Zach Selch uses three moments when cannons changed warfare to explain modern sales: cheap guns around 1500 made old fortresses useless, Napoleon's aiming tweaks gave artillery new power, and today buyers research online before meetings. Marketing softens prospects with websites and white papers. Sales closes the deal.
Chapters
I'm here in Istanbul. This gun behind me was one of the guns that defended the Turkish side of Gallipoli about 100 years ago. Giant field piece, fixed— giant artillery piece fixed in position. And we typically, as an old infantryman, we typically think that you win wars by getting boots on the ground, not necessarily with artillery. But there have been a couple of times in history where artillery has really changed the face of warfare. About 1500, in the year 1500, about 500 years ago, the availability of cheap quality guns and powder really changed the way wars were fought because they really changed everything to these sieges using very specific star-shaped dirt dirt-packed fortresses because you, you, the guns made it about in about the year 1500, the availability of cheap quality guns and powder really changed the way warfare looked. And then in the early 19th century, Napoleon, his generals made some very minor technical changes to how field pieces were aimed, and it really changed the way people fought with guns at that point. Changing the nature of warfare. In our world, in our business world, we very often think about the idea that, say, sales is the infantry and marketing is the artillery, and sales is what wins and artillery supports. And in a lot of ways, that's the way it works. I'm from sales. Typically, any process that I've been involved with, for the most part, the sales is what closes the deal. The marketing is what softens the customer up, prepares the customer, helps the customer. But in some cases, especially today, what we're seeing is that the customers are doing a lot more research online. And, and, and there, there's a lot of good marketing research about this today that shows how customers use online tools to gather information before the meeting, and they come prepared knowing exactly what they want, knowing about your product, knowing about your competition. And here's the opening for the marketing because If your marketing is really on top of the game and can prepare the website, can prepare white papers, can prepare research material for that customer to feel that they've satisfied their research, you're really helping them along their purchasing process while preparing them for what you need to be, be able to do. So remember, when you're ready to grow your international sales, reach out to us. We can help.
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