There are 50 million blogs — do we really need another?? (Actually there are probably more — WordPress hosts over 4 million…)
I think we need a place to discuss professional selling of B2B and financial service.
Service is understudied in marketing. 83% of the US economy is now service, but marketing texts seem to continue to focus on how P&G sells scented Tide.
B2B is a focus because it is important and also under-studied. The institute for the study of business markets (ISBM) at Penn State, estimates in an article on their website that B2B markets are roughly equal in size to all B2C markets in the US.
B2B and financial service are natural to pair in studying selling since both require long term PERSONAL selling and should be test markets for the principles of relationship selling.
In addition — in the interest of full disclosure — I should also note that I am currently teaching sales and sales marketing, and have personal experience in B2B and financial sales.
Thus, the creation of a new blog devoted to understanding Selling B2B and financial services!
As of today, the best type of selling is relationship selling. Blogging with other salespeople can give you more ideas about new products. B2B sales is just as important as customer sales, because B2B sales lead to B2C sales.
I agree that B2B is a bit understudied as well as under taught. Most professors bring this up once a semester while discussing the particular chapter it is in in our book. I believe that this is very important for us to learn because a huge amount of business is spent dealing with other businesses rather than end customers. I would find it very interesting to hear more about the workings of B2B.
I agree w/ amber…I also believe that B2B is understudied. I will be going into B2C sales once I graduate…B2B sales are where the big bucks are at….right?