Marketers are often told to avoid "sales-y" content—to offer something helpful and customer-focused instead. But that doesn't mean avoiding talking about your service entirely, explain Martin and Lyndsay Huntbach in Marketing Smarts Episode 549.

Don't miss a MarketingProfs podcast, subscribe to our free newsletter!

"Your customers are interested in you," says Lyndsay. "They're just not interested in things like what award you've just won, or your new office plans.... They are interested in your products and services and learning whether those products and services are right for them."

And if you take the right approach, prospects will have all their questions already answered in the content, so when they come to you, they're ready to go.

"Success to us looks like a call with a client who is already primed, already very aware of how you operate, how you work, how much you charge, so that by the time they speak to you, they're already set to click that buy button and get started," says Martin.

So if you're not already doing that in your content, what's the best way to start?

"Whenever you make any change to your product or service, anything different—you add something, you raise your prices, you start using AI, whatever it might be—just create content around it, even if you start with something simple on social media," Lyndsay explains.

Listen to the entire show from the link above, or download the mp3 and listen at your convenience. Of course, you can also subscribe to the Marketing Smarts podcast in iTunes or via RSS and never miss an episode.

---

"Marketing Smarts" theme music composed by Juanito Pascual of Signature Tones.

---

Full Transcript: B2B Marketers and Creating Content That Sells

George B. Thomas: I actually want to start with a question today. Can marketers create content that sells? I know that some of you say yes immediately. Some of you might be saying maybe. Some of you might be saying we're marketers, not salespeople, we don't do sales content. Oh my gosh. I'm super excited today because I get to speak to not one but two humans who believe that B2B marketers can create content that sells, Martin and Lyndsay Huntbach. We talk about content creation, what keeps them up at night, especially with content that sells for marketers, we talk about hurdles, success, the nirvana of actually creating content that sells, driving revenue, measuring, and so much good stuff in this podcast episode.

Martin and Lyndsay Huntbach run Jammy Digital, an award-winning SEO and content marketing agency for businesses that aren't afraid to stand out. They do their best work with personal brands, helping them find and retain better, higher paying clients who don't gobble up their time like Pac-Man. They've also published a best-selling book, Content Fortress, that protects business owners from unnecessary stress by helping them attract their dream clients. Buckle up, Marketing Smarts listeners, let's get into the good stuff.

I am super excited because do you get a treat. Not only is it my brain and another person's brain, but there's yet another person's brain. That's right, we have a podcast episode today where three people are going to bring you value to help you be a better B2B marketer. More specifically, we are going to be looking at content that sells, and we're talking with Martin and Lyndsay. I'm super excited, so let's get to where I usually start.

Martin and Lyndsay, I'd bet that you guys might have two totally different things that might keep you at night. The question is what keeps you up at night around marketers, content creation, and the topic of creating content that sells?

Martin Huntbach: Great question. What keeps us up at night is the fact that so many business owners and entrepreneurs are not aware that content can allow you to attract your dream clients and help you repel the clients you really don't want to work with. Lots of people don't know that, and that keeps us up at night. That's why we do what we do and why we talk about what we talk about.

Lyndsay Hunbach: It's the same, but also slightly different in the sense that I think a lot of business owners don't see content as something that can help them sell. They see it as providing value, maybe getting search engine rankings, getting more traffic to their website, and all those kinds of things and those kinds of statistics, but they don't actually see content as something that can lead to direct sales for their business. They see that as something else. The content can definitely do that, but not enough businesses are doing it.

George: It's interesting. I love all of what was said, but I do want to pick something out that Martin said. I am immediately going to go off the beaten path, believe it or not. When we talk about content that sells, I think everybody's mind goes to bringing it in. Martin, you actually used the word repel in the answer to what keeps you up at night, repelling the wrong customers. If we're talking about content that sells, but we're also talking about repelling, tell me why that's important. I know there are reasons. I just want to know what your reasons are.

Martin: We love and always have loved content and using it to drive traffic, leads, and inquiries. We did that, we followed all of the books, we produced some epic content, and we got lots of inquiries. It was only part way through when we started to deal with all of those inquiries and see that there are certain clients that are our ideal clients, and definitely quite a lot of people that weren't.

