Why Sales Marketing Should Be One of the 7 Deadly Sins

Small businesses act like they're for their customer by throwing a customer appreciation day one time a year, but it's all to get more customers in the door. But it is not really customer-centric. It's still very much business-centric. If you're going to be customer-centric, you have to put in daily things for your customer; you have to add a lot of value. This business-centric approach is what I like to call Sales Marketing. Sales Marketing wants to sell people something at every turn. Isn't that the point of a business to sell stuff? Yes, but also no. I'll explain it.

I think the best practice for any business, and I mean ANY business, is to do Relationship Marketing. Let's say you're a garden center. You have plenty of people that are interested in gardening, that's why they go to your store. You have some customers that are experts. They don't need your help, but maybe a couple times a year. Then you have the intermediate, the guy that kind of knows what he's doing. They'll come to you occasionally for help. And then you have the guy that has no idea what he's doing, but he values plants. This guy needs some information ALL THE TIME. If all you're doing is a customer appreciation day, you're serving the expert only.

You should give weekly tips and free classes—something for the novice like How To Compost or Learn How To Grow Things From Seed. For the Intermediate, you have courses on houseplants, how to appropriately water, what kind of pot is necessary, and how to identify your plants' issues. Give everything. You give all of your information away.

You are making you're leveling up your clients. You're making it to where they're going to feel more confident, they're going to feel like they can get this shit done. Instead of you being the hero, you're putting them on the path to be the hero of their plants. I'm not saying don't have customer appreciation days. It's just an ancient mindset of what customer wants. The economy that we're in now VALUES relationships. It values a connection with people and businesses they frequent. Why wouldn't they just go to Home Depot or Lowe's or a big box store? They go to your small garden center because they value knowing that they're buying from someone with a lot of pride in what they sell. They also love the knowledge that they can pick from. You need to double down that and talk about all your stuff. Give them everything.

Another must is turning online. If you do not pivot online and figure out how to be on social media, you will die a prolonged death. Having a badass website that people can buy things, especially in the pandemic, is a no brainer. Have people come to your online store order something, come pick it up, AND NOT EVEN HAVE TO GET OUT OF THE CAR. And on that website, you have tons of free information. This is what you do whenever you have aphids, What you do whenever you have whatever. Find their pain points and address them. There are tons of things that you can do to add value and make their transaction so much easier and better. This is a lot of work, a lot of work, but it pays off. Because the people that learn from you have friends and family that shop at a big box store. And they are now your evangelist.

But now they're next level gardeners, because of the information that you gave them. They know that if they have any other issues, you're the place to go. They'll drive 45 minutes just to go pick up something from you because you gave and gave and gave. Treat each customer like a person, not a transaction. And I know you know this, but we get lost. We get lost in the mindset of like a profit loss statement. We get lost in this ROI. What's your ROI for years of kindness and generosity? Trust me, your investment will pay off dividends. We're looking at the long term. You're not a fly by night small business. You don't want to grow a business quickly so you can sell it to a larger Corporation. You're wanting to develop something with culture, and with, you know, just a very excellent thoughtful way about it. No large corporation can compete with.

So, if you are going to do any of this, it takes intention. It takes planning, thought, and allocating 2,3,4 hours a week (or a day if you're feeling frisky). Always giving more than you get. Without this kind of thinking, many people look at social media as an utter waste of time. Many people look at social media as just a thing that you're sending out to the masses. Instead, look at it as the followers I have the 200 followers, the 5000 followers, you know, 10,000, the whatever, you're investing in them. You're looking for their word of mouth, and then you build this momentum from that base. We're just in a living room, it's a giant living room, and we're all there. Maybe you know some of these people, perhaps we don't know others, but somehow you're connected to them because this person knows that person who knows the person you don't know. So, you have to invest in your people, whether online or in person. And think about it. Genuinely wanting their success, not doing it, not doing it so that you can make a profit off of them.

Look at customers as customers, look at them as individuals, as people, people with problems to be solved, and you have a solution. So why not help them solve their problems? They're going to remember all you gave and the care you had. They're gonna think, "They gave me so much. They brought me to this place where I feel confident, spending this money, knowing that I'm not going to kill all these plants that I bought." So it's education education education and value, value value. Just have to dump on them, give them as much as humanly possible for you. When you have that kind of word of mouth, that kind of culture that people want to be a part of, the sky's the limit. Your business is infinitely scalable.