Gut, feel, act

Stop, think, act. This key motto from my very first scuba lessons in Australia kept resonating in my head, a few years ago off the Costa Rica’s west coast. My dive buddy, a german underwater cameraman sporting mega fins and an even larger ego, had disappeared. The strong current made it impossible for me to follow him. And he was too busy do his own thing to notice. Unfortunately I happened to be at 25 meters depth.

Furthermore, the extra efforts and this unknown dive site had caused me to breathe faster and faster. Worst of all I had started to hyperventilate for the first time in my scuba career as a fairly experienced divemaster. An excited voice in my head was shouting louder and louder: “get the hell out of here, go the surface!”. Fortunately another, quieter mental voice won. And reasoned me to stop, think and then act. 

This is exactly want I would like to advise to commercial directors, heads of sales and  marketing managers. Stop and review your current approach in b2b marketing en sales. And think how you could market and sell in a smarter fashion. Use your brains to share your story, expertise and professionals and to increase the chance of being found by relevant customers and prospects. And replace outbound communications (push) by inbound communications (pull). Offline and of course online.

Here’s my scuba story in dutch

Stop, Think, Act in business

Do not use your brains, yet your customers’ brains as well. Almost on a daily basis mankind gets more insights into the functioning of our brain. We come to the conclusion that homo sapiens is a lot less rational than we thought he would be. Many, if not all decisions we make in our everyday lives as individual, customer, professional, entrepreneur or executive are made instinctively and derive from the subconsciousness. Stop, think, act often does not apply. It turns out it’s often the opposite: gut, feel, act.

This weekend I’m finishing my book which explores a new perspective in B2B marketing and sales. This book combines the merits of inbound marketing and customer psychology. The reader will benefit not just from many inbound marketing best practices and case studies yet also from the findings of the very first neuromarketing study carried out in b2b. The book’s contents are meant to help b2b marketing and sales managers to think about a smarter way of jointly reaching their commercial objectives and support renewed or continued growth. Van Duuren Media will publish my book in dutch first of all, with a firm ambition to launch an english translation as soon as possible.

Any feedback, request for a translation version or questions below are highly appreciated. Thank you.