“Put yourself in position to be in position“ Robert Montgomery Knight

In honor of the retirement of basketball coaching great Robert (Bobby, Bob) Knight, I bring to you one of this famous quotes: Put yourself in position to be in position. He was of course talking about being proactive on defense. While people were watching the defender on the ball, Bobby was worried about all the guys away from the ball to see if they were anticipating and staying one step ahead.

When you ask a sales person about lead time frame, they always say they want leads with a person with a budget, near-term close, no competitive situations, etc. They want you as a marketer to put them in position. But for an organization, specifically a marketing organization to be successful, you want to be in position to be in position. You will fail by putting up a Google ad that says: All people buying CRM solutions tomorrow fill out this form so a vendor you have never heard of can call you. I mean come on. Marketing organization want/need to capture the right person with the right interest as early as possible in their consideration process and then start to market to them strategically over time with results coming much later over time. (DRIP/NURTURE: hello, are you listening?). Here is your tip: to be in position to be in position, capture a right person, right interest always and often, then DRIP, my friend, DRIP.