So, we decided to flip the switch on content and to really push it to its limits and say if we create content that repels people we don't want to work with, for a variety of reasons, then surely that would work. If we start putting messaging out there and start including things within our content, and start creating content specifically to repel people who are not right for us, then surely that's going to allow us to only appeal to our ideal clients.

Funnily enough, that's exactly what happened when we really started to push the boundaries and started to articulate who we definitely weren't the right fit for. It just transformed our business and our lives. When you have to deal with a lot of clients and a lot of new inquiries because people are excited to want to work with you because you're an expert, you also have to think on the back end of that how you can protect your time and your mental health.

We just found that a lot of other people have the same problem, too.

George: I love this idea of being able to streamline the people that you can talk to. When you do become an expert, which if you're not focused on becoming an expert at your craft, that's a tip that you can take out of this show right here is becoming an expert. We talked to Mike Allton about becoming a micro influencer, so that's an episode that you might want to check out.

Let's talk deeper about content that sells. I always like to level the playing field for the listeners. When we say creating content that sells, what the heck do we even mean? In other words, how do you define creating content that sells to the listeners?

Lyndsay: It's typically content that is only about your products or services. That sounds very scary on the face of it, because we're constantly told that you shouldn't be talking about yourself, you should be delivering only value to your customers. But there is kind of a problem with that phrase, that you shouldn't be talking about yourself, because that's actually not what your customers are interested in.

Your customers are interested in you. They're just not interested in things like what award you've just won, or your new office plans, or whatever it might be. They are interested in your products and services and learning whether those products and services are right for them. If you start answering these questions in your content, that's what can help lead to more sales.

Martin: It's about going deeper on the things that you know people want. You'll know full well how Marcus Sheridan talks about the 80% video in his content, you produce content to answer the questions that people ask before they buy from you. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about thinking about those questions, producing content that really helps people understand that. When they eventually do speak to you, they don't have as many questions anymore because your content has helped educate them. The fact that you can use content—blog content, video content, social media content—if you combine those mediums with answering customer questions, and I'm not just saying broad questions for awareness building, I'm talking about specifics.

One of the examples of content that we always create for our clients and for ourselves is when we launch a new service, we write an article that says everything you need to know about our brand new content writing service, or our new course, or our new whatever it is. It comes from a very helpful place. It doesn't come from a buy our new product.

People think sales is scary because everybody thinks they're just broadcasting and they have a big online billboard that's buy my stuff, but in reality it's just about we've had quite a few questions about this, we decided to put an article together or we decided to put an Instagram carousel together to break down the individual things that are included. If you want it, buy it. If you don't, that's fine, too. It's just about being honest and transparent.

George: I'm a big fan of being honest and transparent. Immediately when Lyndsay was like talk about your products and services, I was a little bit oh gosh, because I know that so many people when we talk about creating content that sells, and they hear that word sell, and then they hear somebody talk about your products and services, they go for the jugular. That's not what we're talking about today, so I want to dive into my next question so that B2B marketers can really start to think about this in the way that it should be thought of versus maybe what has historically coming along for the ride or maybe even pushed through with some sales teams that we're trying to align with.

What are some key elements to creating content that sells that B2B marketers should be paying attention to when they're writing this text, or creating these videos, or creating audio podcast content? What are the elements that should be in there that keep us in good boundaries?

Lyndsay: That's a really good question. I think one of the main things to be aware of is essentially anything that anyone asks you on a sales call should be answered in content. Even if that is quite uncomfortable sometimes for you to answer publicly, it should be answered publicly. We refer to this as objection-led content. Any objections you might get on a sales call—for example, why are you more expensive than your competitors—answer that in a piece of content.

What you're doing when you create that piece of content that answers that question is you're actually highlighting all of the amazing things about your product and service. You're getting someone to read that or listen to that or watch that, and they're understanding more and trusting you more, and they're more likely to buy from you when you create that content.

