With the release of The Job Nobody Dreams Of last month, I was looking for reviews and reached out to Jeff Pearlman, who is a famous NYT best-selling author and someone I follow on Twitter. Figuring it couldn’t hurt to try, I reached out to Jeff and asked if he might check out my book. The fact that he even replied was awesome, but he said he was way too busy. A couple of days later, he reached back out and asked if I would like to be the subject of his weekly newsletter Q&A. Oh, I don’t know…HELL YES I WOULD!!
He sent me a list of questions, and I replied with answers, and the following week I was included in his newsletter which was sent out to tens of thousands of subscribers!
My publisher told me that this is an example of “trading up the chain,” which is a term coined by author Ryan Holiday in his book, Trust Me, I’m Lying. Trading up the chain is a marketing and media concept in which news is broken on small blogs and passed to larger and more influential media outlets successively. The term is normally used in a negative way, but in simple terms it means using something low to help reach a higher level.
And boom! I realized I’ve done this before! In fact, I used this technique to land a big-time sale.
When I started in IT sales and consulting and moved to the platform side of things (I was previously a consumer of the platform), I set my sights on a huge prospect, Learning Tree International. They were the gold standard for IT Training and had locations worldwide. In fact, my previous company actually followed Learning Tree’s lead in adding live video to online computer training.
I started reaching out to C-Level executives and, not surprisingly, didn’t get anywhere. I was new to my job and had no credibility. I did, however, have credibility selling IT training, having landed the Walmart account for Microsoft training a couple of years earlier. I decided I had the knowledge to help someone from Learning Tree sell more Microsoft training and started pinging a few of their salespeople on LinkedIn. I connected with one, shared my strategy, and asked for an introduction to his CEO. I got the introduction and, within a few months, signed them to a long-term contract.
The bottom line, whether you are selling yourself, a book, or some other product or service, there are multiple ways to help get others to share your message.
Happy Selling!