How can you transition from sales to marketing with personal branding?

Transitioning from Sales to Marketing isn’t easy, but it’s 100% do-able. Especially via personal branding. To me, sales and marketing are friends, but not family. It’s important they have their own space from one another, especially as you tell that story in your personal brand. The issue with marketing is there isn’t a clear cut definition on what works and what doesn’t, but it does take a sense of fearlessness to find your path. When it comes to demonstrating your willingness to take on marketing, there is no better place to start than your brand. Develop your identity, let your identity bleed into your resume, portfolio, website and any other touch point you have. And find new ways to tell your “story”, not sell yourself ??

As a former SDR, my days were immersed in understanding customer pain points, articulating value propositions, and nurturing relationships. This hands-on experience with the client-facing side of the business has been the bedrock of my transition into marketing, and here's why. In sales, I learned to listen. Each interaction was a lesson in understanding diverse customer needs and preferences. This empathy now fuels my content marketing strategies, helping me create resonant messages that speak directly to our audience's hearts.

In my experience transitioning from sales to marketing shouldn’t be difficult for a seasoned sales personal, a person who has showcased excellent sales track record must have build an excellent personal brand, one of the key aspect of brand is trust, we buy a brand because we believe it to be better or of set standards, similarly a sales person who has build a brand for himself is valued by a client that solutions provided by him is sure to address his problem statement, a good sales person understand his customers need like no one else does, provide solution that best addresses customer's need and above all honours his commitment, which gradually establishes him as a brand to the customer resulting in repeat sales

A good place to start: think about how you introduce your business and/or product when you're talking to a potential customer. What do your leads have in common? How can you translate the storytelling done in person during a sales pitch to a wider audience across different marketing channels?

The most important point from my point of view: ?? Understand the Marketing ≠ Sales What both positions have in common is to understand how the market is, that there is a target group and that it is beneficial to understand the product. Next point: ?? There is not one marketing Marketing is a broad field, there are marketing positions that are almost exclusively number-driven and there are marketing positions where numbers hardly play a role but a fine communication skillset is extremely important. Last point: ?? Work on your skillset This is not something that can be done in a few evenings. A good start is always the free Google workshops that give a good insight into digital marketing.

You can start a blog and/or newsletter where you discuss marketing trends and strategies. Also attend marketing events, webinars, and workshops to expand your knowledge and network.

- Identify mutual skills which require for sales & marketing and build on it - Start learning, practicing and talking about marketing concepts - Let the world know you are at it, extensive use of social media , start a newsletter may be - Start networking through available means, conference etc - Identify your marketing mentors and engage - Keep patience as it’s a process

Documenting your experience while transitioning also helps build trust and visibility. Take people on the journey, share insights like similarities between both roles and what you’ve had to learn. All of these can showcase the effort you put in transitioning.

One of the things I found helpful is by attending industry events. The social media access available to you will span across the network of the event organizers and their attendees. You get a lot more online visibility this way.

I recently made this transition. If you do start a blog, I recommend you create a funnel (you can use systeme.io) to capture emails and send your target audience newsletters with a call to action (such as buying a product from you/affiliate link). You could even launch some boosted social media posts or social media advertising if you’re feeling spicy! This shows you understand awareness, consideration, conversion, and loyalty. Also, you can find so much gold on how to do all of this and more on YouTube, instagram, tik tok and/or take free courses or try LinkedIn learning.

Content marketing tip: write posts like you're talking to a former version of yourself. Share everything you've learned on your journey over the last few years. People who are on the same path, but further behind, will appreciate the lessons. You will be seen as an authority that they can relate to, helping to build your personal brand.

Make stuff that you love. Share ideas that you think are great. 'Be' the marketer and you'll fit into the role in no time. Study the platforms, learn the soft skills and don't listen to those who say you need 'something' to be a marketer. You just need to love it.

TELL YOUR STORY... Marketing is essentially the process of identifying customers and "creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging" goods and services for the satisfaction and retention of those customers. In this case, YOU are the product/service. You are telling your story to build credibility on how you've been able to connect the dots between consumer wants, needs and decision making process from a "sales perspective" Now you are feeding that knowledge upchannel to create marketing messages that not only capture the pain points but also sell the solutions in a way you know you can guarantee results (sales=profits). With Personal Branding, Packaging is everything! It Gets you through the door before experience speaks up.

Building trust with right behaviours and being source of solution for the needs and expectations will enable you to gain good brand name.

As a sales person who transitioned to marketing, one insight I can offer is not be afraid of starting small in marketing. Think long-term. If marketing is where you've set your sights, having experience in sales can help you grow exponentially in this field. You've got hands-on experience of talking to customers and so you develop an intuitive understanding of what the customer needs and how to speak to them. That's a tremendous skill for a marketer. Take up tasks in marketing, get more involved in the content development process, and then look for roles that can help you grow these newfound skills.

I made this transition personally. Here's what I learned: Sales and marketing are related. There is a hybrid in between that gets called various things like Rev Ops, Business Development, or Strategic Growth. Sales is the art of getting a small group to buy something once already interested. Marketing is the art of getting a larger group to become interested. The transition goes like this: Sales > Biz Dev > Marketing. A lot of what most sales folks do is biz dev, and a lot of what biz dev does is marketing. Just take the baby steps one at a time. Giving up and gaining functions that move you earlier and earlier in the buyer journey.

Moving from sales to marketing has more to do with a change of mindset rather than skills. It's a shift from 'Closing deals' to 'Opening doors'.

Take step 1 - Make yourself visible to the marketing team. How? First, Be good in execution of marketing interventions. Second, Give them good insights which they can work on. Third, in larger team meetings, speak in marketing lingo and give holistic views.

One area in which salespeople excel is building collaborative partnerships or sponsorships for marketing. Consider a role where you not only do marketing but also can weigh in on sponsorship packages to create marketing campaigns.