Disruptive Selling: Can It Work for You?

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One of the new marketing trends is “disruptive selling.” This is defined as any marketing strategy that is bold enough, unique enough or out of the ordinary enough to create buzz and, consequently, sales. It could be marketing that runs counter to the time of year when competitors are running campaigns or that runs in the opposite direction of other campaigns.

This counter motion results in greater effectiveness and far less cost in terms of time and money.

Launching a successful disruptive marketing or sales program usually follows four basic steps. The first step is to throw out pre-conceived ideas you may have about what would make for a good marketing program. The second step is to set a huge goal — for example, the number of people you want to reach and the amount of sales you want to make. The third step is to look at other industries and companies of all sizes and types and consider what they’ve done from a sales and marketing perspective. The last step is to identify a period of time when your competition is not typically doing any sales or marketing.

What you ultimately decide to do must be attacked with reckless abandon. Too often, great sales campaigns are developed only to be abandoned prematurely because the campaign lacked a sturdy backbone. Once you start a disruptive campaign, don’t back off. Keep running the campaign and expect positive direct and indirect results to accrue.

In fact, the greatest return on investment is usually found in the indirect results of a campaign that emerged without your anticipation. To find good examples of this kind of indirect result, you can look to companies such as Nike, Starbucks, Fox Television, GEICO, or Aflac, to name only a few. Each of these companies has used disruptive marketing or sales techniques to stand out and therefore be noticed.

For several of these companies, the disruptive marketing was out of necessity, because they couldn’t afford to implement “normal” marketing programs; but in the end, these disruptive campaigns were far more successful than if the companies had followed the norm.

Remember, the underlying sales principle of disruptive selling is that success in sales comes not to those who do things the way everyone else does but rather are willing to step out and do things differently.


Is There Value in Having a Sales Process?

This is a question I get asked a lot.

The question comes from companies of all size. When I’m asked this question I immediately ask the person if they have a sales process in place now. The typical answer is yes, but then when I challenge them on what the process is, the excuses begin to flow.

Drawing on several years of sales consulting experience, I can clearly state it is impossible for a company to be high-performing, regardless of their size, without also having a sales process in place that each member of the sales team follows.

Yes, a company can achieve sales success without a sales process, but rarely will this success last longer than a few years. For an organization to achieve their profit and sales potential, they must have a sales process.

The challenge of course is in defining the sales process. Merely having a sales process will not by itself allow you to maximize profit. The sales process must fit your industry, your business plan, your organization, and your customer base. This means to truly put in place a sales process, you first have to assess what your current position is.

Let’s turn this now to a perspective about how a sales process helps the individual salesperson. The best way to describe it is with two words — discipline and accountability.

If you break apart what a sales process does, it is nothing more than these two items, discipline and accountability. Sounds simple, yet to the individual salesperson, this is the difference between success and failure and, more important, a high-level of success and floundering mediocrity.

Finally let me add one more piece to the perspective as to why a sales process works. It’s simple — the phones don’t ring enough anymore.

There was a time when many industries were operating at near maximum capacity and the ability to execute a marketing campaign was all that was necessary to ensure sell-through of production. This is no longer the case. Even if it was, merely selling through available supply is still not going to maximize profit.

Is a marketing program required for sales to be successful? I say yes, and the only way the marketing campaign will be optimized is if the sales force is working with a sales process.

MANA welcomes your comments on this article. Write to us at [email protected].

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Mark Hunter, The Sales Hunter, is the author of High-Profit Selling: Win the Sale Without Compromising on Price. He is a consultative selling expert committed to helping individuals and companies identify better prospects and close more profitable sales. To get a free weekly sales tip, visit www.TheSalesHunter.com.