The Time Is NOW

Because of the biggest communications revolution in human history, your marketplace has changed. The vast majority of human beings, more than five billion of us, are connected instantly to each other via web-based and mobile communications devices. In this technology-driven life, we crave humanity. Information about products and services is available to buyers everywhere, 24/7, and for free, and anyone can generate attention by publishing valuable content. With the expense of publishing essentially free, customers have a (loud) voice through social networks and review sites.

Therefore it is time for the New Rules of Sales and Service: Authentic storytelling sets the tone with content as the link between companies and customers. Big data enables a more scientific approach to sales and service. Agile selling brings new business to your company, and real-time engagement keeps customers happy.

Of course, it's not just the travel market that has changed. Every business is going through transition. Consumer products, business-to-business products and services, healthcare, nonprofit organizations in search of donations, politicians eager for votes…everything. Buyers are now in charge. We have instant access to virtually unlimited information. Winning companies are no longer determined by the salespeople with the best closing technique. Now success belongs to organizations that tell their buyers the best stories, companies with the best content, and those whose information aligns perfectly with buyer needs.

In The New Rules of Sales and Service, we will look at how people buy in today's world of always-on 24/7 information and what that means for sellers and for those who service existing customers.

I'll share how authentic and effective stories are created and how those stories are aligned with the needs of the buyer. If employees are infused with a coherent and compelling story—a corporate narrative that is defined by the CEO and has a cascade effect on all staff members such as Hans Lagerweij's stewardship at Quark Expeditions—then those employees have the means and the understanding to engage their customers instantly. Once the beat is laid down by the CEO, the employees work together like a tight rock band with the notes coming from each player to make music.

We'll focus on how real-time engagement with customers by service staff and agile sales techniques rule the day, and the importance of clear and effective content that drives people to be eager to do business with you.

I will show you how you too can make the transformation from the old ways of selling and servicing clients to the new realities now defining how people buy and do business. And I'll offer many examples of success like Quark Expeditions so you can learn from those who have mastered the new approach.

Living in the Past: The Old School of Sales and Service

Quick. What do you think of when I say “sales”?

Unless they are salespeople themselves, most people tell me they think of a slick car salesman in an ill-fitting suit, spouting a line like: “What would it take to put you into this car today?”

When people think sales, they associate it with being hustled and taken advantage of. They think of dealing with a salesperson as an adversarial relationship. The very word sales can prompt sleazy connotations, and people become automatically defensive in order not to be taken advantage of.

If they are of a certain age, some people think of the hustling character played by Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross and lines like: “Coffee is for closers.” That's the movie adapted from David Mamet's 1984 Pulitzer Prize– and Tony award–winning play in which sales guys fight for a Cadillac El Dorado (first prize) or a set of steak knives (second prize). Third prize is getting fired. In such a testosterone-fueled environment, the hapless customer is just a mark. Glengarry Glen Ross is so iconic in American sales circles that many salespeople quote from it liberally. I've seen clips from the movie at several companies' sales conferences. And it's no surprise that it powerfully reinforces the average customer's unease with salespeople.

How about when I say “customer service”? What comes to mind?

Many people describe the experience of calling a toll-free telephone line, only to be told “Your call is important to us” and then being forced to endure a frustratingly long wait “due to higher than average call volume.” When an actual person picks up on the other end of the line, it may be difficult to understand the accent of the outsourced representative in a far-off foreign land.

Or if it is a face-to-face encounter with someone in customer support—an airline ticket counter, say—the majority of people tell me they anticipate that indifference will prevail, if not outright rudeness.

But in today's always-on world of the web, these old school approaches to sales and service need not be the norm. Modern businesses recognize that buyers have access to real-time information on any product or service that interests them and are thrilled to wait until they are fully educated before finally reaching out to a sales representative at their chosen company.

At the same time, the web is a vast supermarket of customer information and intelligence. If a buyer is wondering how to use a product or wants to know if others have experienced the same problem and can suggest a fix, an encyclopedia of firsthand knowledge is easily at hand. People tweet their frustrations with the services they use, providing a perfect opportunity for brands to engage on customers' time. Yet most organizations still force customers to use the antiquated telephone, and make them wait on hold for a representative rather than engaging them with digital tools at the precise moment the customers need help.

The best companies recognize that real-time engagement on social networks like Facebook and Twitter not only makes customers happy because their problems are instantly addressed, but also provides guidance to future customers with the same concerns via the public discussions. Such attention to customers' needs serves to brand those companies as ones that others will want to do business with.

