I was listening to a podcast interview with comedian Mike Birbiglia. I was not familiar with him, but I found his take on comedy interesting.

He believes that comedians have a one-on-one relationship with their audiences. Social media and podcasts can help to create a more intimate relationship with fans. Some influencers lose that connection because they become an outsized version of themselves. They get lost in the audience's abyss and lose the connection with individuals. They become unapproachable.

Your Marketing Audience

I find the same thing with marketing. We tend to lose sight of that one-on-one relationship and get lost in the abyss of the avatar.

An avatar is also known as an ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), Buyer Persona, Target Audience, and Key Accounts. I find that people still view their audience as a group that will self-segment down to the individual. The audience persona has some nuance and complexity, so we tend to cast a wider vision or net when it comes to marketing and promotions.

In politics, the saying goes, “All politics are local”. In that case, you may have a candidate who appeases the demographics of the local region. When the audience expands to a county, state, or nation, the division between our two-party system tends to equalize, and you end up trying to convince the independents, unengaged, complacent, to become energized and involved.

The real outcomes for marketing and politics lie in that small slice of swing voters.

This is especially true in B2B businesses, but it can also be true for some consumer marketing. When the timing is right, you have those who can be persuaded if you are offering what they are looking for.

Your Story

Mike Birbiglia also believes that comics are storytellers. He asked, “How do you take something that is inherently maybe a little bit sad or a little bit dramatic and find the comedy in that?” He continued, “I think that the key to telling comedic stories is finding one joke in it that opens up the audience and tells the audience that you are okay laughing about this thing, and because you're okay with it, they should be okay with it.” Then, he closed with, “And what I always tell people about stories is, as long as you have a beginning and most importantly, an ending, the audience will stick with you for the middle.”

A comedian is selling entertainment with jokes. You, on the other hand, are selling profits or solutions through hardware, software, and services.

As a sales and marketing organization, you need to craft a story around your products and services that will resonate with individual buyers.

KNOW – LIKE – TRUST

Getting potential customers to know, like, and trust you is a journey. Each has a unique place in the Customer Journey.

 

KNOW = Awareness

Your current, past, and prospective clients just need to KNOW that you are there. You don't have permission to go deep and tell your story just yet. It would be best to get small and simple messages across so that you could have a purpose for their future story. All marketing is about the hope that you can be an asset or solution to a current or future problem. It should create questions of “What If?” regarding ‘Why' and ‘How.'

LIKE = Your Story

LIKE is where your story comes into play. It could be in the form of case studies, videos, blogs, webinars, or podcasts. The more places you can share that story in various forms, the more likely your messages will be noticed, engaged with, and acted upon. The main goal of this phase is not to sell anything; it's about helping the person imagine a bridge from your story to becoming a part of their story.

The main goal of your story is to ask questions and have the person answer them in their head. Thought leadership content is about building trust. That trust will be rewarded with considerations that lead to conversations between that customer and your sales and service teams individuals. It's meant to help create one-on-one relationships that lead to sales or recommendations.

This is why you want to connect with as many current and past customers on LinkedIn as possible. They can passively engage with your messages and choose when to actively engage when the time is right!

TRUST = Their Story

TRUST has to be earned. Sales should focus on learning the customer's story of how a specific need or problem arose in their business life. From there, you should guide them to a point where they can see your solution as part of their future story. That means marketing takes on a more consultative role in this phase.

That trust is built, enhanced, and reinvigorated through personal contact. That contact is the melding of their story with your story to form a bond that most likely ends with business purchases.

Closing Thought

While your competition is out hunting for new leads, you can gather with your tribe of people who have already gone through the KNOW-LIKE-TRUST journey with you. I have found that to be the most profitable way to market. Your tribe could become influencers and referrers that lead to new business.

Your story's beginning, middle, and end may have a little drama or comedy in it, but it must resonate with an individual for action to be taken. It's in that personal one-on-one connection that your story and their story combine into a mutual success story. That success story can be used as a case study; it might just be the spark that turns prospects into profits!

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Comment below and share your thoughts, ideas, or questions about business-to-business sales and marketing today! Do you have a sales or marketing communications strategy that works for you? What tips or techniques can you share that work for you and your business?

To learn more about this and other topics on B2b Sales & Marketing, visit our podcast website at The Bacon Podcast.