Magnus Marketing Blog

Does it ever end?

My sales guru Jill Kornrath had a note in her monthly newsletter about her Sales Shebang (which looks really interesting) about some chick Joanne Black who has this system for referral marketing. Her claim is that you never have to make another cold call again (I wish) because you can get all the business you need from your network. She advises people that cold calls are passe because you can just hit up your network (friends, family, associates, clients) and get all the business you need. I think somewhere it was advised to hit up 100 people and watch the business roll in. The idea of getting referrals is not new, nor is the technique of asking people who might know someone who needs your services or products. What I despise about this is the idea that this is all you need or primarily need to get business.

Marketers are now on the social networking fad line which is similar, target one - target all on Linked In. Related people must have similiar needs. I think this just means another great idea will become a commercial/advertising stream - more crap flowing through networks that were meant for genuine communication.

Like one of my prospects said to me recently, everyone has a methodology. Marketing is nothing but a series of recycled fads. Crap in, crap out, crap through whatever medium is still crap. Methodologies - smethodologies....talking to people is still talking to people, offers are offers. Maybe what IS wrong is that we as sales/marketing/biz dev people ventured so far from the old ways of selling that all we have is garnish without the turkey or maybe now have a lot of turkeys.

It doesn't matter what medium it is, the MESSAGE and the relevancy to the target is still what counts.