First Marketing and PR, Now Sales and Service

Early in my career, I worked as a sales representative at a Wall Street economic consultancy. Back then the salesperson had the information and therefore the power in the relationship.

If the buyers wanted information about how the product worked, they needed to come to me. If they wanted to negotiate a discount, they had to come through me. If they wanted to speak to a customer to learn about their experience with my company, they had to come through me. If they wanted to talk to the founder of the company, they had to come through me. I was involved from the very beginning of the relationship, and most of the leverage was with me, the sales rep.

But now, because of the wealth of information on the web, the salesperson no longer controls the relationship. Now, the buyers can check you out themselves. They can find your customers and read their blog accounts about what you do. They can reach the founders directly via Twitter and LinkedIn. Buyers actively go around salespeople until the last possible moment and then come into negotiations armed with lots and lots of information. Now it's the buyers who have the leverage.

The New Rules of Marketing and PR Are Now Widely Adopted

For the past decade, I've been evangelizing how marketing and public relations (PR) have changed as a result of the web.

Throughout 2005 and into 2006, I saw the patterns clearly and wrote a book that eventually became The New Rules of Marketing & PR, now an international bestseller in its fifth edition and available in over 25 languages from Bulgarian to Vietnamese. The book, which has sold 350,000 copies in English, is about how to use social media, online video, mobile applications, blogs, real-time media, and viral marketing to reach buyers directly. I don't say this to brag, but rather to outline how online content has transformed the way organizations reach buyers. It has made the marketing and PR functions unrecognizable from those of just a few years before.

Prior to the web, generating attention meant buying expensive advertising or convincing the media to write or broadcast about us. But now we've got a better way: generating attention by publishing information on the web so people find it while searching with Google and other search engines, and discover it when they share on social networks.

Since The New Rules of Marketing & PR was initially published, the biggest challenge to getting these ideas accepted has been fear. People are reluctant to change. There has been a huge disconnect between what people actually do as consumers and what they focus on as marketers and entrepreneurs.

While many companies are doing a good job generating attention via online content, a number still insist that their target market is “different.” Even though nearly everyone turns to search engines when researching products and services and consults one's network of friends, colleagues, and family members for advice through social networks, the fearful marketers who are resistant to change still invest an inordinate amount of time and money on traditional interruption advertising. These holdouts still focus on the traditional method of pitching-based media relations. They are using the old rules to try to generate attention.

During the past several years, hundreds of people have asked me to extend the ideas I wrote about in The New Rules of Marketing & PR to sales and service. They've told me how they've transformed their marketing and public relations functions and now they are ready to do the same with their sales and customer service functions. In 2012 I knew I had to begin researching the ideas that are now part of this book, and I started writing the first edition in 2013, which was released in 2014, and worked on this revised edition in 2015 and 2016.

Living Real Time and Mobile Has Changed Everything We Do

The two most important trends not only for marketers and PR pros but for salespeople and customer services types alike is to understand the importance of real time and the rise of mobile.

Real time means that news breaks over minutes, not days. It means that ideas percolate, and then suddenly and unpredictably go viral to a global audience. It's when companies develop (or refine) products or services instantly, based on feedback from customers or events in the marketplace. And it's when a business sees an opportunity and is the first to act upon it. However, too many companies leave themselves fatally exposed by flying blind through this new media environment.

Real-time engagement is about reacting instantly to what's happening in the market, following up on opportunities in seconds, and inserting your company into stories being reported by mainstream media. Those skilled at long-term campaign creation frequently lack the necessary skills of instant engagement. So an understanding of real-time media is essential.

You can engage desktop-computer users when they're at their desks. Sometimes you can engage notebook users at Starbucks. But only when users go mobile can you engage all of the people in real time all of the time. That's why mobile devices are the fastest-growing and most fascinating field in real-time market engagement. We need to understand the ramifications of people being constantly plugged in and looking for information while on the go.

Slowly over nearly a decade, the importance of these ideas has caught on with marketers and public relations people. Today, tens of thousands of organizations around the world have teams who are creating content to publish on their websites, writing blogs, and creating online videos, as well as engaging in social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. And many are operating in true real-time fashion and understand mobile.

In just a few short years we've gone from skepticism to deployment by many companies, nonprofits, and other outfits.

