Summary

In this episode, Michelle discusses the difference between sales and marketing. She emphasizes the importance of understanding the distinction between the two and how they work together to generate revenue. Michelle also provides practical tips for implementing effective sales and marketing strategies, including the importance of follow-up, lead generation, and relationship building. She encourages listeners to evaluate their current activities and create a sales process that aligns with their goals. Finally, Michelle highlights the need for strategic sales and marketing in 2024 and encourages listeners to join her Sunday Morning Brew for valuable resources and updates.

Takeaways

• Sales activities are focused on generating revenue and converting leads into paying customers, while marketing activities are aimed at creating awareness, attracting potential clients, and building brand awareness.
• Effective sales strategies include follow-up, lead tracking, and presenting offers to potential customers.
• Marketing strategies include lead generation, content marketing, relationship building, and networking.
• It is important to have a clear sales process and to evaluate and prioritize sales and marketing activities based on their effectiveness and alignment with business goals.
• Strategic sales and marketing are crucial for success in 2024, as buyer behavior has changed and customers are more selective in their purchasing decisions.

Links:

Focused Visionary

Sunday Morning Brew

If we haven't connected yet - I would LOVE to chat with you! Let's share a virtual cup of coffee and you can tell me all about you and your business.

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Chapters

00:00

Introduction and Welcome

00:51

Request for Podcast Promotion

01:21

Relationship Marketing Tip

02:20

Sunday Morning Brew Announcement

05:33

Understanding Sales vs Marketing

09:14

Marketing Activities

11:10

Sales Activities

17:39

Action Steps: Evaluating Activities and Creating a Sales Process

19:56

Strategic Sales and Marketing in 2024

21:26

Closing Remarks and Call to Action

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are joining from, welcome back. We are quickly, I cannot believe that this episode is airing the last, what, two weeks of, or I think it's the second week before the new year. Ah, I don't know where 2023 went, but I'm excited for 2024.

So anyway, today, before we dive in, we're talking all things sales versus marketing today, which I'm super excited to talk about because I think for many people, what I see business owners struggling with is like, I need to be better at sales. I need to be better at sales. And it's not necessarily that you need to be better at sales. I think it's just a difference of understanding what is truly a sales activity versus what is a marketing activity. OK, but before we dive in, a couple of things I want to chat with you about. Number one.

if you are gaining anything from this podcast at all. If you love it, if you're listening, if you feel like somebody else would enjoy it, do me a favor, please, and screenshot, just take a quick screenshot of your podcast player right now on your screen and share it to your stories and tag me in it and just tag the podcast, okay? Well, you can't tag the podcast, but you can put, you know, the episode link to the podcast or whatever. Anyway.

And this is just a quick little relationship marketing tip for you in general. Yes. I'm asking you to do this as a favor however, this is something that is So so beneficial when it comes to audience growth when it comes to letting people know that like you appreciate them like if you are trying to build a relationship somebody whether it be an ideal client a Mentor somebody you look up to a podcast you'd love to be at Gaston Anything of that sort if you somebody's emails

are resonating with you, if somebody's content is resonating, share it. We are so afraid to share other people's stuff and that comes from such a place of lack versus a state of abundance. I think for so often we don't want to share other people's stuff because we're like, oh wait, then people aren't going to see my stuff. In reality, it actually boosts your audience. It boosts the algorithm because then they share it back. So, it's so helpful.

to do these things, right? And it means the world to the person that you're sharing because we have all been on that receiving end, right? We've all been on that receiving end of thinking like, man, I don't feel like anybody's listening to my content. I don't know if anybody's resonating with this. So to get that little piece of feedback that it is resonating is so, so helpful. And it just makes your heart, like it's so incredible to feel that way. And it also like such a confidence boost to be like, okay, cool.

