CHAPTER 3

Mastering Digital Selling and Content Development

I recently read an article on modern-day selling that did a really nice job of showcasing a variety of the latest sales enablement tools. It offered the reader some good advice on embracing digital automation systems and even a nice list of ways to make use of the latest technologies to attract prospects and reach out to new clients.

The last bullet on the list of suggestions was simply, “Post on LinkedIn Every Day.” As you might imagine, I wholeheartedly concur. But I couldn’t help but think that advice sounded a bit vague. That suggestion seemed kind of like telling someone, “Make one phone call every day!” Or maybe, “Make 20 phone calls every day!” That’s not bad advice, by any means. But if you did decide to make one phone call a day (or 20), you might also find yourself asking:

•   Who should I call?

•   Where can I reach them?

•   When should I call them?

•   Why would I be calling in the first place? (What would be the objective?)

•   What would I want to say, ask, or communicate to them?

•   If it went well, what should I ask the customer to do next?

•   How could I help them choose to take the next logical step?

Just making a phone call might not amount to anything if you don’t put some thought into questions that begin with words like who, what, where, when, why, and how.

Likewise, as you think more deeply about your overall digital selling strategy, and especially about creating the content you’ll use for inbound and outbound demand generation, many of these same kinds of questions apply:

•   Who do you hope will see or consume this content?

•   Where should you publish it? (What is the best platform to use to deliver it?)

•   When, or on what cadence, would you want to release it?

•   Why would you be posting this to begin with? (What is the intended objective?)

•   What should you say or try to communicate with this piece of content?

•   If you capture their interest, what should you ask customers to do next?

•   How could you persuade the reader or viewer to take the next logical step?

We don’t call someone just to say we called someone. We also shouldn’t post or publish something just to say we published something. Any and all of our efforts should be directed to accomplish a specific purpose.

We’re going to explore formats and platforms as we go. But the bulk of this chapter will focus on what is actually written and/or said within your sales and marketing content. We’re going to explore the objective of why we are posting or publishing in the first place.

We’ll look closely at how customers make buying decisions. We will uncover how to influence customer perceptions as we help them draw conclusions about us, about what we offer, but also about themselves. We’re going to apply a method to our digital selling that can be leveraged throughout all of our e-conversations with our target audience regardless of platform or medium.

The goal is not simply to get your name out there, hoping someone remembers you when they find themselves ready to buy something. The true objective of digital demand generation is to move people upward through that pyramid of awareness we discussed in Chapter 2 and empower them to arrive in the Top 3 percent with a strong preference for doing business with you.

Selling Via Content with Intent

Every bit of content that we write and record should be created to influence our prospective customers’ perceptions and beliefs. As I’ve said previously, we need to use our website copy, our YouTube videos, and our social posts to do more than just gain “visibility” or “exposure.” We’re trying to literally change hearts and minds.

Through all of your digital communication with your client, the aim is to . . .

Create and deliver content with intent. What do you want your reader or viewer to think differently or do differently after they consume what you’ve written or recorded?

The power of selling via content—especially via video—was illustrated profoundly by an inquiry we received through our website a few months ago. A new prospective client from the United Kingdom contacted us, and we scheduled a videoconference. If I hadn’t been on this call myself, I never would have believed this story. But this is exactly how it went.

Once we joined the conference and exchanged pleasantries, the gentleman started by saying:

“It’s really great to meet you in person, Bill! We found your company listed as one of the Top 20 Online Sales Training Companies in Selling Power magazine. We’ve been to your website and looked at the various programs you offer. We’ve also watched your videos on YouTube. We’d like to talk about having you work with us on a training project if you can fit us in.”

I was curious, so I asked, “Which video did you watch?”

“We watched all of them,” he replied.

“All of them?” I questioned.

“Well, all of them we could find, anyway. We especially liked the one where you contrasted your method for blending short micro-learning challenges with live-video accountability sessions as compared to the more traditional online e-learning courses, which our guys have become bored with.”

“Well, I’m glad that resonated with you!”

He said, “We sent a few of the videos around to our sales leaders, and they feel like your approach and some of the topics you offer would be a great fit for us. We also noticed you’ve worked with quite a few companies in the life sciences industry.”

“Yes, we sure have.”

He continued, “My boss was impressed with the clip of the British executive who talked about how you customized your course just for his company and the markets they sell to. We weren’t sure we’d be able to get this program kicked off until our next fiscal year, but then we saw one of your videos on LinkedIn where you talked about your ability to custom-tailor your programs so you can start delivering training within three to four weeks. Is that right?

“Yes, sir!” I reassured him.

“So, we thought, ‘Let’s see if we can get this kicked off before we get too far into our fourth quarter.’”

“I think that’s definitely possible,” I said.

He went on to say, “Our general manager also liked the video where you talked about the key metrics you use to measure the success of a training program. He’s been telling us that if we spend money developing this team, we’d better be able to show a return on the investment. So that video helped a lot!”

I was blown away! Talk about being far down the buying path! This couldn’t have been a more textbook example of exactly why we created all those videos in the first place! The client and his colleagues were able to answer so many questions for themselves before we ever even spoke. They drew a variety of conclusions and even alleviated many of their own fears by looking at online endorsements and testimonials.