Why Sales and Service Are Experiencing a Revolutionary Transformation

Today it's up to customers when they want to engage a salesperson. If I'm interested in buying something, I go to the web, I go to Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn, and I ask my friends and colleagues and family members for advice. I go to a half-dozen websites and do research. When I'm finally good and ready and I've built up my body of knowledge, I reach out, typically electronically through email, and say, “Hey, I'm interested to go to the next step,” and almost always the salesperson who calls me assumes I know nothing. Most organizations are still using traditional selling and service models that were developed decades ago. This needs to change, or your organization will suffer.

Restoring the Human Touch: The Compelling Power of Authenticity

People want to do business with other people. That's been true since the beginning of time. A hundred years ago our great-grandparents knew the people who sold them hardware or shoes or chickens. There was a personal touch. If there was good service at a fair price and maybe a kind word and a smile, they had a business relationship that lasted for many years.

However, during the past several decades huge companies have been selling identical products to millions of people via mass media advertising on television, and in the process many companies have lost the human touch. Many smaller companies adopted the mass media approach model for their own markets. Advertising agencies were hired to develop “messages.” Salespeople memorized scripts. Top executives fretted about financials, but not about customers.

Now, buyers can interact with anyone who is active in social media. They can see what companies are doing. Who is engaged? Who will talk to me? Does anyone care?

We're back to a hundred years ago and the ability to converse with the person who is selling. What can you tell me about this bike? Is this wetsuit good for scuba diving too, or is it appropriate only for surfing? Which Antarctica expedition is best for me?

An authentic encounter with a representative from a company in a sales or service situation humanizes an organization after decades of sameness.

The Importance of Story

The best businesses have an organizational story that underlies everything they do. For these outfits, that story and the resulting culture it builds mean that everybody—from the CEO and the executives to the salespeople and support staff, even the person who answers the telephone—are all delivering the same information.

By story, I don't mean making up a fairy tale. No, rather the narrative should be a real and authentic account of what the organization is all about. People associated with the company should know these stories by heart and be able to convey them easily when the need arises. These might include a compelling account detailing how the company was founded. They could tell about employees who go out of their way to help customers, or could explain how the company's products are the most expensive in the market and the reasons why.

Social Media Is All about Connecting and Sharing

When I was writing the first edition of The New Rules of Marketing & PR way back in 2005 and 2006, I felt as if I was the only person who had identified the idea that communicating on the web was fundamentally about understanding your buyers and publishing the valuable information that informs and educates (YouTube videos, blog posts, e-books, and the like). This was a radical idea at the time the book was released in 2007, and it was not without controversy, especially from traditional advertising veterans and public relations professionals.

But then, slowly, an understanding started to build about the power of reaching existing and potential customers on the web. Soon the incredible rise of social networking services like Facebook and Twitter created an environment where millions were exposed to what many were now calling “social media.” And then, starting in 2008, the revolution that is web communications went mainstream. The idea of social media entered its full-blown hype mode in recent years, as thousands of instant experts began talking about using social media for growing a business.

Alas, all too often these self-proclaimed gurus spend way too much time talking about the individual tools (such as Twitter) and not enough about the practical aspects of the tools and what they can do as part of a company's overall strategy. And when people hear about Twitter again and again in the same context as social media, no wonder they get a hangover.

So, yes, social media is a buzzword that I am sometimes sick of hearing myself.

It seemed to me that most so-called experts were just hyping the tools themselves. Sure Twitter is important. But what's fundamentally more important is how people need to evolve their mind-set to be successful. Creating a Facebook page or jumping onto Twitter won't transform your business. Changing your mind-set to one of understanding buyers and publishing content on the web will.

Content Drives Sales and Service

As buyers move through the sales cycle, they self-select information that will help them. Perhaps they will encounter a blog post here, a webinar there, or maybe an e-book to read on the train ride home, just as Quark Expeditions reached me when I was investigating a visit to Antarctica. Salespeople can't hoard information like they used to, because it's all available on the web. So the smart ones have transformed themselves into a sort of information broker, serving up the perfect content to each buyer at the right time.

On the service side, once someone is signed up as a customer, information delivered at the right moment makes for a happy customer who renews existing services and buys more over time. And happy customers talk up companies on social networks.

We're All in Sales and Service Now

Back in the twentieth century, organizations had sales departments and customer support departments. Most big companies still do, but with the rise of social networking and instant engagement on the web, now we're all in sales and service.