Everything like they are hearing me. They are listening. It is resonating. Okay, so don't be afraid to do that Actually, I would make that like one of your marketing activities every single week to share somebody else's content to give a compliment to somebody else On something that they're doing from their content. Okay, we did an episode all about relationship marketing a Couple weeks ago go listen to that one if you haven't but I'm telling you it makes a massive

difference. Especially if you want to get noticed by somebody, start sharing their stuff. So that's number one. Number two, the other thing I wanted to quickly talk about is this idea I had for the Sunday morning brew. If you are not on the Sunday morning brew, I highly suggest you get on that list because a couple weeks ago I was really struggling as I'm doing my reflection and doing my biz planning, thinking about a lean magnet. What do I want to create for a lean magnet?

and added a section to the Sunday morning brew where like every week you got some lead magnet, like a free resource. Right? And the Sunday morning brew is then my lead magnet. And I can promote that by saying like, okay, this week in the Sunday morning brew, there's going out about 20 money making activities you could do daily or something of that sort. Right? And so that is something I am going to implement in

2024. So every single week in 2024, you will get some type of free resource on the Sunday morning brew. So click the link in the show notes, subscribe to the Sunday morning brew and once a week, like it would be, it's going to be like a high valuable freebie, right? So it might be a PDF. It might be a, I'm going to try to do some like smaller, um, more private podcast stuff where it's like more action focused. It might be like a private coaching call, something of that sort. So

There's a lot of things coming inside of the Sunday Morning Brew, but the reason I'm doing it this way is because I don't want to have to continue to promote multiple different things, right? I want to create one thing that I am promoting that's going to build my email list and also create high value. So the Sunday Morning Brew is the thing. Get on the list because I've got some killer freebies coming at you. Okay. All right. Now let's dive in to today's episode, all about sales versus marketing. All right.

And I really want to talk about the difference because what I see and myself included do not as I always tell you, I am not immune to any of this stuff, right? Like I really sometimes struggle with these things myself. That's why I talk about it because I struggle with it. I figure it out.

I share it with you, but I also, it's much easier to see it in somebody else than in yourself too. And so that's why I share a lot of what I do on the podcast is because I see, when I see it happening with multiple different clients, then I know it's something that other people are struggling with. And this sales versus marketing, I actually attended a conference a couple of years ago. I talked about this. There's probably a podcast episode about it way, way back on the old podcast about like sales versus marketing. But I really want to just quick create.

and explain and give you the differentiators here, okay? So I want you to think of this. When you're thinking sales, the focus of sales is to get somebody, is for you to directly engage with a potential customer to persuade them to purchase your service. And the goal, the primary goal is to convert leads into paying customers and generate revenue, right? So sales activities are

activities designed to generate revenue. All right, marketing activities is creating awareness about interest in your service, attract and engage potential clients, build brand awareness and generate leads, okay? So marketing comes first, lead generation, brand awareness, engagement, relationship building.

Then we move to sales with the activities being focused on revenue generating. Okay. So let's talk about like four or five different examples for each. All right. So from a marketing perspective, obviously what I'm doing right now, lead generation podcasting, this is marketing, talking about the Sunday morning brew and can be, you know,

Convincing, I hate that word. I don't mean that. I'm not here to convince you. Either you want to be a part of the list or you don't. But encouraging people to be a part of your email list. Giving them something in exchange, building a relationship with them, offering them something of high value. So lead generation is marketing. So those are some activities that you could do. So obviously content marketing. There's relationship marketing. Go back and listen to that podcast episode we talked about that.

Email marketing, nurturing your leads. Networking is marketing activities. Referral programs, creating referral programs with current clients, creating referral programs with other collaborators, creating referral programs with colleagues or even affiliate programs with other softwares or different things. Those are marketing activities. Speaking in summits and being on bundles, those are all marketing.

activities, right? So these are the things that you do every day. This is where we spend most of our time. Most of us spend it in social media on email marketing, right? Most of what our daily activities, what we say we are doing that is keeping us busy, right? 90% of the time when people tell me they're busy all the time, it's, they're just busy constantly doing marketing, right? They're looking for lead generation there. I need more leads. I need to grow my audience, right? That's marketing.

Okay. But part of the problem is, is that you're trying to do all the things and you don't really need to do them. So like I would pick one marketing focus for the year, right? When we're talking biz planning, we did this with, um, inside of the biz plan program is like, what is the marketing focus? So for me, it's email list growth. That is 100% my marketing focus in 2024 and also, um, PR more PR opportunities. So podcast guesting.

doing more podcasts, guesting myself speaking, speaking inside of other people's Facebook groups, bringing guests onto my podcast. That's also a very strategic marketing strategy if done correctly. Because again, you're getting in front of their audience if they're sharing it, right? If you get the right guests and they have a big audience and they are sharing your episode, that is a huge marketing activity, right? So there's other things beyond content. I think we...

get so wrapped up in social content. We talked about this over and over again about that's not the only way to market your business, right? Find a networking group, get inside some paid communities. There's so many paid communities out there. The 100 Coffee Chance Club is going to be an incredibly powerful paid community and marketing strategy, relationship marketing, of course, marketing strategy.