Let’s quickly recap a few of the conclusions that he and his colleagues were able to draw as a result of what they could read and watch online:

1.   We’re a reputable company with a global reach.

2.   We have a lot of experience training salespeople in his industry.

3.   We can help their team in the specific areas in which they feel they need the most help.

4.   We can quickly custom tailor the program to align with their go-to-market strategy.

5.   We’ve got a lot of happy clients, so maybe they would end up being happy too!

6.   They could get started sooner than they realized.

7.   They would be able to track their results and quantify their return on investment.

By sharing links to specific videos with various internal stakeholders, they were even able to build consensus with enough people to get the support they needed to move forward with the project. That’s amazing! The great news for all of us is that this kind of digital selling is not rocket science. Anybody who’s willing to learn can and should be doing this constantly and intentionally.

What if you put some serious thought into the kinds of things that your buyers might need to know so they could draw conclusions and make some important decisions before they ever speak with you? What would you want your clients to conclude about you and what you offer? If you decided to create just one new digital asset like this, what would you want it to persuade your prospects to think or do?

If we knew the answers to these questions, we could create content that was specifically designed to provide the information our prospects need to arrive at our preferred conclusions. We don’t need to produce more content just so we can post “something” on LinkedIn every day. Digital content should be used to actually sell!

Let’s remember this . . .

The quantity and frequency of publishing digital selling assets definitely matters—as does how you choose to deliver them. But what matters more is the way you make people think and feel after they read or watch them.

Digital content can educate, stimulate, motivate, alleviate fears, mitigate perceived risks, and even overcome objections when it’s done right. I call it digital salesmanship. This is the future!

Once we create digital assets that are designed to change customer thinking and behavior, we can use them for inbound demand generation and outbound prospecting. When we use these kinds of tools in our outreach, we not only increase the likelihood of landing a meeting, but we also influence perception and challenge the thinking of anyone who chooses to look at them whether they are ready to meet with us or not.

Two Big Decisions Buyers Have to Make

Any significant buying process boils down to two big decisions that are based on the buyer answering two major questions:

1.   The Action Decision: Do we really need to buy something now?

2.   The Choice Decision: Who should we buy from?

That first question, which enables the customer to make a good action decision, actually includes three operative words. Those three words are really, buy, and now.

If your prospective customer doesn’t really have to buy something, maybe they will just put it off for a while. Perhaps they can even get by without it forever. Few companies spend significant amounts of money on things that aren’t tied to solving a particular business problem or achieving a specific measurable result. Corporate investments now require more documentation, justification, and “hoop jumping” than ever. Your customer will probably never do all of that if they don’t have to. And there’s always something else for your customer to spend their money on if they don’t really have to spend it with you.

The second word that is pivotal in that question is buy. Customers might ask themselves, “Do we need to buy something? Or can we just use what we already have and figure out a way to make it work?” Or perhaps a team of people will look at each other and ask, “Can we come up with a way to build this or do it ourselves?” Sometimes there are alternate courses of action a company could take to achieve their desired results short of making a new purchase or an investment with you.

The third key word is now. This, of course, speaks to urgency. I’ve found that if a company can delay or postpone an investment and there is no negative consequence to doing so, oftentimes that’s exactly what they will do. Haven’t we all met plenty of clients who made all the decisions necessary to buy except that last decision to move forward now? How many times have you heard your customer say, “We decided to put this on the ‘back burner’ for now?” Ugh!

So, to complete their action decision, buyers will have to come to these conclusions:

•   We really need this. It’s not just a nice-to-have. It’s a must-have.

•   We need to buy this as opposed to trying to make it or do it ourselves.

•   We need this now. We can’t afford to wait or put this off any longer.

Assuming all of those things are true, then the second big decision, the choice decision, is this: “Who should we buy from?” I always like to point out that if a buyer never ends up making the action decision, the choice decision is irrelevant. That doesn’t always mean they finalize their action decision before they ever start to consider choice. But selecting a choice and then never taking any action still results in no purchase.

Unfortunately, sometimes . . .

We go to such great lengths trying to convince a customer that we are their best choice that we totally forget that the real sale to be made is helping them decide whether they need to take action and buy.

In fact, the best way to become your customer’s choice is to help them make the action decision that is best for them. If they move forward, you are in the coveted position of being an advisor, not just a salesperson. Sometimes, sadly, it means they don’t end up buying anything after all.

Action Drivers and Choice Drivers

Now, we’re going one layer deeper into customer psychology by exploring the various factors that go into supporting those two big buying decisions that customers have to make. These factors represent the various conclusions that have to be drawn as your customer contemplates those two big decisions. I call these factors action drivers and choice drivers. Stay with me through this discussion because once this concept clicks for you, it will completely change the way you sell, whether digital or otherwise.

There are a number of different conclusions that customers have to draw to support their decision to take action and buy. It’s not only a cerebral exercise—there are real constraints that have to be taken into consideration such as timing, availability of funds, internal support, and approvals. Likewise, there are several things they might have to conclude before they feel like they’re prepared to make a choice of who to buy from. Let’s look at both of these sets of factors separately.

