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Radical Transparency
Jay Love knows the benefits of full disclosure and radical transparency. As the founder and CEO of eTapestry.com, he understood that his target market — nonprofits — would more easily trust his company and recognize the benefit of its services by doing the opposite. So Love documented the entire sales cycle and sales process in a downloadable podcast that is available on the company ’ s web site. In doing so, he explains that the eTapestry sales cycle was uniquely designed based on customer feedback and created to foster relationships — whether a potential client buys or not.
Obviously, the company ’ s strategy is working. As a result of its exponential growth, Inc. magazine named it one of the fastest growing companies in 2007. In fact, eTapestry ’ s sales grew so much that Blackbaud, the industry leader, acquired eTapestry in 2007, allowing eTapestry to maintain its sales process and culture as a wholly owned subsidiary.
Like Softrax, eTapestry increased its sales and gained loyal customers as a result of its focus on customer needs and its decision to be radically transparent, an important example for sales professionals, like Kyle, who still resist making a change.
Nothing Less Than the Best
Kyle and others who are afraid of doing the opposite can act like a deer caught in the headlights. Driven by fear of rocking the boat, they cling to the old way, believing they will escape the pain, the loss, and the fallout they will experience if they make a change. In reaction, they do just enough to get by, believing that enough companies will stick to the status quo. Fat chance.
Unlike Kyle, sales professionals wanting to go from good to great or companies wanting to be remarkable understand that change is inevitable and essential. The typical tactics can no longer produce a dramatic improvement in sales, since they are the same strategies that created the current reality and that have been used for years. As Albert Einstein observed, "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."
After releasing his wildly successful book, Permission Marketing, in 1999, Seth Godin appeared to have hit the top of his game. After all, Permission Marketing spent a year on the Amazon Top 100 list and four months on the BusinessWeek best - seller list. A runaway hit, the book also appeared on the New York Times best - seller list and was named a Fortune Best Business Book.
Then Seth did the unthinkable.
He released his next book, Unleashing the Ideavirus, for free. Instead of reaping the rewards and success, Seth did the opposite. He gave his ideas away for free to anyone who went to his web site or to online bookstores, such as Amazon.com, to download a free copy of his e-book.
The risk paid off. Unleashing the Ideavirus became the most popular e - book ever written, with more than 2 million people downloading the free digital version. But Seth's success that came as a result of his taking the contrarian approach didn ’ t stop there. Seth went on to publish a hardcover version of the book, which hit number 5 overall on the Amazon best - seller list and was featured in USA Today and the New York Times.
You can enjoy incredible success and benefi t from the long-term payoff that Seth and eTapestry have experienced when you decide to let go of convention and adopt the contrarian approach.
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