Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

Thinking, writing, business ideas … You’re only a stranger once.

March 24, 2009

Be There Before the Sale

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 8:28 am

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

The theme of SOBCon09 is the ROI of Relationships. To underscore the importance of relationships in business and to have a chance to make and celebrate a few while we’re doing that, I’ve opened up this series by successful and outstanding bloggers like you.

Be There Before the Sale
by Chris Brogan

Greg Cangialosi is one of the very best salesmen I know. He hasn’t sold the biggest dollar product ever (I think that would be David Bullock). He doesn’t sell thousands of accounts a day. Instead, he gets the title from me because he taught me a powerful sales technique, so powerful that Julien Smith and I wrote about him in our upcoming book, Trust Agents. He taught us to be there before the sale.

Greg was one of the very first confirmed sponsors of PodCamp, long before anyone knew that we’d have an international success story on our hands. When we called Greg, we had never run an event, didn’t really know what sponsors wanted, and had no idea how to communicate professionally about the give-and-take that is event sponsorship. Greg was kind, friendly, and supported our event. He didn’t ask for anything unreasonable in return.

Since that point, I’ve run into Greg at several events. He uses another trust agent move, be one of us, quite often as well, by hanging out at our events, by creating content and contributing to our space. He’s not some company owner; he’s a guy who spends time with us, has drinks with us, and who we know and care about.

The ROI of Relationships

Greg also gets the sales. I am personally a customer. I bought another account for my company. PodCamp co-founder Christopher S. Penn is a customer, and has sold the service to his company as well. Both of us refer Blue Sky Factory to anyone asking about email marketing. We love the service, and it’s cost-effective and all that, but most important to us, we have a relationship with Greg, and his service is the product of record for us with regards to email marketing.

Given Chris’s audience, my audience, the people who will buy Trust Agents, and all the time between now and the end of his business, Greg gets free, passionate advertising all the time from a growing legion of fans. For the price of a few beers here and there, Greg has an army.

If that’s not a return on investment, I don’t know what is.

Chris Brogan blogs at [chrisbrogan.com]. He is president of New Marketing Labs.
His twitter name is: @chrisbrogan

Register for SOBCon09 NOW!!

Hear Chris Brogan speak in person!





Filed under Guest Writer, Marketing, Successful Blog |




C'mon. Let's talk!

6 Comments to “Be There Before the Sale”

  1. March 24th, 2009 at 10:44 am
    marti said

    hi Chris (& Liz)…

    this is so the essence of doing biz in 2009.

    Re “He taught us to be there before the sale… by hanging out at our events, by creating content and contributing to our space. He’s not some company owner; he’s a guy who spends time with us, has drinks with us, and who we know and care about.”…

    In other words, a Real Relationship. Connecting as people, not client/supplier.

    Unfortunately there are thousands who still don’t get it. But eventually all dinosaurs become extinct. Later…

  2. March 24th, 2009 at 10:55 am
    West said

    Great read!

  3. March 24th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
    Tim Bursch said

    Chris,
    Good thoughts. I heard once that people don’t like to be sold, but they love to buy (Jeffery Gittomer). I agree that some of my best clients started with a coffee or beer. A relationship was formed and now we help each other out. I think people want more than just a transaction. We want to know and be known. -Tim

  4. March 24th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
    Greg Cangialosi said

    Chris,

    I am blown away :-) Thanks so much for the kind words. I am very humbled.

    Greg

  5. March 27th, 2009 at 8:25 am
    Julia Tanen said

    Thank you for all of this information. I cannot wait until Trust Agents gets out there. Many of my clients are conservative and not convinced they should jump into the world of social media. It has been an interesting evolution for them and us. We now feel they have no choice but to jump in. So we will all enjoy the ride together.

  6. April 21st, 2009 at 3:37 pm
    Casting Your Net and the Beauty of Fish | chrisbrogan.com said

    [...] It’s the number one premise of my upcoming book with Julien Smith: Be there before the sale. [...]

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

C'mon Let's Talk!