Really taking everything that you're asked on sales calls, anything that anyone asks about your products and services, that should be content, even if it does make you a little bit uncomfortable. That's a really good example, and it's something that we create for ourselves and for our clients, "Why are we more expensive than someone else or other people in our industry," and that's a really good example, I think.

Martin: I think the problem that we find is that people don't talk about their products and services even remotely in their content sometimes and they go the opposite way, which is they just provide value. "The 10 best ways to do this thing," or, "The 5 great tools to implement in your business." If we don't link it back to our business, at some point you have to explain what it is that you do.

How many times do you land on a website and they don't articulate it clearly enough because they're trying to be too clever with their copy? They have nice images, they have a great about page, it looks good, and they're providing lots of helpful advice on their blog, but how can we give you money? I'm not on the website here for the goodness of my health, I do actually have a problem that I need to fix. We forget that sometimes.

We refer to this sometimes as the mousy moment. Imagine that you've just put together an epic blog post, it's fantastic, it's 4,000 words, and it's incredibly valuable, the ultimate guide, or a 25-minute video, or a big 3-hour Joe Rogan episode. But at the very end, you think, "I should probably sell." They think about it as such an afterthought that it just seems out of place.

Lyndsay: They scurry out like a mouse and go, "If you like this, then check out my services," and then they scurry back in again, and that's about it.

Martin: Exactly. But it was all value. I think sometimes if you can just be a little bit more honest about it, which is why an article like, "Here are all the ways you can work with us, we just decided to put it in a blog post so you can find out if you do want to work with us in the future," or "everything you need to know about our services," we can just be clear and honest about it.

Lyndsay: We find it an absolute travesty when there are so many people I love on LinkedIn and I follow them because their content is amazing, and then Martin will say, "What do they do," and I actually don't know because they've never talked about it. I don't actually know specifically what it is they do, they just produce amazing content. It's just about occasionally producing content that lets people know what it is that you do.

George: I try to put myself in the brains of the B2B marketers, the Marketing Smarts listeners, and I'm thinking I have a really dope website, but people don't know what we do, uh-oh, I'm in trouble. It's interesting because I feel like there are a couple of things that we're bumping up against that might help the Marketing Smarts listeners.

One is getting really good, especially in things like podcasts and videos, to do a subtle sell along the way. To be able to talk about what it is that you do, but in a way that is also a story weaved in and out. Using people along the way as reviews, testimonials, case studies, and things like that. That might be a tool, a tip, a trick, a hack, which by the way I'm getting to that question for you guys in a few minutes, too.

You mentioned earlier Marcus Sheridan. We actually just recorded an episode with Marcus where we talked about the big five, They Ask You Answer, content, and building trust. One of the words that kept coming to the front of my brain when both of you were talking was that the content has to be unbiased.

Martin: Right.

George: You can't go, "Why should you work with me? Because I'm the greatest of all time." Nobody wants to hear that. They want an unbiased piece of content that helps them understand if they should work with you or not. With that, I actually want to go ahead and move into when you're thinking about creating this content that sells, are there any tips, tricks, templates, or a matrix that B2B marketers can use when focusing on creating this type of content that is to sell their product and services?

Martin: Well, we wrote a book on it, and it's one of the five pillars, so we can definitely give your listeners a free copy of that, that's not a problem. We have an entire pillar about sales content. It is a good matrix, I suppose, and we give examples of articles that you can create.

Essentially, think about all of the bottom of the funnel. What are the final questions that people ask before they sign up to work with you? This is really interesting because if you use the language that you would use on a sales call, you say, "these are the options," and you're just ultimately transparent—unbiased is an interesting word because it's key, it is the word that binds all of this together. "If you want to work with us, you can, and here's exactly how to do it when you're ready." That kind of mentality is how we communicate what it is within our businesses that we want to promote and also what's changing as well.

As an example, we increase our prices regularly, like most businesses do. One of the articles and one of the things that we talk about is, "by the way, our prices are going up soon." This is an example of being unbiased on why your prices are going up, what's changing, what's included. All of the time businesses increase their prices, but they do it silently, they do it like they're stealthing their price increase. They hide behind the fact that existing customers get the same price, but new customers will have to pay a new price, and they don't communicate it because nobody should communicate their price going up.

