In this episode of Conversations with Phil, I talk to Bernie Borges of Find and Convert, one of my favorite marketing and sales experts. We got to talk in person when I first moved to Tampa, and now, we got to record our conversation so you can listen in as we talk about social business, sales, and more.
Phil: Can you start by telling us about your podcast?
Bernie: My podcast is called Social Business Engine - and we have 106 episodes, it’s mostly large brands, IBM, Wal-Mart, and how they use social media strategically in their business across different functions, not just marketing… in sales, human resources, recruiting and internal communications.
Phil: How are you qualified to talk about social business?
Bernie: I have 10 years in tech sales and then transitioned over to marketing, 10yrs in corporate marketing, and my agency is 14 yrs old. Plus I’ve been podcasting.
Phil: Why have a social business?
Bernie: Simply put: Consumers don’t want to hear from the marketing department, they want to hear from the people. Click to tweet this quote! It’s the job of the marketing department to cross promote and tell stories to show others the good work your company is doing.
Phil: What are you up against if you think you are just going to advertise on social?
Bernie: If you don’t have a big brand or big budget then you’ve got to get out into the employee ranks and identify the ones that are doing amazing things for your company and capture their stories. Meet those people face to face and interview them, make it comfortable for them to tell their stories and then the marketing department’s role is to package it up for telling/sharing.
Phil: Why do you think that more organizations don’t do that? Why doesn’t it work?
Bernie: They don’t know to do that. They haven’t thought of that approach, they are working on the traditional model.
Phil: What’s the benefit of getting the employee to tell their story instead of the brand?
Bernie: Edelman Trust Barometer has been published every year, and it shows people trust people over the brand. When you strengthen your bond with your employee and you strengthen your relationship with your customer.
Phil: Why is target audience so important?
Bernie: Delivering your marketing content to the audience that has the most probability of sharing your message and influence sales. A B2B seller has to understand the buyer’s journey and understand all the stages of the buyer’s journey and what the buyer needs in each of those stages and all the messages have to align with each stage.
Jason Miller from LinkedIn has coined a phrase “Big rock content.” Make a big rock - then you can slice it up and repurpose it. From creating one big piece of content and through smart persona based marketing you create assets for each persona.
Phil: So what’s next for Bernie Borges?
Bernie: I’ve been delivering a Social Sharing training program to different companies and now packaging it up to deliver online for business development. Session 1 is the ‘Why” and then sessions 2-4 are all one on one coaching sessions. Once they start seeing the results they really start to understand it.
Want more from Bernie Borges? Me too! Here you go!
More From Bernie Borges
Bernie's podcast Social Business Engine
Bernie Borges on Social Business