Action Drivers

There are eight action drivers in the list that follows, coupled with the associated conclusion that your customer would have to reach for each one before they’d be ready to buy. Keep in mind that a no on any one of these factors can cause a delay in moving forward or derail a deal entirely.

As you read through each of these, imagine yourself being the buyer. And remember that as the solutions that we provide become larger and more complex, more people on the customer’s side have to be involved in the decision and agree on the answers to these questions. Think about the various people that might need to be involved in this decision process for the kinds of solutions you sell.

Before your customers could take action and buy, they would have to concretely, or at least loosely, conclude:

1.   Motive: We have a compelling vision of our desired future state (Point C).

2.   Consequences: We cannot afford to stay where we are today (Point A).

3.   Urgency: We recognize the urgency to take action on this now.

4.   Priority: This endeavor is of the upmost priority to us at this time.

5.   Consensus: We all agree on the action and the direction we need to take.

6.   Resources: We are willing and able to invest the money, time, and manpower required to get this done.

7.   Payback/Return: We are convinced the payback or return on the completed project is worth the investment.

8.   Risks: We are willing to accept the risks of taking action now.

Here’s my challenge to you: Think about what you can provide in writing, images, audio, or video that would help your customers draw these conclusions for themselves. Go down the list one by one and identify the format and the platform you could use to convey your knowledge and advice in each of these areas. Start to think of topics, titles, and even subject lines for emails that you could use that are pertinent to your market or industry. As we look at each one more closely, let me offer just a few suggestions for the kinds of digital selling assets you might want to leverage for each.

1. Motive

Motive refers to the root of what is really driving your customer to take action and buy. Their motive is their why. It might be the recognition of some significant pain at Point A or the promise of a desirable outcome at Point C. Because this is so foundational to every buying decision, content that focuses on developing the customer’s why tends to drive the conviction to make a change of some kind as well as paint the vision of what’s possible if they do. Here are just a few quick examples:

Article: How to Solve the Problem of _______________ Without Enduring _______________

Blog post: 5 Sensational Wins for Every Company Willing to Embrace _______________ Now

YouTube video: 3 Ways To Use _______________ to Double Your _______________ in the Next 12 Months!

LinkedIn post with tips entitled: What if you had a step-by-step plan to double your business this year?

2. Consequences

Consequences are the bad things that might happen if your customer doesn’t take action to buy. As I mentioned earlier, the consequences of inaction often push your customers over the line and cause them to make a commitment to change even more than their motive. You could potentially help your customers appreciate the consequences of inaction with digital assets like these:

LinkedIn article: 4 Little-Known Factors That Could Cause Your Small Business to Fail This Year

Outbound email subject line: How to Avoid the Fatal Trap of _______________ Before It’s Too Late

Short e-book: 5 Reasons You Can’t Afford to Wait to _______________

Can you see how an email subject line constructed around a specific action driver could draw your customer in and make them want to learn more? You might get higher open rates with a cryptic subject line like “Bob?” or “Did you forget?” which is designed to create raw curiosity. But readers who click through on subjects and titles that actually resonate with their concerns or their desires are far more likely to engage with the substance of your content once they do. If the reader knows what they are clicking through to, they’ll be more likely to respond than those who are “baited” into opening an email with some tricky subject line that doesn’t really give them any idea of what they are about to look at.

3. Urgency

Urgency refers to some compelling event or a time-bound trigger that dictates or even forces your customer to take action. I think it’s important to point out that it’s not the urgency to buy something that drives the timeline. It’s the need to solve the problems of Point A or start experiencing the payback of Point C within a specific time frame that really drives urgency. Content that speaks to urgency might look something like this:

Free guide: 5 Steps You Must Take Now to Avoid Losing More of Your Best Employees

Sequence of three emails: 3 Ways You Are Losing Profit Every Month You Put Off _______________

YouTube Live: Why Every Small Business Needs to Take Advantage of _______________ Right Now

4. Priority

The list of things your customer needs and wants to buy will always exceed the resources they’ll ever have to buy them. Consequently, companies have to prioritize how they invest their money, which means some projects will get staffed and funded and others won’t. Insight that could help customers prioritize investments might take the form of one of these:

Twitter thread: 4 Reasons Why _______________ Should Be a Top Priority for Every _______________ Today

LinkedIn DM: What’s More Important to You: Achieving _______________? Or Avoiding _______________?

Podcast topic: How to Prioritize IT Investments for Rapid Growth and Profitability

5. Consensus

Consensus speaks to the need to get enough of the stakeholders that are involved in a buying decision to agree on a path forward. Lack of consensus and buy-in from key decision makers can stall a deal or kill it altogether. Suppose you could create a few digital assets that would help your customers secure the internal support they need to move forward; do you think that might be useful to them? Here are a few examples:

Article: 3 Ways a Lack of Consensus Will Tank _______________ and Cripple Your _______________ . Here’s What You Can Do About It!

