Whose Business Are You Developing?

CB Whittemore wrote a fantastic post last week for the Content Marketing Institute about how to think like a content marketer.

Graham Kilshaw, president of ITEM publications, wrote a response to CB's post that was, as CB put it, simply delicious. Here is the comment in its entirety:

I'm a recent CM (content marketing) convert, with a bit of a push from Joe and the Content Marketing Institute - nice work folks, keep it up. But my Aha! moment came a couple of weeks ago, when I was thinking about how do I communicate this shift in our thinking to our sales folks. It's no good me pumping the CM machine if sales and marketing are not aligned- and then it came to me. 

So I asked our sales manager "Hey, Bob - what is your job title?" 

"Business Development Manager" he replied. 

"Right - but who's business are you developing?"

"Well, ours of course" he says. 

And then he paused and said "Ahhhhh, I see!" and immediately he got what I was alluding to.

By the end of the day the rest of the sales team were talking about their "new old" job titles....

So, is it your business or your customer's business that needs developing?

Comments

[C.B. Whittemore]

Thanks, Joe, for highlighting this magnificent Aha! moment that Graham shared. It truly is 'simply delicious' and highlights that fundamental yet subtle shift in thinking from the traditional inward perspective to one focused on our customers and their businesses. Best, CB

[Mark McClure]

Joe, that's a fantastic story to start a speech with! Wow, talk about seeing the light...

[Joe Pulizzi]

@CB - thanks for starting the conversation on this one.

@Mark - I've been thinking about that myself. Really gets you focused.