We love communicating that our prices are going up because it does two things. It means that we are being empathetic to price, because price is a huge issue in the world right now. Lots of prices are going up and lots of people aren't communicating it effectively. If you remember that we need to remain empathetic and also unbiased, and if you think about those two words as being your guide when creating this kind of content, and if you just keep those two words in mind, empathy and unbiased, I think you can create whatever content you want and you can talk about your products and services.

We're not saying do this for every single blog post or every single video, but that's probably what I would put down as sort of the North Star, those two phrases. Then you can clearly articulate your products and services in a way that never feels like you're selling. You never have to worry about adding a little mousy moment at the end of a blog post, because from start to finish you've considered the person reading this content.

Lyndsay: Definitely. I think it's a really good example. Whenever you make a change in your business, like raising your prices, talk about why that might be. We've seen countless people do this kind of article where it's why I'm raising my prices and actually exploring why that might be. Yes, it's very unbiased, but you're actually just talking about your product or service and it gets people that maybe were on the fence about working with you to become customers, and it really does increase the sales cycle. It's a really good one to do.

Then just answering any why questions. Why do you do this this way? For example, when we did a lot of website design, we couldn't design a website in two or three weeks, we took about two months, so answering the question why do we take two months to design your website. Why do you do this? Answering all of those questions in a piece of content, what it actually does is it explains your unique process, it explains what your business is all about and why people should choose you. That's all it does. It's really good at highlighting that.

A blog post we did recently which did really well, it probably has the most clicks we've ever had as a blog post, is how we're using AI in our agency. People want to know are we going to hire you and you're just going to put things in ChatGPT and give me what it spits out. People are asking those questions, they're worried about those things, so we answered that question very honestly about how we are and aren't using AI in our agency, because we are and aren't. We answered that and actually got a client off the back of it because we were upfront and honest about the inner workings of our business. That's essentially all it is.

George: I love that. Empathetic, transparent, honest, unbiased. In other words, be a good human.

Lyndsay: Yes

George: Be a good B2B marketing human as you move forward. You mentioned a book that you have. What's the name of the book? How can the Marketing Smarts listeners get the book? Give us the details on that.

Martin: It's called Content Fortress. Marcus actually wrote the foreword, so we were very lucky and honored to have Marcus write that for us. It's at ContentFortress.com, you can pick up a copy. Imagine that it is further down the buying cycle. Marcus's They Ask You Answer teaches how to get more traffic, leads, and sales, and then after that is what our book is about, how to keep the process, how to keep clients, keep them on the right path, and make sure that you're attracting the perfect clients that you really want and, hopefully, repelling the clients that are not the right fit for you. It just goes into a little bit more detail about how you can do that.

George: Love it. Marketing Smarts listeners, if that sounds like something you need, then head over there. We'll make sure to put a link in the show notes for sure. I want to ask if there is a common myth, a misconception about this process or leveraging or using content that sells that you want to put a stake in the ground and be like we're going to debunk that right now. What's the myth for us?

Lyndsay: I think that it's about selling. I know obviously it's content that sells, so automatically you think it's about selling, but actually it's not about selling. It's about giving someone everything they need to know to make the best decision for them, and making sure that you only attract the right people to you. It's not about selling anything to everyone. It's not about making a quick buck. Like you said, it's about being a good human and giving someone the education they need to make a good buying decision.

Martin: I would add that people don't want to be sold to is something that we always hear, but I know that I would love it sometimes if people just told me more about how I can give them money because I like giving people money, it makes me happy. I don't know why, but I like to spend money. A lot of people do.

It also does save me time. Usually, when I hand over some money and I hire a service or an expert, it makes my life better. That's what we're all trying to do in our businesses, we're trying to make other people's lives easier, trying to improve it, trying to save them time or money. People want that to be a thing, they want to save time and money and get great service. Why would we not articulate it in a clear, honest, and transparent way?