Free webinar: How to Garner the Internal Support You Need for _______________

Free guide: 5 Steps to Gaining Consensus and Support for Your _______________ Project

6. Resources

Before your customers can buy something, they have to have the money, the time, and the manpower to not only make a purchase but also to put your product or service to use. Helping your customers find or secure the resources they need to move forward can be a critical part of your job. You can create and offer digital assets to advise them and help them along the way, including the following:

Email subject line: 5 Ways to Obtain Funding When You Don’t Have a Budget for _______________

YouTube video: How Innovative Companies Are Finding Ways to Invest in _______________

LinkedIn post: #1 Hack for Getting Funding and Approval for _______________

7. Payback/Return

Another key factor in your customer’s action decision is concluding that the payback or the return available at Point C is worth the investment required at Point B. In fact, in most cases the potential return needs to be 5, 10, or even 20 times greater than the investment to offset the risk that the return may never materialize. There are a lot of different digital assets that could be used to help your customer make this decision. Here are a couple of really good ones:

Spreadsheet template: Business Case Calculator to Justify Your Investment in _______________

Checklist: 7 Steps to Maximize Your ROI for _______________ Projects

LinkedIn video: How to Measure Return on Investment for _______________

8. Risks

Perhaps the biggest hurdle any customer has to clear as part of their buying decision is getting past the perceived risks involved in making a purchase, an investment, or a change in suppliers. Risk is something we need to talk about openly with our customers so we can understand their concerns, fears, and/or misconceptions. Until we know the risks that a buyer perceives to moving forward, we are basically powerless to help them overcome or mitigate those risks, whether they be real or imaginary. Content that helps the customer overcome perceived risks could include the following:

Research study: Why the Risk of Switching to _______________ Is Nothing Compared to the Risk of _______________ (not switching)

Weekly email sequence: 4 Ways to Mitigate Your Risk of _______________ Without _______________ (negative consequence)

Twitter livestream: How to Minimize Your Exposure to _______________ by Investing in _______________ Now

I’m sure you are already formulating a ton of ideas about how you could start using digital assets to influence, persuade, and help your customers draw favorable conclusions related to making their action decision—even when you’re not around. That’s how you leverage technology to scale your capacity to sell!

Please note that some of these assets can be published and posted free of charge. Others could be shared in exchange for contact information to grow your email subscriber list. Some might only be shared privately with prospects in the final stages of their buying process. And yet others might be something you could turn into a marketable, low-cost product to create what I call a “starter customer.” We’ll discuss these uses further in Chapter 5.

Choice Drivers

It’s easy to overgeneralize by saying, “Customers buy from people they know, like, and trust.” We all know this is true. But this assumes that the seller has a product or service the customer needs, that it can be delivered when it’s needed, that the customer can afford whatever price is being asked, and so on. Having a good relationship is not the only factor that comes into play.

Now, let’s look closely at more of the variables that go into your customer’s choice decision. As you read each one, think about how you could help a customer draw these conclusions if the only way you could do it was using some form of a digital asset.

To make their selection, your buyer would have to believe all or most of these statements to be true:

1.   The Trust Factor: We know, like, and trust these people and this company.

2.   Knowledge and Insight: These people have the knowledge and insight we need.

3.   Customer Experience: These people honor their commitments and are easy to do business with.

4.   Stability and Reliability: These people and their solutions have a strong track record.

5.   Product/Services Solution: This solution is the appropriate quality and is a good fit for us.

6.   Availability and Delivery: These people have the appropriate product selection and can deliver what we need, when we need it, and in the way that we need it delivered.

7.   Price to Value/Risk Ratio: This solution is the best value and lowest risk option for the price.

8.   Terms and Payments: The terms, conditions, and payment schedule are the best fit for us.

Some who read these eight statements will contend that this kind of selling might be better done in person. I totally agree! Get an appointment to sell in person whenever you can! However, that’s not always easily done these days. In today’s digital marketplace, buyers typically start making these kinds of judgments long before we ever have a chance to engage with them personally. We have to learn how to become the partner of choice even if we never get the chance to make our case in real-time.

Thinking back to the story I told earlier in this chapter, do you see how we created many of the videos we published to specifically address these eight points? It’s absolutely possible to use text, graphics, audio, and video to address every one of these eight factors head-on and help people reach favorable conclusions about us entirely digitally. In our case, at Sales Excellence, we recognize that by providing all of this information online, we probably end up reducing the number of raw inquiries we receive from our website. Some prospects will learn enough about us to determine we are not a good fit for them or vice versa. But the leads we do get are exceptionally qualified, and our closure rate is extremely high.

It’s important to note here that in all of your inbound selling endeavors, you are trying to help your prospects conclude these eight things about you personally as well as about your company. If you are a solopreneur, an expert, or a public figure, then you are selling yourself. Those who represent a company are selling themselves and their organization. Let’s look at a few examples of how to do this for each of these eight areas.

1. The Trust Factor

Earning trust is accomplished in several ways. To boil it down, your prospective client has to conclude that you are a credible source, you are capable of delivering what they need, you will deal with them honestly and fairly, and that you have their best interests at heart. There are surely many other factors as well, but these are a few of the big ones.

Our prospects will begin to know, like, and trust us—or not—the moment they start consuming whatever we choose to publish. But be careful to not assume that simply racking up likes and comments on your social posts equates to earning the kind of trust people will need to actually buy something from you.

