First off, let me just say, please do not read this article and then go check out our website. It’s the old one, we have not started on the new one yet. It isn’t that the site is terrible. It’s just not up to the task of informing potential clients, nor good enough for our competitors to want to steal any of our ideas.
We recently inked a new partnership with a top-notch networking vendor that Ethos’ believes in and have been selling their products refurbished for some time. This new partnership means we will have to alter our strategy, but has tremendous potential. Our first inclination was to get out that press release! We wanted to capitalize right away. Then I took a step back.
What message or information do we really want to get out to potential clients? Does our digital footprint exemplify our standards? Wait, we need a FB page?!?! These questions, and hundreds more, bombarded my brain for weeks. After careful consideration, the team decided we needed to hire someone to do this for us. It isn’t that we are not smart, creative, or funny, it is just that we don’t know diddly-squat about marketing. Heck, we still cold call (for everyone under 40, that’s picking up the phone and dialing it to talk to someone) and customer referrals. For me personally, that strategy has worked for 20 years and for Ethos for the last 5. That said, it was time to step out of our comfort zone.
Once we made the decision to properly market ourselves, I did what any 42-year-old sales veteran does when he knows what he doesn’t know. I reached out to all the smart <35-year-old’s I knew and told them I needed help. It was gratifying, not only were so many willing to help, they didn’t even laugh at me for asking. So now we have 3 proposals in front of us and are working out which is the best to convey our message.
Our next step is to pick the firm, or firms, to move us forward and let the leads just roll right on in…. I’ll keep cold calling though, for good measure. Watch our space, it should be up and running in the next couple months.
If you made it this far, we’ll let you in on the secret. Our new partnership is with Arista Networks. A company that far surpasses our customers’ needs for their networking infrastructure without breaking the bank. Feel free to reach out via the World Wide Innertubes, or just pick up the phone and call us to discuss.