It's not selling. I think people hate hard sales tactics, obviously. Who wants to be attacked in a sales environment? What we're talking about is just talking about the things that you do to help the people that you want to help.

Lyndsay: I love it when someone approaches me and they're selling something that really solves my problem and I know they'll deliver tons of value. I'm like great, perfect. That's essentially what it's all about.

George: Where's that line to sign on? Let's do it. There's a couple of things that I want to unpack from that section.

I love this idea of all sales isn't hard sales. Being able to sell almost from a place of servanthood and trying to do what's right for them. I think Lyndsay hit the nail on the head when she said best decision for them. Not selling out of what's the best thing for my wallet or my pocketbook or purse, but just landing always on what's the best decision for them.

The listeners and B2B marketers are like, okay, let's give this a try. How the heck do we get started in transitioning the way that we've been creating content for the last year, five years, ten years, and actually get started with creating some content that sells?

Martin: The first thing that you need to do is escape what we call "SEO no-man's land," which is, let's create content for SEO reasons, let's create lots of helpful content in the hopes that Google is going to reward us for it. If Google closed down tomorrow, and you weren't able to create content that ranked on the first page of Google, how would we make sales? The thing to remember is that when you create content, and we're talking about sales content, so it might feel that the content we create is 100% this kind of content, and it's not. It's very marginal.

You might be talking one in ten pieces of content would relate to what we're talking about. But that one in ten makes all the difference. It really does. If you create 10 super valuable articles that don't directly lead to your products and services, but you create one that does, if you do it right, I'm talking about a promotion strategy, getting your email list involved, repurposing it, you can create a whole lot of content around that piece of content.

I don't want anybody to think that they have to completely change their content calendar, strategy, and processes. It's just about adding a drip of that kind of content.

Lyndsay: It's just a little nudge.

Martin: It can make a huge difference to revenue. It literally transformed our business when we did this, and we've not looked back since. We try to write one of these articles every month or two, just to explain more about what we do. When we get questions, we answer them as they come.

It's just a very simple strategy that doesn't require you to completely throw out the rule book and start a blank canvas. It's just about dripping some of this content in and communicating it with your audience. That's key. We're not just hoping that Google sends us traffic. We're creating this content and then pulling people in to consume it and getting those people over the finish line.

Lyndsay: Yes. A good place to start is whenever you make any change to your product or service, anything different, you add something, you raise your prices, you start using AI, whatever it might be, just create content around it, even if you start with something simple on social media. I bet you'll be really surprised at how many people engage with that content, especially if they're already getting content from you that's full of value. They love that and then they're like, "Okay, they're raising their prices. What's that about? I want to know more."

This content really does very well. To you, it might seem like why would anyone be interested in this, but they really are, and it's what will lead to sales. As Martin said, just keep it light. It's like a seasoning rather than a main meal. It's not something that you should be doing every week, because obviously that is going to get very annoying.

George: I love this. There's so much going around in my brain with this conversation. First of all, from just a fundamental life principle, success is on the other side of fear. I know the listeners might be thinking, "But I'm afraid I'll turn them off." You know what? Push past that fear, try it, test it, and see what happens.

The other thing when you were talking is it was almost like value, value, value, sell. It made me think back to last year when I did an interview with Nick Nimmin, and were talking about YouTube and how he creates a pattern in his videos, down to the description. He'll do where it goes to a playlist or a video, but then he'll have this video that comes out that is to his home website and it's more of a sales pitch video. Having this rhythm or rhyme to why you're doing it, and you used the words drip it out amongst the other stuff that you're doing. I think that's a great place to start.

I love to give people action items and get them started. I know they'll start running and they'll trip over the hurdles that are in the way. When you think about organizations that you've helped adopt this and start to create content that sells, what are some hurdles that you've seen B2B marketers or organizations fall prey to that you'd be like watch out for this and that? Maybe it's more than this and that, maybe it's a couple of things. Where does your mind go with that?

