The 3 Irrefutable Elements of Sales Growth | Braintrust

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The 3 Irrefutable Elements of Sales Growth

• braintrust101.com

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• Over the past several decades, there have been a
  myriad of books written and talks given on how
  to grow your business, improve your marketing,
  increase sales performance, etc etc Some of
  those lessons are good, some are useless.

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• I certainly dont want to take the arrogant
  position that everything ever written or spoken
  prior to this post is garbage and that I have
  cracked the proverbial code that now transcends
  all previous sales and marketing strategies. That
  said, the following content isnt just my opinion
  but a collation of commonalities by successful
  organizations boiled down into three critical
  elements, that if executed effectively, guarantee
  results.
• As you read through the three elements, keep in
  mind the key is not to just have them but how
  well you communicate these elements to the world.

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Element 1 Company Why

• In Simon Sineks book, Start With Why, he
  outlines the many reasons why people dont buy
  what you do, they buy why you do it. There is a
  neuro biological reason for this. As humans, we
  make decisions in our Limbic Brains and we make
  them emotionally and instinctively. The vast
  majority of companies today communicate what
  they sell, not why they do what they do. It has
  to be larger than the money they can make.
  Revenue is simply a positive side effect from
  operating effectively.

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• As an example, lets look at Toms Shoes. Their
  entire mantra is One for One. Founder Blake
  Mycoskie was deeply moved at the fact that as he
  traveled, he encountered so many children around
  the world didnt have shoes. He created his
  companys purpose around helping those
  children. Now, for every pair of shoes he sells,
  he donates a pair to a child in need. His company
  has experienced tremendous sales growth.
• People emotionally connect with his why and
  because we all need shoes at some point, wouldnt
  you rather feel like youre helping contribute to
  a global cause? Makes you never want to go to
  Dicks or Famous Footwear to buy shoes again,
  doesnt it?

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• It doesnt really matter what your company sells.
  If they dont tap into the why first and
  foremost, you will limit the engagement of your
  employees and your customer base. Jim Stengel in
  his book, Grow found that over a decade period
  since 2000, companies that understood their why
  grew at a much faster rate than their peer group.
• Your company why needs to focus in one or at
  most two of the following purpose driving
  categories.
• It brings Joy to people
• It evokes Pride in people
• It creates Connection for people
• It encourages Exploration in people
• It improves Society in a tangible way
• Here are a few companies that have tapped into
  the power of purpose CokeJoy, Mercedes
  BenzPride, StarbucksConnection,
  GoogleExploration, Toms ShoesImproving
  Society. There are many others, but by now you
  have the idea.

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Element 2 Brand Purpose

• For many companies, they dont understand element
  1 above so it leaves them without a true roadmap
  as to how to truly do marketing the correct way.
  Marketing is all about understanding who your
  customers are, what motivates them buy and how
  your solution solves their problem. Once you know
  those three things, you must create an emotional
  connection with that audience and build authentic
  trust with your brand. How do we do that? Brand
  Purpose.

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• Your brand purpose is your brand why. It
  generally flows out of your company why. Step
  one is to determine whether you are a branded
  house or a house of brands. An example of a
  branded house would be BMW. Their purpose
  category is joy. In fact, their entire marketing
  campaign is laser focused on the joy of
  driving. They allow the house to be the brand
  i.e. BMW. Yes, they have the 3,5 7 series
  vehicles but everything revolves around the house
  brand. They know their category and they know
  their brand purpose. In this case, the company
  why and the brand why are the same. A house
  of brands example would be Proctor Gamble. They
  have a company brand but primarily communicate to
  the market through individual brands. Pampers,
  Tide, NyQuil are just a few of their brands.

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• Each brand has to have its own brand purpose
  and shouldnt be too terribly far off from the
  company purpose or why for consistency. Once
  you know your brand purpose or as we call it,
  your Brand Driving Purpose, you can begin to
  create messaging that speaks directly to the
  emotional buying brain with your prospective
  customers with laser focus.
• I know you may be thinking that this strategy
  works well for consumer brands but not for
  business to business (B2B) companies. Absolutely
  not true. Its simply a case of B2B companies not
  generally having the sophistication and knowledge
  of how to do this compared to the high profile
  marketing budgets of consumer retail companies.
  EVERY company needs to have a company why and
  brand why. There is no exception is you want to
  truly create trust with your market.

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Element 3 Personal Why

• When you look at the Fortune list of top 100
  companies to work for, you generally see a
  consistent theme. The employees of those
  companies believe strongly in the purpose of the
  organization. I had the privilege of working at
  Genentech for most of my corporate career and we
  were consistently in the top 10 companies to work
  for. Why? Because the employees there knew our
  why. It was to create novel therapies to treat
  unmet medical needs. We were, literally in some
  cases, curing cancer. Our Driving Brand Purpose
  category was clearly to improve society. Now,
  its one thing to have a great company why and
  brand why but if you dont understand your own
  personal why, then all you can ever do is try
  to use your companys credibility to connect with
  customers.

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• What it all comes down to is the individual.
  Especially in B2B. People tend to want to buy
  from people, not companies. That being said, we
  know emphatically through research that the
  number one driver of sales is trust. Trust is an
  emotion that happens at the subconscious level.
  How does one develop trust? You must first make a
  genuine connection. Guess what? I dont connect
  with the facts and figures of your products or
  services. I dont connect with your ten year
  track record of success and awards. I dont
  connect with your resume of respected companies
  youve worked for. I connect with people who
  believe what I believe. I connect with people who
  come across with authenticity, humility and
  honesty. I connect with people that are real. The
  only way to come across as real is to be real.
  You must have a personal why.

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• Why do you do what you do? It cant be for the
  money. Again, like with the company why the
  money is a result of effectively executing the
  why before the what. What universal beliefs
  do you possess that I will connect with? Why are
  you trustable and where did you learn that from?
  Whats the story behind your why? We teach
  clients to communicate their personal why in 90
  seconds in a way thats emotional, visual and
  experiential. Its powerful. If you want to know
  why I do what I do, read my profile.
• Question What is your company why? Does your
  company understand brand purpose? Do you have a
  personal why? If so, would you share it with
  us?
• Visit braintrust101.com