Does your reputation precede you? Is it generating leads for you?
When you first speak to a potential customer what do they already think about you and your organisation? Even better, did they reach out to you based on your reputation? With the changes in how buyers buy and the fact that potential customers have already done significant amounts of research on the resolution to their business issue before they speak to a vendor or partner, it’s even more critical than ever to ensure you build a strong brand showcasing your areas of expertise.
I’ve posted regularly about the need to rethink your marketing approach when building a cloud practice, however I regularly get asked the question “where do I start when it comes to using social and digital channels?”. This question comes particularly from Partners who have little or no marketing resource within their business. The good news is that there are a number of starting points to do this even if you do not have a dedicated marketing person within your organisation. For example, depending on the size of your business you may still have a team of potential experts within your organisation with various knowledge and expertise they can share and amplify via social and digital channels. You may also have some existing customers happy for you to write up their story and solution which you can publish and amplify via social. As your potential new customers then search for solutions, your company is more likely to surface as an expert in that space. Straight away giving you a head-start with that opportunity.
Recently Jen Sieger, Senior Business Strategy Analyst in the Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft posted a blog highlighting 10 ways to building your brand through thought leadership. It’s a good read to inspire some ideas to kick start your brand recognition in the market.
We’re also running some workshops and masterclasses over the next couple of months. I’ve included the details below.
Partner Profitability Workshop
Led by Luke Debono from Incredible Results, this full day workshop will walk through the different business models with cloud so you can assess which may be most suited to your future goals and will coach you on how you can lead that change through your organisation. With a combination of presentation content, self-assessments and on demand resources, the workshop is designed to help you plan, build and grow a profitable cloud practice. Click here to register.
- Tuesday 12th May – Sydney
- Thursday 14th May - Melbourne
Building an unstoppable sales team
Led by Luke Debono from Incredible Results. Is your sales engine working brilliantly, winning more quality business than ever before whilst scaling seamlessly? Is it driving consistent profitable growth in ways that your whole organisation loves? Are you attracting and on-boarding sales talent successfully in this mobile first cloud first landscape? This workshop is designed to help business leaders and sales management professionals create an integrated sales plan that makes a science of the numbers and enables the whole organisation to work better together. For leaders and managers of technology companies, the workshop offers methodology, which helps address age old dilemmas of scaling sales in a technical arena. Click here to register.
- Thursday 28th May - Sydney
- Wednesday 3rd June - Melbourne
If you have any issues registering for these sessions please email partnerau@microsoft.com.