Think about it. If you work at a big company and you're on LinkedIn or Twitter, you can instantly engage with your network no matter what department within the company you happen to work in. If you're an accountant at a technology company and somebody you follow on Twitter happens to mention that he or she is researching a technology like the one your company makes, bingo! You can point the person to a video on your company's YouTube channel. Even though you're not formally in the sales department, you're still driving your contacts into the buying process.

Online Content That Informs, Entertains…and Sells Insurance

With my friend Larry McGlynn, I went to the Nantucket Demolition Derby. It was great to watch car crashes in beautiful autumn weather.

McGlynn is president and CEO of McGlynn, Clinton & Hall Insurance Agencies and is my insurance agent. He is a funny guy, so I'm always thinking of bad insurance humor.

“Larry, there are going to be a bunch of auto policy claims from today,” I say, deadpan, as I watch the cars smash into one another.

He laughs. “Yeah, this is the only time an insurance agent can enjoy a car crash.”

“Hey, is my rental car covered?” I ask. “Maybe I can take a spin in the next heat!”

That got us to plotting. No, I didn't crash my rental car in the next heat. Rather, we shot a YouTube video.

McGlynn writes the Massachusetts Family Insurance blog, so he understands how interesting content can serve as a way to sell for his insurance business. He pulled out his iPhone and shot a few minutes of footage. When he returned home, he had it edited into a fun little video, which he released on YouTube with the title: “When does an insurance agent enjoy a car crash?”

When I speak with entrepreneurs like McGlynn, so many of them push back on content creation. “I'm just a…,” they say. (Fill in any occupation—lawyer, doctor, restaurant owner, software entrepreneur, whatever.) “There's nothing interesting about my business that I can write about or show on a video.”

Nonsense.

There's always something interesting that offers opportunities for creative content if you keep your mind open.

Have your iPhone ready. Interview a customer. Make a short film about something interesting in your market. Create a Periscope live video stream or shoot an interesting photo and post it on Instagram.

It has never been easier to tell interesting stories to your marketplace. Creating content like the video McGlynn made is virtually free. Ideas for stories are all around you if you just take a look.

McGlynn's publishing efforts generate sales to new customers and also provide service to existing customers, keeping them happy so they continue to do business with his company with annual renewals. Others in his organization follow his lead and will share the content he creates.

“We are all selling,” McGlynn says. “We're selling ourselves and everyone is selling their businesses. Today people use the Internet to search for answers to their insurance questions. If I can provide those answers, then people will see me as an expert, and it may lead them to contact me for both advice and service.”

McGlynn publishes information on his blog that he knows people are searching for. Recent blog posts have examined what insurance can provide in the event of a laptop computer fire, coverage issues that occur when traveling abroad, and what “replacement cost” means in a homeowners' insurance policy. One of my favorite blog titles is “no txt'g while drv'g!” in which he reviewed the existing laws against distracted driving, and how a violation of those laws can negatively impact any insurance defense in a civil lawsuit.

“Sales coming from my blog posts are indirect,” he says. “It's not like I am calling them because I am trying to make a sale. I am giving them some information. I am giving them some knowledge. I am trying to give them something that makes them think about their current status, and then they can make the decision whether to contact me or not.” And contact him they do, because McGlynn tracks sales directly to his blog posts.

“One of the biggest problems that insurance agents have always had is that they rarely hear from their existing clients,” McGlynn says. In order to keep himself in his clients' minds, he emails links to his blog posts to his list of customers. “I contact my clients on an irregular basis, now and then and not every week because that would be too often. It gives me a chance to make contact and let them know that I am thinking about them. For example, when Hurricane Sandy was making its way up the East Coast, I emailed a post I had written months before just to let people know, hey, be prepared for hurricanes. I sent it when it became apparent that Sandy was coming so all my existing clients could review the post when it was urgent.”

McGlynn says he tries to write a new blog post each Wednesday, although he does take some weeks off when he is traveling. “Most of my posts come from listening to people's questions,” he says. “Whether it is in our office or in their office, my clients give me the best ideas.” For many people, insurance is an unfamiliar and intimidating topic. When the time comes to learn about auto, home, or life insurance, they don't know where to turn. McGlynn realizes this and creates posts to help. He has fun with some of his posts, such as the demolition derby video. Content like this gets shared and has become a new form of referrals.

“Much of our business is word of mouth from our customers. The blog gives our customers something to pass on to their friends and colleagues,” McGlynn says. “It's the sort of referral that didn't exist two years ago before I started the blog.”