I think it’s worth noting . . .

Trust is not necessarily the same thing as popularity.

Just because someone is a social influencer with 750,000 followers doesn’t necessarily mean a major corporation will select him or her to partner with for a million-dollar project. It is true, however, that the opinions of others, such as fellow members of a Facebook group or fellow YouTube followers, can have a major impact on people’s perceptions and beliefs about you.

“Social proof” is a key element people use to determine whom they will trust. Therefore, we have to be intentional about how we solicit and leverage the opinions of our current customers, industry experts, analysts, and yes, social followers. We then need to share those opinions for future clients to see.

Here are just a few examples of digital assets that might support earning your perspective customer’s trust:

Web page dedicated to: Our Core Beliefs as a Company and Why They Should Matter to You

Customer testimonial: Why _______________ (client) Selected _______________ (us) Over _______________ (competitor)

Press release: _______________ (your company) Awarded Most Trusted Company in _______________ (geography or industry)

Series of LinkedIn posts: Why Choose to Partner with _______________ (your company)

While asynchronous selling in writing might be a new endeavor for some of us, it is hardly a new idea. The single most effective written selling tool I’ve ever created was a piece I wrote in 1996. I was working for a startup company called NTSI selling custom-built computer systems for running high-end engineering and design software. The young sales and technical pre-sales team, of which I was a part, got really good at telling the story of why companies should choose us over all of the big-name hardware manufacturers we competed with.

As I listened to our brilliant technical experts and the super-talented salespeople on our team talking to customers, I observed that our story—which resonated with our clients like crazy—boiled down to five key reasons why they should pick us. I turned those five reasons into a simple one-pager I called Why Buy from NTSI? We snail-mailed it to every name on our massive mailing list. We used it in all of our prospecting approaches. We built it into every presentation we gave. We even included it with every proposal. It was a tremendous success!

I think it’s incredibly important to point out that I didn’t come up with all the ideas in this piece myself. I happened to write it, but most of the credit for what was in it goes to my dear friends Tim Schmidt, Shawn Harty, Jim Smith, Ray Zerkle, and Dave McKenna. You don’t have to know it all. Gather the knowledge of the people around you and turn that into asynchronous selling tools that can earn your customers’ trust when you’re not even there.

2. Knowledge and Insight

Most of what your readers and viewers conclude about your knowledge and insight will be based on the assets you create and share that relate to the action drivers that were described earlier. But there could be a few other things that would draw specific attention to the value of what you know, such as the following:

Recognition: Professional designations, degrees, awards, endorsements, and certifications

Recommendations: LinkedIn recommendations from clients or respected colleagues

Customer comment: “John brought a level of expertise and acumen that is nearly impossible to find these days. With his guidance, we were able to accomplish _______________ in _______________ (time frame) without having to _______________ .”

Article: 5 Things That Can Make or Break Your Next _______________ Project. You can then stress the importance of choosing a partner that has the right knowledge and expertise as one of the five things.

3. Customer Experience

Keep in mind that customer experience (CX) starts long before someone becomes a paying customer. The digital impressions you make before you ever even speak to clients and the way you treat them throughout the buying process are their best indicators for what it might be like to work with you. Customers need to “feel the love” from the outset and all along the journey. If they feel valued and important to you before they buy, they will naturally conclude that being your client will be a pleasant experience, too.

Always keep in mind that the voice of your current customers speaks volumes to your prospects. Make the time to collect and catalog every customer testimonial and positive comment you can get and then post them everywhere! One of the most powerful and trusted mechanisms today is recommendations and star ratings on a Google Business Profile. Every business owner should ask each happy client to rate them and leave a comment on their profile or some of other form of publicly accessible rating system. You can then take the best comments and post them on your website, LinkedIn profile, Facebook page, and so on. Try capturing some of these and turning them into digital assets designed to help you sell. Of course, don’t forget about accolades and awards; they help too! Here are a few ideas for useful digital assets that emphasize customer experience:

LinkedIn post: Thank you to all of our amazing clients who make serving them a joy, day in and day out. We are so grateful for all the wonderful reviews on Google. Check them out! (see link in first comment)

LinkedIn post: So excited about our partnership with _______________ (tag client). Just had to share his recent testimonial with you (see below). We are honored to serve them and look forward to witnessing their success going forward!

Press release: _______________ (your company) Recognized for “Best Customer Experience” by _______________ (credible source)

4. Stability and Reliability

To help your customer see you as the stable and reliable supplier/partner they are looking for, learn to tell your history and your story in a way that involves less bragging about your accomplishments and more about how you have served and “been there” for your current clients over a long period of time. It’s true that any brand-new company could be just as safe and reliable as one that’s been around for 30 years. But that is most often true because the person or the people who started it have a solid track record of success and service. This is why selling the people within your company and not just the company itself is so vital in earning your customer’s trust. Here are a couple of assets that can help:

Press release: _______________(your company) Announces Leading Industry Expert _______________ (team member) Appointed to _______________ (position). This is always a great opportunity to showcase a colleague’s background and success story.

LinkedIn post about a team member: _______________ (your company) celebrates _______________ (team member) for her 20 years of service in the _______________ industry. Another nice way to showcase talent and show appreciation at the same time.

White paper: 8 Things to Look for When Selecting the Best Technology Partner. You could then emphasize stability and reliability as a critical factor.

5. Product/Services Solution

It goes without saying that the product or service that you provide is a major choice driver and a key ingredient in your customer’s buying decision. What I hope to point out, however, is that there are many other factors and ways to establish value in your customer’s mind and differentiate yourself from your competition. I find use cases showing exactly how your customer can use what you offer to solve specific problems they are facing to be extremely appealing. Showing your product in use via video is incredibly effective. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a million words!

If you have superior product features and functions, sell them! But don’t forget that what makes you different in the customer’s mind is how you position the capabilities of your product, not the capabilities themselves. Here are a few ways of positioning yourself as not just better, but different:

Feature video on your website: How You Can Use _______________ (your product or service) to Solve the 3 Most Expensive Problems for _______________ Companies. Here you can stress some key capabilities your competitors don’t have.

Five-part email series: 5 Ways That _______________ (your product) Is Different Than Anything Else on the Market

YouTube video: Side-by-Side Shootout: _______________ (us) Versus _______________ (them)

I cannot resist sharing an example that I believe to be the epitome of effective competitive differentiation and earning trust using digital assets. It happens to be content on a website by the highly innovative and rapidly growing cybersecurity training company called Ninjio (www.ninjio.com). They have a tab right in the main navigation menu of their website called “Gartner Insights” where they offer side-by-side, third-party comparisons with five of their top competitors.¹

In this case, they stack up very favorably to those five companies, so they would naturally put these Gartner reports front and center. You’ll probably have to put some effort into this, but I want to encourage you to pick the best examples of the kind of information or statistics that set you apart from your competition and showcase those digitally for all to see. Ninjio posts samples of many of their training “episodes” right on their website. Watch a few and you’ll see why they are getting such great reviews. What a great example of giving prospective clients a taste of what’s available without forcing them to fill out a form or book an appointment!

6. Availability and Delivery

Another important factor in becoming your customer’s choice is having what they need and being able to deliver it when they need it. This factor alone can win and retain business even when somebody else offers a better price or a superior product. It might not matter how superior it is if they can’t deliver! Here are a couple of ways that digital content could speak to this choice driver quite nicely:

Awards: Sometimes an outside resource, like an industry magazine or newsletter, will showcase companies and even issue awards and recognition based on metrics like on-time delivery.

YouTube video: Customer testimonial talking about how your responsiveness and on-time delivery keeps them coming back for more.

Survey results: Published customer satisfaction survey showing a high percentage of on-time deliveries.

Published guarantee: Guarantee of availability and on-time deliveries. Many companies have literally made this a key element of their brand. FedEx comes to mind as does Domino’s Pizza.

LinkedIn video: How We Made Availability and Delivery the Hallmark of Our Brand. You don’t have to give away all your trade secrets, but give your customer a chance to see exactly how you are uniquely equipped to be the go-to supplier they can count on.

This is one of the things that really impressed my buyer in the story I shared at the beginning in this chapter. The ability to rapidly customize training materials was a key trigger that caused them to move forward now instead of waiting until their next fiscal year. If you have some kind of an edge over your competitors in terms of availability or your ability to deliver, this can be a huge advantage, if you sell it right.

7. Price to Value/Risk Ratio

Salespeople frequently fall for the deception that price is all that their customers care about. That’s simply because customers often make comments and threats about price as a negotiation tactic to knock sellers off balance and cause them to panic. But as you can see, price is only one of eight different choice drivers listed here. It’s almost never just the dollar figure that determines the decision. Instead, the choice that provides the best ratio of price to value and gives buyers the best value at the lowest risk most often prevails. Here are a few ways in which digital assets could be used to highlight this factor:

White paper: Why Paying a Higher Price Can Save You Time, Money, and Embarrassment. I love that title because “embarrassment” is a way to bring the personal ramifications of a decision into consideration.

Customer testimonial: How _______________ (client) Cut Their Costs for _______________ and Lowered Their Risk at the Same Time

LinkedIn article: 6 Ways to Get the Most Value from Your _______________ Provider While Minimizing Your Exposure to _______________ (risk)

Blog post: Why These Three Companies Chose to Partner with _______________ (your company). It’s All About More Value and Less Risk!

8. Terms and Payments

This has been used as a topic for advertising for decades. Expressions like “No Money Down,” “Easy Payment Terms,” and “90 Days Same as Cash” have become annoyingly pervasive. But as overused as these kinds of slogans have become, the terms of our sales agreement and the timetable on which customers have to pay can be huge factors in swinging the choice decision this way or that. As with all the other choice drivers, we have to get creative about how to use digital assets to communicate these things to customers without it sounding like just another ad. Perhaps we could try these:

LinkedIn post: 17 Things You Can Afford to Buy Now If You Don’t Have to Pay for _______________ (your product) Until Next Year

Article: 5 Ways to Cut Costs and Free Up Cash-Flow with Creative Financing Options

YouTube video: A Smarter Way to Buy: How to “Pay-by-the-Drink” for _______________ Services

Blog post: 3 Reasons It Doesn’t Make Sense to Tie Up Working Capital for _______________ (your product) Anymore

Case study: How a _______________ Service Contract Smooths Out Cash Flow and Saves You Money

When I am consulting and coaching people on creating content that sells, I often ask them to look back at the last 10 to 20 pieces they created and published. It might be social posts, or white papers, or email copy. Then, I ask them to identify which of these action drivers or choice drivers each piece was directed toward and what conclusions they intended for the reader or viewer to draw. I would encourage you to do the same thing. Don’t just publish content for the sake of having “something to post.” Develop and publish content with intent! Create content that sells!

