it’s perhaps more relevant today than it ever has been.

Unfortunately marketing is not a priority in most businesses. Therefore most businesses fail to differentiate, and therefore fail to succeed.

But not you.

You’ve already read reasons 1-4, you’re already ahead of the game ?

5. Increase team morale

By involving you and your team in a sales and marketing workshop there is a very good opportunity to improve the morale and communications within the team.

For example, you and your team will:

• feel more involved in the direction of the business
• develop personally, and therefore contribute more value to the business
• develop and improve company culture
• generate more and better ideas for the business
• create a stronger sales and marketing focus for the business

6. Achieve CPD targets

Are you the type of business or organisation that is focussed on developing it’s people, and understands the importance of continued personals development?

If so, getting your team along to a sales and marketing workshop will work toward the individual and company CPD targets.

Everyone that attends a sales and marketing workshop will receive a certificate of attendance from the CMA.

7. Meet new people

Still to this very day people buy from people. Not only that, people buy from people that they know, like and trust. Success in business is massively about building strong relationships with people.

By attending a sales and marketing workshop you will:

• meet other influencers just like you
• take advantage of networking opportunities
• build relationships with like minded people
• listen to and share problems and challenges

…and maybe make some new friends. You never know! ?

8. Get out of your comfort zone

We live in the 21st Century. You can learn a lot of things online these days from blogs, videos and podcasts, all from the comfort of your own home and office.

However, there’s no dialogue.

By getting out of your comfort zone, and into a room of people just like you, you have the opportunity to ask questions, challenge your own thinking, and contribute to the learning in the room.

You can learn a lot from a well facilitated group conversation.

9. Learn from other people

Perhaps one of the biggest benefits of being in a room with other like minded people is that you can learn from them.

You can pick up a lot from simply listening to others when they share their ideas, pose their challenges and ask questions.

It’s also likely to be a different group of people that you are used to from outside of your typical business environment. They will have different approaches and philosophies, which can present new opportunities for you and your business.

10. Gain greater focus and clarity

If you are anything like me, and the majority of people I know, you will need to learn things more than once before you take action.

That’s not to say that you want to stay at the same level of learning, you definitely want to be growing. Rather that sometimes when you hear something for the first time it’s just not the right time, or your not in the right frame of mind. Then there’s other times when it just clicks.

By taking time out of the business you will put your self into a different frame of mind and allow a greater level of clarity and focus.

Setting your business up for success

With a focus on sales and marketing in your business you have a far greater chance of being successful.

With a team that understand the importance of communications both internally and externally you are far more likely to differentiate from your competitors.

Attending our sales and marketing workshop will change the way you communicate forever.

Click here to find out what others have said about their experience at our workshops.

Hopefully we’ll see you at one of our workshops in the near future ?

DFTBA!

Chris.