Updates to This Revised Edition

In the past several years since I wrote the first edition of the book, I've seen some people and organizations make great progress in the ways they sell and service their customers. However, the majority of companies I see are still using ineffective approaches. There are lots of organizations struggling because they are living in the past.

As I write this new edition, the United States is in the thick of the 2016 presidential election cycle. The primaries are in full swing and are playing out as a massive case study illustrating what approaches to sales work in the modern world. According to data reported by MSNBC, Republican candidate Jeb Bush spent $38.1 million on advertising in calendar year 2015. That's way more than any other candidate. In contrast, Donald Trump spent just $217,000 on ads in 2015. But Jeb Bush's investment had yielded just 3 percent support from likely Republican primary voters according to a late December 2015 Fox News poll, and he dropped out of the race in February 2016.

At the same time, Donald Trump is way out in front on real-time connection. He's constantly commenting on the news of the day from the podium at his campaign rallies and talking about the other candidates on his Twitter feed. That same Fox News poll places Trump at 39 percent support. Real-time connection trumps traditional techniques like advertising as a sales tool, a topic I focus on in Chapter 6. I'm not advocating for any particular candidate's politics, nor am I predicting any eventual winner; however, we can all learn from how effectively they sell.

This new edition of the book builds on the first edition with an extensive rewrite. I have checked every fact, figure, and story. But I've also listened. In the past few years, I've met thousands of people like you, people who have shared their stories with me. I have drawn from those experiences and included in these pages new examples of success.

This edition features a discussion on several new agile selling tools, including Periscope, a live video streaming service that some people are using to generate sales and to service customers. The real-time web has sparked a tremendous opportunity for reaching people directly—so I've added to the chapter on agile, real-time social sales, including more on newsjacking, the technique of injecting your ideas into a breaking news story to generate media coverage, get sales leads, and grow business.

Learning from Examples: How the Successes of Others Can Provide Ideas and Options for Your Own Organization

Throughout this book, I'll be sharing examples of success like that of Quark Expeditions and McGlynn, Clinton & Hall Insurance Agencies. I choose large organizations and smaller ones. Some are service businesses and others sell products. I'll talk about a political candidate, several doctors, and a country music star. I profile a nonprofit organization. I have chosen people to learn from in various parts of the world, proving that the New Rules of Sales and Service work in global markets.

As you read the stories, keep in mind that you will learn from them even if they come from a very different market, industry, or type of organization than your own. If you work at a nonprofit, you can learn from the experiences of corporations. Those who work at big companies will find value in what small practitioners are up to. In fact, in my experience, you will learn more by emulating successful ideas from outside your industry than by copying what your peers are doing. Remember, the best thing about new rules is that your competitors probably don't know about them yet.

In Chapter 1, I illustrate how many people are failing to engage their audiences by continuing to apply the old rules in a new age. Their companies are lagging because they fail to see and understand the opportunities. Chapter 2 lays out the basics of the New Rules of Sales and Service so you'll be able to grasp the ideas before I dig into the tools and techniques in later chapters. Chapter 3 focuses on how to create a compelling company narrative and why it is essential that the people at the very top of an organization are involved in this effort. Additional chapters will take deeper dives into buyer personas, the buying cycle, agile sales, and real-time customer service. The last two chapters discuss how you can build your personal brand and your company's business by being social.

In these last several chapters, I'll also address the fears many people feel about plunging into this new environment. I've heard from people at my live events and though social networks and email that they have anxiety about learning a new technology and technical skills. We are long past the time when you needed to learn to code, but many think they will have to go back to school and hit the books to learn. Others relate a fear of losing one's personal life to being always on 24/7 and the requirement to respond to email, monitor websites, and participate on social media. Fear not! While it is human nature to be apprehensive of change, there are many ways to retain control of your life and keep digital access manageable.

Feel free to jump around from chapter to chapter. I write in the style of a blog post, so just like in a blog, you might want to dip into sections on your own timetable rather than follow the linear fashion of the book from cover to cover. While salespeople might want to read only the chapters on sales, I'd encourage you to look into sections on customer service as well. It's important to keep in mind with online content that the lines between what is sales and what is service are blurring, so, for example, those in traditional service roles are building loyalty that drives future sales. It's valuable and essential that everyone now has a working knowledge about how the sales process has changed.

Thank you for your interest in the new rules outlined here. I hope that you too will be successful in implementing these strategies and that your life and work will be made better as a result.

—David Meerman Scott

www.DMS.live

www.WebInkNow.com

@dmscott