Lyndsay: That's a really good question. A lot of our clients come up with this when they are afraid, and you mentioned it before, of putting people off. A great article that we talk about that does actually sell really well is why you shouldn't work with us, why we're not the right fit for you. Automatically, people think I'm going to put people off. But what it does is it just increases sales in those people who are your ideal audience because they're there to essentially understand that you're just not out there to work with everyone. They know that you're choosy and selective, and they understand that they're the right fit for you. That's incredibly powerful and builds a lot of trust.

Really, the first thing with our clients is getting over this mental hurdle of I don't want to put anyone off. What they do when they create this kind of article is they're very wishy-washy with the points. For example, reasons you shouldn't work with me, and it's you don't breathe air or something like that. Be direct with this kind of article.

When we create this for us, we say, "If you want a yes man or yes woman to do exactly what you're saying, that's absolutely fine, that's not a problem, but we're just not the right fit for you. You might need to find someone else. This is maybe what sort of person you would need or what sort of industry you should look at."

Really just highlighting and going deep into who it is that you want to attract and being very clear on that. Don't be afraid of putting people off, because I promise you that you will then attract more of the right people.

Martin: It's the lurkers. You have to love the lurkers, they're always there, they're always listening, they're always watching. They just need a gentle nudge sometimes.

That kind of content will essentially list all of the reasons that you wouldn't want to work with somebody, but throughout that content you essentially highlight the reason that you don't want a yes man or yes woman is because you need some guidance, you need a strategy, luckily we've gotten all of these results and it's fantastic with rankings, that happens because we tell you what needs to happen in order to make this a success. If you don't want that, by all means, don't work with us. 90% of the people actually would look at that and think, "I understand now. Initially, this is what I thought, but now I understand what you're saying."

All of those points throughout that piece of content do a really good job of explaining what you do and why you do it. It also gives you that velvet rope policy to say that this is the dress code when working with us. I think there's nothing better than having a dress code in any organization to say some people will work and some people won't work, and that's okay, we just choose to work with people who there's the most chance that we're going to help them become successful. In order to do that, you have to be able to say this or you have to be able to do that.

It's just nice, people like consistency and formality sometimes. They might not think that they do, but everybody needs a routine. I think if you can create a little bit of a routine on attracting your clients, put some velvet ropes up, and keep things in line, because you have the path to success, we all know how clients can be successful, it's just sometimes they veer off track.

George: I love this idea of having a piece of content of who we're not a good fit for and why not to work with us. It's funny because my brain goes to if I'm a B2B marketer and I'm listening to that, it sounds great, but I don't have my ideal client profiles or my buyer personas in place, meaning I don't know who I want to work with and who I don't want to work with, that piece of content becomes very difficult. Another action item that you may take, depending on where you're at with those items as you're listening to this podcast.

I love reaching the top of the mountain, standing on the Olympic stage in first place, in other words, I like to hit success. It's just a really nice place to be. When you think about this topic today, what does creating content that sells success look like, how do we know that we've reached this state of nirvana?

Martin: It comes from when you get to the point and you're speaking to a client, think about 12 months ago, think about some of the longer conversations you've had with clients, think about how long it has taken for you to get clients over the finish line, multiple emails, maybe two-hour phone calls, Zoom calls, or face-to-face meetings.

Lyndsay: Even getting a lot of our clients, we've been ghosted in the past.

Martin: Sending proposals.

Lyndsay: Yes. All sorts of things. They've really struggled with those kinds of things.

Martin: Success to us looks like a call with a client who is already primed, already very aware of how you operate, how you work, how much you charge, so that by the time they speak to you, they're already set to click that buy button and get started.

We love it when we speak to people on calls and we start to talk about what it is they do, and they already know everything and they're ready to sign up within 21 minutes. Which is an example that we talk about all the time, the fact that we went from two-hour Zoom calls to a 21-minute Zoom call where someone said, "I don't really know why we're speaking, because I already know everything there is to know, but I just want to ask you about the invoice."

Lyndsay: Where's the address? I was looking for that.

Martin: To find the details. You can't help but laugh. It is true, that's what success looks like, it means that you can sell to people without having to sell anything at all.

