This is my list of new marketing and selling truisms for B2B selling organizations. They provide context for most of our services and writing.

I post them prominently here so as to not have to repeat them in any conversation or material I create. If you agree with these truisms, please join the conversation. If you have additional, please help me grow a comprehensive list. Thanks to those who have provided suggestions, some of which I’ve added.

1. Buyers are more in control of the B2B buying process than ever before.
2. For buyers, all sellers look and sound alike. Products and services appear undifferentiated. Therefore, the way we sell is a critical area of differentiation and value add.
3. The Internet changes everything, by providing instant access to virtually unlimited information.
4. This requires new ways of thinking about marketing and sales, as well as new processes, skills, resources and investments.
5. “It’s not about the bike!” It takes more than technology to achieve outcomes, especially strategy, skills, process and content.
6. Content is the new currency for marketing and sales.
7. The goal of content marketing is to provide the right person with the right content in the right media at the right moment in time. That requires a new approach to content.
8. Content must help customers with their buying process by addressing their questions and issues, which are not addressed by vendor product features and functions.
9. Content must be relevant, remarkable, timely and convenient to be appreciated by buyers who are inundated with information and have limited time and attention.
10. Content must meet and optimize 10 new criteria:
    

    
    Quality — Useful, insight based
    Speed — Time to create, timely, NOW, real-time, constant stream, people time
    Cost – Time effort dollars, resource skill level required, lower costs, manage costs, efficiency, impact of scale on
    Relevance: Context, personal, situational, versions
    Availability – Coverage based on use case requirements
    Channels and Formats — Channels, consumer preferences, multimedia content
    Foreign languages – Localization
    Scale – Volume; critical mass (for relevance, versions, formats, purposes and use cases)
    Share & Re-use – Re-purpose, edit, configure, package
    Maintain – Update, extend useful life of assets, design to

This 3 minute video will further explain these new marketing and selling truisms: