When it comes to learning new concepts and ideas, I believe in standing on the shoulders of giants. One such marketing giant is Joe Chernov, CMO of Insight Squared. I recently caught a podcast (The Scott King Show) where he unloaded a ton of great marketing and business insights. There were a number of quotes I captured during his chat with Scott, but this post is about one that stood out among the rest.
“Great marketers are like movie agents. Our job isn’t to get the role, it’s to get the auditions to the great roles.” -@jchernov
Translation — As marketers, it’s not our job to close business, but it’s to get qualified meetings for our sales counterparts to close business. So the question is, are we being great agents, or do we have more work to do?
Think about it. A movie agent has to create awareness, interest, and consideration for their movie star all the time. They ultimately need to get the call for an audition, but it’s the movie star’s job to get the role. Or, in other words, to close the deal! (side note.. If you’re in sales and reading this, don’t let the movie star analogy go to your head.) So, what does this mean for us as marketers? What can we do to be more like the greatest movie agents of all time? I have a few ideas.
Get Aligned
Just like a movie agent should know what types of roles the actress/actor wants to star in, marketers need to understand the types of buyers and projects the sales team wants to work with. Buyer profile, industries, trigger events, and so on. Where is the sales team seeing success and how can you help them replicate it? This shouldn’t be a guessing game either. Sit down with your sales counterparts and ask the questions. Better yet, sit on calls or join meetings to really understand what’s working and what’s not. Marketers need to do their best to get sales in front of the most qualified buyers at the right velocity to keep them busy and hitting their numbers.
Marketers need to understand the types of buyers and projects the sales team wants to work with.
Be Active
Movie agents are always working to maintain a pipeline of roles for their stars so they are top of mind with directors and producers. Always on the phone, having meetings, sending emails, etc. Not unlike marketers, they need to have multiple channels active at all times in order to keep the options flowing. Being single threaded can be death of marketing, so think about the various channels you’re managing now and how you can maximize the potential of each. Here are some of the marketing channels to think about:
- Organic search
- Paid search
- Display ads
- Channel partners
- Events
- Direct mail
- Video
- Podcasts
- Print Media
- Social Media
- In-product Ads
- In-product virality
- Content
Build the Brand
Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Charlize Theron, Denzel Washington, Jack Nicholson and others have created incredible brands. Their agents have played a big role in developing those brands by getting them auditions to the right roles. In the traditional buyer’s journey, this is the awareness stage.
Marketing plays an obvious role here, but we can do more to build the brands of our individual sellers. Help them create professional LinkedIn profiles, generate better emails that are on message, be thought leaders, and more. It’s our job to enable our sales teams and unleash the full potential that exists within. Marketing tends to be too passive when it comes to training and other aspects of enablement. Instead, we need to lead. Rather than just focusing on brand building for the organization as a whole, get more granular and help to shape and build the brands of the individual players on the sales team.
We can do more to build the brands of our individual sellers.
Let’s aspire to be like the greatest movie agents of all time. Get more ‘auditions’ for our sales teams so they can exceed their goals and be huge successes!
