The biggest lesson I’ve learned over the course of my career is how hard it is to really focus on helping your potential customers ahead of blatant self-promotion. The best businesses put customers at the center and earn the opportunity to explain how you can help them.
You have to build some level of trust, and yet so many B2B sales and marketing professionals lead with a pitch. My advice: Spend time interfacing directly with potential customers. Look at the influencers in your space, and learn how they built their audience and the influence they have. And most importantly, simply seek to answer your customers’ top questions, challenges and concerns. The brands that win are the ones who have their eyes and ears pointed out to their community, not in toward their product team or their “sales-driven” culture.
It’s counter-intuitive, because our natural instinct as a business is to want to talk about how great we are. But that’s the last thing your customers want.
Help your customers first, and you will help build a strong and growing business.
