Thought leadership is still developing as a sales and marketing discipline. So there are many points of view on what exactly thought leadership marketing or selling really means. Sales executives describe it a variety of ways:
- The selling of ideas
- Leading with ideas, information and education in exchange for trust, credibility and access
- Avoiding “product pushing”
- Showing vs. telling customers what your company can do
So the goal of this blog is to create a forum where sales and marketing executives can discover (and contribute) practical ways to actually execute a thought leadership selling program.
In our view, Thought Leadership Selling means creating and executing sales programs that engage your customers and differentiate your sales experience with education, ideas and insights. Based on our experience executing Thought Leadership Selling programs for market leaders such as Intuit, DuPont, CBS, and SunTrust Bank, we define thought leadership selling as taking a programmatic approach to helping your sales people deliver new ideas, relevant advice and compelling solutions to prospects and customers. A successful Thought Leadership Selling program will provide your salespeople with a disciplined and coordinated stream of education and advisory content that helps them open doors, make more effective sales calls, differentiate your offerings, and deliver relevant advice.
Executing a successful Thought Leadership Selling program is a lot like any other well organized marketing or sales campaign with two big exceptions. First, you will need to develop internal processes for generating original and high quality selling content. The second is you will have to find an executive willing to lead and integrate the programs across sales, marketing and product organizations. You can quickly learn more about both of these success factors in the paper Thought Leadership Selling. This step by step guide can help your organization can take to help you create disciplined sales programs that help your sales organization to engage customers, consistently execute your sales model, and differentiate your offerings.