Lyndsay: It's getting over that hurdle as well, because I think we think this is the norm, especially in B2B, and especially if it's a high investment. We think we have to get people on calls, we have to do a proposal, then we have to get them onto the call, and from the point when they contact us to the point of the sale can be months, or they might just ghost us and we never hear from them again. That's kind of accepted, and it shouldn't be.

If you use content, you can actually have really enjoyable sales calls that last 15 to 20 minutes and then they just go ahead and sign up because they've already done that work without you there.

Martin: It does come back to the current process. What are the current problems in your business? What are the current bottlenecks? Is it the sales call? Is it the fact that you're attracting the wrong clients?

We thought maybe it's just us, maybe this is just relevant to us because this is how we've changed our business for the better. But we actually did a survey recently of over 500 people, and we found out that these people have the exact same issues that we had a few years ago. We're finding that most people get ghosted by clients.

Lyndsay: Yes, 84% of people experienced ghosting.

Martin: Can you believe it, 84%? They never hear back after spending hours doing a proposal. Another one was 7 out of 10 people have lost sleep due to difficult clients because they don't have a process in place, because they're not using content to protect themselves. There are just so many. All of the data that we got was quite upsetting, to be honest.

I'll send you our report so you can see it. I'm sure it's going to be pretty helpful. For us, it was just a sign that we needed to be out here talking about it more, and that's what we enjoy to do.

George: They're not using content to protect themselves. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you jotted that down as a note. It's interesting. My brain went to a very curious to me place. I hear people all of the time saying, "I hate the sales process. I don't like to sell. I wish I could just help people." It's funny because I connected a couple dots as you were talking of the funny thing is if you actually taught or created your content to sell, you wouldn't have to sell, you could just be there to put them over the finish line, give the additional value-added pieces that are needed.

Lyndsay: Exactly.

George: I love that so much. If you hate the sales process, then make the sales process be in your content. One of the ways we love to end the show is we love to get words of wisdom. I'm super excited because we get to get a double dose of some wisdom for the listeners. What are some words of wisdom that you would want to share with the Marketing Smarts listeners? It could be about life, it could be about content in general, it could be about creating content that sells, it's completely up to you. What words of wisdom do you want to leave them with today?

Lyndsay: Who is going to go first?

Martin: I'll go first.

Lyndsay: Are you going to steal mine? We have the same brain.

Martin: You go first.

Lyndsay: I'll steal yours then.

Martin: Okay.

Lyndsay: Mine is probably people don't care what you say. I've stolen yours, haven't I?

People don't care what you say, they care what you publish. Essentially, you can say anything to anyone on a Zoom call, on a phone call, in an email privately, but it's only trustworthy when it's public content out there that everyone can see. That is what is going to help you get more sales.

Sorry, I stole yours.

Martin: Don't worry about it. My advice would be, "It's your responsibility." What I mean by that is it's absolutely your responsibility if you have clients who are difficult, if you have clients that take up too much time, if you have clients that don't reply and ghost you, it is unfortunate, but it is your responsibility in order to create content to prevent that happening again. It's fool me once.

Lyndsay: You know the phrase.

George: Marketing Smarts listeners, did you take lots of notes? I have to ask, what is your one thing, your number one execution opportunity after this podcast episode? Make sure you reach out and let us know in my inbox or on Twitter using the hashtag #MPB2B.

I also have to ask are you a free member of the MarketingProfs community yet? If not, head over to Mprofs.com/mptoday. You won't regret the additional B2B marketing education that you'll be adding to your life.

We'd like it if you could leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast app, but we'd love it if you would share this episode with a coworker or friend. Until we meet in the next episode of the Marketing Smarts Podcast where we talk with Amrita Mathur about a playbook for marketing-led growth from zero to $30,000,000 in less than three years, I hope you do just a couple of things. One, reach out and let us know what conversation you'd like to listen in on next. Two, focus on getting 1% better at your craft each and every day. Finally, remember to be a happy, helpful, humble B2B marketing human. We'll see you in the next episode of the Marketing Smarts Podcast.

...sign up for free to continue reading

Don't miss a MarketingProfs podcast, subscribe to our free newsletter!

Published on June 8, 2023