Hopefully, you can see that what we are doing is simply taking what we might say or present to our customer in a telephone conversation or a live meeting and turning that into digital assets that can do some of the selling for us asynchronously. Many sales professionals reading this may once again think, “Our marketing department needs to be doing all of this! They are the ones that need to read this!” You might be right. Feel free to dog-ear this chapter and hand them this book with my regards.

But whether you are a sales pro, a marketer, or a small business owner that is starting to see the power of selling by using digital assets, don’t wait for somebody else to do this for you. Of course, you can forge internal alliances, lobby for a cross-departmental initiative, or outsource part of this to a digital selling expert. Whatever you do, don’t just hand your fate to somebody else and go back to selling and marketing the way you’ve always done it. Start selling the way people buy today!

Best Practices for Content Development

What I am trying to accomplish with this chapter is to persuade you that you can do this. You can learn to create digital assets that can be used to enable prospects to find you. You can learn to engage potential customers even if they’re not willing to talk to you yet. It’s going to take practice. It’s going to take work.

But I’d like to stress that . . .

Creating content to use for either inbound demand generation or outbound prospecting isn’t something you do in addition to your job. This is your job!

If you are thinking, “I don’t have time to do this,” you are not alone. I’m sure everyone who has embraced content-based selling has thought that at some point.

Here’s an idea that has helped me, and it might help you, too . . .

If you have time to consume content, you have time to create content.

I do some of my best content creation in the late evening after everyone else is asleep. I used to just browse other people’s content on LinkedIn, Facebook, or YouTube to unwind at the end of the day. About a year ago, I developed a new habit of trying to write one new piece of content every night if I’ve got any brainpower left to do it. You may choose the early morning or whatever time works best for you. Here are a few other best practices that can help.

Become a Content Creator and Curator

Some of the content you create may be totally original thoughts and insights never before published. More often, what you’ll share is your take on an idea or a concept that is already out there. Don’t feel like everything you post has to spring from your own mind, especially to begin with.

If you are a small business owner, you know you wouldn’t have even started your business if you didn’t already possess some marketable skills or expertise. And even if you are a corporate sales pro who’s relatively new to your company or your industry, you already know things—or will soon be learning things—that your future clients need to know.

If you don’t think you have enough fresh insight and great ideas to create engaging content yourself, start collecting and curating the knowledge of others. I’ll cover this in more depth in Chapter 6 on brand building, but you don’t have to know it all. You never will! You can provide tremendous value to your clients when you collect and disseminate the knowledge and insight you learn from other people.

You should seek to become a source your clients can turn to for guidance and advice. If you are part of a larger organization, I am confident that your collective knowledge is enough to literally rock your customer’s world. Get it out there and stop keeping all that expertise a secret.

Because of the way people buy today . . .

If you’re not intentional about curating the knowledge and sharing the collective expertise of your team, most people will never know it exists!

Should only the people who are willing to travel to your facility get to meet your executive team? Should only those who’ve taken the leap of faith to become paying customers have a chance to learn from your world-class engineers and developers? Why not shoot a series of videos to showcase that brain trust and figure out how to enable as many people as possible to see it?

If you’re only willing to share your guidance and advice with the people who are ready to take your phone call, that’s going to be a small percentage of your market these days. Digitize everything you know!

You don’t have to give away everything all at once. Hold some knowledge and insight back for the live conversation or the demo. Reserve some of your expertise only for your paying customers.

Remember that . . .

Knowledge is the new currency! If you want people you’ve never met to know what insight and expertise you have, you’ll have to show them and tell them in some kind of digital format.

Develop a Content Creation and Curation Plan

I’ll bet some who read this will be thinking, “I’ve tried to spend time creating content to post on LinkedIn or YouTube, but I can never think about what I should focus on or talk about.” How do you suppose I know this? For over two years I tried to create momentum on LinkedIn, but I found myself frustrated every morning trying to come up with something interesting to post.

I’d often get distracted by other tasks, and by the time I did come up with something worth posting, I’d already have missed the early morning window of time in which I wanted to post. Then I would say to myself, “Maybe I’ll be able to get it done tomorrow.” If this sounds familiar, please consider creating a plan and a content creation/curation schedule. It will change your life!

The key to consistency is to not create or curate day-to-day. That doesn’t mean you can’t create or curate every day. Just don’t always create what you want to publish on the day you want to publish it. Instead, take 30 minutes once a month (or twice a month) and map out:

•   What do I want to publish about? Pick some good topics or maybe a theme for the month. Think about which of the action drivers or choice drivers to focus on and how you can address them.

