I always find it puzzling when people ask me what I do at Incept.
More often than not I feel like I’m a very gray-area kind of guy and I have the ability to change-up my guise depending on if I’m shooting a video, leading a brain storming session in a committee or going back to my roots and recruiting blood donors across America to donate once again. I always mentally refer to my cubical as “the trenches” because quite literally the phone lines can be considered the front lines.
According to the American Red Cross approximately 38,000 units of blood are needed each day and every two seconds someone in the United States needs blood. And even more shocking, while less than 38% of the nation is eligible to donate blood, almost 75% of the population will at least need one blood transfusion in their lifetimes. My role as a Conversational Marketing Expert (CME) isn’t just to come into work, mindlessly punch the time clock and then proceed to zombie along in my calls, but I am the proverbial bridge and human connection between blood centers and their valued, voluntary blood donors. It’s crazy because most of the time I am not even in the same state as the person I call, but they will use the word “you” to not only describe who they are talking with, but the organization they have quite literally gave a part of themselves to. That is when you know you are the link between someone thinking about donating and someone actually committing to do it.
My job is not to cleverly persuade people to donate blood like some sly salesman or to persistently plead and beg for them to donate, but to converse with them to see what I can do to make it as easy and convenient as possible to encourage donors to be continuous lifetime donors. That is what being a Conversational Marketing Expert is all about. Being conversational is really just a small bit of the bigger picture. Anyone can talk, but there is a difference when you can apply your gift of gab in a productive manner. The marketing part really isn’t marketing at all, it is just using information, requests, and things you have heard in your conversations with the donor to tailor not only the conversation you are having with them, but the donor experience as well. Sometimes you can almost hear what a person is saying by listening to what they haven’t said and it takes a very third person mindset to comprehend that while you are actually engaged in a conversation. Finally being an expert really is the bow-tie that holds being a Conversational Marketing Expert together. So you can be conversational and think on your toes, you also can use that quick thinking to make convenient suggestions, but how much of your product or service do you know? For me to be a real Conversational Marketing Expert at Incept, I have to know what I’m talking about and know what impact I can make. That is where being an expert comes in handy. From being at Incept for a year and a half, I not only advocate donating blood and know most current statistics and information on the topic, but even when I’m not working I cannot help, but promote it amongst my own peer’s when the subject comes up.
What it comes down to is, I am someone who believes in what I do. Incept is just the type of company where we all realize our own individual roles make up a greater movement. To me, especially knowing that when I am talking with a blood donor, I’m not asking them to come donate blood, I’m inviting them to save lives in their community. That is something that doesn’t take a phone voice. It doesn’t take overly worked voice inflections either. All it takes is a simple conversation from human-to-human, and I am that connection.
How can having a different perspective on what you do change how you do it?