Yesterday, I watched a fascinating keynote presentation by Mary Anne Marsh who is a well known political commentator for Fox News and is quoted regularly in The Boston Globe, USA Today and NY Times. She was a very dynamic, engaging presenter that I’d love to see speak again in the future.

The theme of her speech was “What Sales and Marketers can learn from President Obama’s Campaign”.

In her opinion, there were four steps in Barack’s strategy that helped him get elected. Very simply:
1.    Get To Know Him
2.    Get To Like Him
3.    Believe In What He’s Saying
4.    Earn Your Trust (and your vote)

During the “Get To Know Him” stage Barack published two books, sharing his entire life story with the public.

We discussed consistency.. that during the early stags of the campaign, after Barack received the Democratic nomination and for the first 100+ days he’s been President- his demeanor has not changed. He’s been cool, collected, confident and professional during the most turbulent of times. A member of the audience shared that he had met and campaigned for Obama in New Hampshire and that the Obama he met in his living room a few years back is the same Obama we’re seeing today.

You may not agree with all the decisions and actions he’s taken, but the point she made was that people like consistency and consistency builds trust.

In my opinion, the strategy Barack used to win the Presidential campaign is completely applicable to how successful salespeople influence and sell. When was the last time you bought from a salesperson that you didn’t like or trust? Conversely, when was the last time you bought more and perhaps chose a more expensive product, because you liked the salesperson?

Ask yourself today.. what am I doing well or what should I do differently to get my prospects & customers to know and like me.. so I can earn their trust AND their purchase.

You may want to check out Mary Anne Marsh’s recent blog post: “Baptism by Fire…The First 100 Days of the Obama Presidency”. Interesting stuff.

It’s also super cool, that Obama has a LinkedIn profile.