Sale, number one, follow up. That's your biggest, biggest sales activity that you should be doing on a daily or at least at the very least weekly, okay? Follow up. Number one, the other thing though too is like how do you follow up? You can't follow up with people if you don't have any way of tracking leads in your pipeline. So understanding and what it looks like to even have a sales...

a sales process, like a sales pipeline. Do you know what it looks like? So typically your sales process is going to be five to seven steps long. For me, it's all about lead generation. So prospecting, right? Where am I even prospecting that could look like podcasting, all the things we talked about. Then for me, it's always nurture. For a lot of people, they skip that nurture step. They go from prospecting to conversion or prospecting to qualify.

I like to nurture people. I like to build relationships. I like to get to know people a little bit more. And then in that nurturing stage, I'm also qualifying them because I'm getting to know them. I'm getting to know more about their business. So I'm qualifying them as a lead and whether or not they're gonna, there's Piper in the background. You guys are used to her by now. It's.

qualifying them, right? Like are they a good fit? Are they not a good fit? Are they ready for me right now? Are they not ready for me right now? Right? And so then there's also another stage in there. So I go from nurture, qualify, nurture. Like they kind of like they toggle back and forth constantly for me because I'm nurturing, I'm qualifying, I'm nurturing. If they're not ready, I'm going to keep them back in my nurture. If they are ready, then they move to follow up, right? Like what, when do I need to follow up with them? How hot of a lead are they?

What are they saying to me that is saying, yes, I'm a hot lead, no, I'm not a hot lead, right? Are you offering them your services, right? Like, are you getting on a call and saying, here's how I can help you, let me send a proposal. Are you sending proposals? Are you sending links to sign up, right? Like, even if you're doing everything in the DMs and you're not getting on calls and you're not sending custom proposals, how many times is somebody saying like, hey Michelle, I saw that you were talking about the Focus Visionary, I'm interested, can you send me a link?

If you send a link, they are now a lead in your pipeline. How are you tracking that lead? Right. Um, I had somebody reach out to me in the beginning of December saying she was trying to sign up for the hundred coffee chats club and it wouldn't work. I think because I turned, I don't know why it wouldn't work, but either way, a hundred coffee chats club you guys know is on hiatus for December. She's a lead in my pipeline. My response to her was I promise I will let you know in January, as soon as it rolls back out, I'm going to get it all set up.

I will follow up with you, right? So again, anytime you're sending a link, like how often are you sending links? How often are you sending custom proposals? How often, even if you don't wanna do proposals, are you sending contracts? How often are you sending contracts? Right, so those are the sales activities. Are you upselling or downselling a current client? When's the last time, you know, do you have clients coming off of contract? Is there something more you can do?

For many of the people that are in, I talked about this on the episode with relationship marketing, the ones that are in Focus Visionary are just continued upsells over and over from different programs into this program, right? I just am continuing to upsell them. So a marketing activity could look like a masterclass and then the sales activity is actually asking for the sale, sending the links, following up with the people, right? Putting an offer in front of them.

For the most part, what I see you guys struggling with is that you are assuming people know about your offers. I can't even tell you how many times I have sent somebody something, a DM and said, hey, Michelle just wanted to reach back out to you. I'm not sure if you saw it, but I've got this program. Here's why I think you would like it. You know how many times people say to me, you know what, Michelle, I didn't see this. Like, where did you post about it? This just happened to me.

on Instagram with the Focus Visionary, sent a DM. I was like, hey, I've been kind of wavering whether or not I was gonna DM you about it, but I really think it's something you might be interested in. So I'm just giving you the information. I'm sure you've seen it. You're on my email list. You're here on, I've been talking about it on Instagram. I'm sure you've seen it, but I wanted to at least follow up and make sure and see if you have any questions. Do you know the response was, oh my gosh, I haven't seen it. Where have you posted about it? And I was like, well.

