The Synaxis Keystone Marketing System provides a phased approach to the implementation, rollout, and operationalization of marketing measurement tools, web tools, and communications tools.
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Is Your Sales Process a Mission or a Revival?
Both missions and revivals try to attract converts. However, they work in very different ways. The "downtown mission" of movie lore attracts people by offering food and shelter. And, usually in unspoken exchange, they seek to convert these people.
A revival directly caters only to those people who want to be converted. Which one is more like selling today?
At a revival, the audience has to be ready to be converted. They know why they are there. At a mission, the audience's primary goal isn't getting converted. But, the mission manager is appealing to their hunger and cold in order to get them in the door.
The Revival Sales Approach
Many salespeople want to run their companies like a revival. Only those truly "ready" to consume their service get in the door. The good thing about this approach is that you're likely to convert more people. But, you will have a smaller audience. In addition, those who convert are more likely to stay converted, because this is the reason they are there in the first place.
The Mission Sales Approach
Others work like a mission. They use non-sales methods to attract their audience. Then, while they are consuming these ideas, services, etc., they try to educate and convert them. Lead nurturing is like this. The goal here is to meet people's immediate needs and/or desires, and then work on serving their "real" needs down the road.
Lots of people don't think the mission approach is worth it. It takes too much time and effort, they say, to deal with these people and eventually convert them. On the other hand, the revival approach seems perhaps unnecessarily limiting. If you allow only a few people into the tent, then you naturally can't convert more than a few people.
Which Is Best?
The "mission" approach tends to be the best use of sales resources. Without being deceptive, it is important to meet people where they are and move them along gradually. Develop a relationship, rather than a sale.
In our business, we can't expect our future clients to be fully educated, fully informed, and ready to convert. This is especially true in today's climate of layoffs and overwork. In fact, many companies don't know enough to find, nevermind attend, a revival.
