Aligning Content with the Consultative Salesforce

Many years ago, it became common knowledge that pushy B2B salespeople aren't nearly as effective as those who become trusted advisers to their customers and prospects. Marketing departments should follow suit by establishing their companies as trusted information sources. This aligns perfectly with the consultative selling role.

I'm surprised that it's taken this long, but this transition is happening today with the growing emphasis on content marketing. Furthermore, social media allow marketing to enter into a two-way dialogue with customers and prospects, meaning that we can have not only consultative selling, but consultative marketing.

I think the results of this kind of approach are predictable. If consultative works with sales, it will ultimately work with marketing. Truisms like "people like to buy, but they don't like to be sold" are pretty universal - if the options are there, people will gravitate to what they want.