I have a story about it. I've been posting about it. I've got a highlight about it. It's been in my email. It shows up in every Sunday morning group. So again, you are assuming people are seeing your offers. You're assuming that people are seeing all of your content. You're assuming that they will reach out to you because they know how to find you. They know how they can work with you. In all honesty, most people aren't seeing that. And if they are, it's like,

They're scrolling, they're not recognizing it. They're like, oh yeah, hey, I think I saw something about that, but I couldn't remember. I didn't really know what it was. Blah, blah, blah. So again, you need to be putting your offers out in front of them. You need to continually putting your offers out. That's a sales activity. Follow-up is a sales activity. Now, if you talk to some old school salespeople, they would tell you cold calling is a sales activity, not my jam. Sending DMs though is my jam.

I love sending DMs, I love creating relationships. That is a sales activity. Again, something you should be doing every single day. If you have not picked up the Coffee Chats to Clients bundle, it's like a little mini course, there is DM to templates in there and there is a little 321 system. I call it my daily 321 relationship marketing system. It consists of three new reach outs per day, two follow ups, one visibility. That's all sales activity. Well,

There are three reach outs. It would be marketing. Two follow-ups would be either would be sales activities and visibility can be both, right? Like if it's putting an offer out, then it's obviously a combination of sales and marketing, if it's just putting out content, it would be marketing, but it's a daily activity system that takes about 30 minutes if you really schedule your time and it is going to make sure that you are actively staying on top of your sales and marketing activities for the day. Okay. So.

When you're thinking about this, I want you to look at all the things that you're doing. I really here's your action tip. I want you to grab a piece of paper, grab your notebook, get your notes out on your phone, and I want you to list all of the things you do, okay? Just list everything that you do on a daily, whether it's create content, go live, did master classes. I want you to just make a list of all of the activities that you do.

that you consider sales and marketing. And then I want you to go through and actually based on this conversation we just had, mark them. Is this a sales activity or is this a marketing activity? If you do not have a sales plan process like where you have these sales steps, I would encourage you to do that. That's action step number two is figuring out what does your sales process look like? You know what I mean?

it should, I give you a quick example. Like I said, mine is prospect, nurture, qualify, nurture, follow up, close, and then continue to nurture. I use C, I like to nurture a hell lot of people. It could, you don't have to have that many nurturers in there, you could just go from prospect to reach out. So obviously there's some level of reach out, I miss that. When I call it nurture, it's always reach out. Like prospecting to me means initial reach out. I'm not gonna just collect a

bunch of names and then not reach out. That doesn't make any sense to me. So reaching out and then qualifying them, meaning you could do this through the DMs, you could do this through conversation, you could do this in networking. So again, if you don't have a sales process, create a sales process for yourself. What do you want to do? Like if it means that it's seven to 10 steps, let it be seven to 10 steps. If it's three steps, let it be three steps, right? It could be as simple as reach out.

present the sale, close, right? That's it, that could be your sales process. The rest of it could be considered marketing, in all honesty. So again, keep it simple, but make your list and then go through and mark, is this sales or is this marketing? And make sure you have a blend of both. If you don't, add more of one or the other, right? Whatever one you're missing, add more of it, okay? So.

but people that are top of mind for them, that's who they're buying from. They're buying from people who are, they're getting referrals from. They're buying from people that they're seeing a lot of social credibility and multiple people talking about, okay? They are still actively buying, but they are much more strategic about it, which means you need to have a strategy for how to reach them, okay? And so you need to have this blend of sales versus marketing, all right?

marketing, you don't need to be doing all the things, and your sales process could be very simple as well. Simplify them both, but make it something that you can stay consistent with, okay? So again, if you're not on the Sunday morning brew, get in the Sunday morning brew, what am I calling it? My brew crew, get in there because 2024 is gonna be filled with freebies in addition to this podcast. Number two, share this podcast

helpful to you and also anytime it's helpful, share it out and go share somebody else's content right? Start building your relationships now. If somebody's content is resonating, share it. Tag them on any platforms. It works in all the platforms. LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram. It's not like it's just works on Instagram stories. All right? So go do it. Take action. If you need help, DM me. You know where to find me. I love you. I'll talk to you soon.