•   Where do I want to publish and in what format? For example, you might decide to publish on LinkedIn each morning, do a long-form video on YouTube once a week, and write an email newsletter each month.

Then create a day-by-day plan of what topic, platform, and digital format you want to use.

After that, set aside an hour or two—or whatever you deem appropriate—each week to crank out the content. The actual time it takes to write a post or shoot a short video is usually not the problem. It’s very manageable if you’re not under the pressure of trying to think it up and produce it on the day you need to post it.

The stress of sitting there at 8:00 a.m. racking your brain for ideas while you know you’ve got emails sitting in your inbox and phone calls to make is just unbearable. The quality of what you create will suffer, too. Try to restrict your content creation to non-selling hours. You can use a content scheduling platform like Hootsuite (www.hootsuite.com) or Hypefury (www.hypefury.com) to release things on one or more platforms at exactly the time you want them to drop. Try it and see. You’ll never go back!

Proliferate Your Content for Broader Reach

Whether you are writing your own stuff, curating the insight of others, or a combination of the two, the key to reaching a lot of people in a lot of places is content proliferation. The best way to develop a lot of content quickly is to create what I call nested content. You can take larger assets and break them down into a variety of smaller pieces. Keep in mind that you can start by creating brand-new digital assets or by using content that you may already have access to.

Here’s the idea:

1.   Pick a topic that you think has the potential to really influence your customer’s thinking about one or more of the action drivers or choice drivers.

2.   Create or curate a long-form piece of content, such as a 20- to 30-minute video or a 600- to 800-word article. Sales pros: get help from an expert at your company if you need to or use some content your marketing department has already created. Business owners: record yourself on video or audio and hire a contract copywriter to turn that recording into an article, if you are unable to write it yourself. Post the video on YouTube. Post the article on your website blog or as an article on LinkedIn.

3.   Slice that one video asset into a half-dozen 3- to 4-minute videos to post on LinkedIn or Facebook. Break the article down into several smaller pieces of 80 to 120 words for short posts on your choice of platform. If an article is made up of three major points, you can release one each day for the next three days.

4.   Take the best one-liners from both and post them on Twitter.

You don’t have to create everything as separate pieces. Learn how to create something more substantial for people who are ready and willing to consume long-form content and break it down into multiple pieces of short-form content for those who just want a light snack. My best one-liners are sentences that I take from the longer pieces I create. A great example of that are the “pull quotes” (bolded sentences that are set apart) used throughout this book itself.

When I began writing this book, I decided to launch a one-hour weekly live-video meeting that I called the Sales Excellence Show where I committed myself to complete and present new material on digital selling every week. I invited a few hundred people to attend when they could at no charge. It was the perfect way to test-drive the new material and hold myself accountable to produce it.

We recorded and then posted all the shows on a private website, started a collection of the various sales tools I presented, and turned all of that into a membership community we called the Sales Excellence Insider’s Club. We then sliced up the one-hour recordings into dozens of short videos that we could post on LinkedIn and other platforms to promote the show. We also lifted literally hundreds of little 160-character nuggets that we called Text Tips and sent them via automated text message to all of our members several times a week. Almost everything in this book originated from the first 25 episodes of that show.

All corporate sales professionals who want to embrace selling with digital assets can start by taking inventory of everything they already have available to them in terms of platforms and content. In many cases, your marketing department will have more material than you could ever possibly use, but . . . it may not be insight-oriented content designed to actually sell.

A lot of the marketing content that is produced revolves around your products and services instead of your customers’ desired outcomes and results. It might be focused on positioning your company as the best choice for your customer but have nothing at all to do with the conclusions that customers have to draw to make their action decision. Use it anyway until you and/or your marketing team can make more “content with intent” to add to it! This is where marketing and sales have to work together to win together!

Choose to see this as an awesome opportunity to create some fresh new material. Of course, those who want outside help can look to an agency to take on the bulk of this effort. Some small business owners may do part of this themselves and seek out a freelancer using a professional services marketplace like Upwork (www.upwork.com) or Fiverr (www.fiverr.com) to get help polishing things up or breaking things down into chunks.

But let me make this point . . .

Whether you create your digital assets yourself or hand that job to someone else, you have to make sure the finished product is designed to actually sell by shaping perception and influencing your customer’s thinking and behavior.

Hand off or outsource the creative work as you deem necessary, but don’t completely turn over the responsibility of digital selling to another department or an outside resource. I seriously doubt you’ll be happy with the result. Get involved in the creation of your content and build in the kinds of questions, stories, case studies, and insights that you would share if you were literally talking to your customer in real time.

In fact, one of the best ways to start capturing what you want to say in your digital sales content is to start recording the conversations you have with your customers and prospects. Listen back to the three reasons you told them why they should choose you over your competitor and turn it into an article. Transcribe your explanation of why your customer might not want to wait two more months to get started and write a LinkedIn post about it. Or maybe record your conversation on video and post it on YouTube. Turn your sales savvy and persuasion expertise into digital selling tools!

The big idea here is . . .

Selling via digital content should be the asynchronous equivalent of whatever you would normally say to your customer on a telephone conversation or in a face-to-face meeting.

Putting These Ideas into Practice