Anyone who’s been around the block a few times can tell you – reporters typically have a visceral reaction to spokespeople in sales. Reporters aren’t looking for a sales pitch or marketing jargon so they typically avoid these folks like the plague. But what if you are a sales enablement company? Unless you’re Salesforce, it can be a tough sell (no pun intended) outside of the handful of sales and marketing specific publications. So to continue to expand brand awareness in the larger business and/or tech community, it is important to leverage sales influencers beyond the pool of select media and analysts.
Below is a sampling of sales influencers around the country that you should be engaging with via social and in-person to continue to elevate your brand:
Anthony Kennada, Battery Ventures
As the founding Chief Marketing Officer at Gainsight, Anthony and his team are credited with creating the Customer Success category – a business imperative, profession and software category that helps subscription companies grow sustainably by becoming customer obsessed.
Adam Toporek, CustomersThatStick
As a third-generation entrepreneur, Adam understands the impact that customer experience can have on the bottom line and brings lessons from the front lines of entrepreneurship to organizations of all sizes. Adam is regularly ranked as a top customer experience thought leader and has been cited in Entrepreneur, Forbes, AMA, and over 150 other media.
Christopher Lochhead, Follow Your Different
On his podcast, each week Christopher unpacks riveting stories of entrepreneurs, thought leaders, investors, trendsetters, among others who “made it” in their journey. Bonus points if you can get your client on the podcast.
David Giller, Salesforce Geek
A true Salesforce influencer, David is a great contact to have. In his consulting business, he helps business leaders better leverage Salesforce technology to automate sales and other business processes.
Casey Lucas, Pragmatic Works
By relying on his sales, business development, account management experience in commercial and public sector verticals or industries, Casey truly understands a customer-first methodology and how to develop technology strategies that lead to better business outcomes and results.
Michael Hinshaw, MCorpCX
Michael is a brand and customer experience thought leader recognized by organizations including Forrester Research, Gartner Group, the DMA, the American Bankers Association, and others.
Buy them a coffee or a cocktail; take them to lunch – it shouldn’t be anything formal but rather a casual conversation about high level trends to demonstrate your industry knowledge. This process is all about relationship building so eventually there comes a point where these influencers are talking about your company, your technology with their audience in the context of the broader ecosystem.