Practicing Marketing & Sales Mindfulness

By Perry Rearick, Chief Editor, Follow Your Buyer

This is not about current pop-mindfulness trends that have us sitting with our feelings and meditating after a yoga session followed by a morning of intermittent fasting. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

To understand what I mean, let’s think of the opposite of mindfulness, mindlessness.

No one wants to admit they do anything mindlessly, so let’s look in the mirror for some help and think about our commute into work today. You have your coffee, maybe the radio is tuned in to a morning drive show, or perhaps you’re listening to a podcast and thinking about all the things you must do today. And presto, you’re at work!

Maybe you work remotely from home, same thing happens. You get up, make your favorite beverage while scrolling and shazam, you get a notice for your first meeting. Where did that hour go?

According to Ellen Langer, a Harvard psychology professor who has written 12 books on the subject over the past 45 years, mindfulness is not about meditation, rather it is:

• Noticing new things in our environment which focuses our attention into the present.
• Creating new understanding rather than relying on rigid assumptions or automatic actions without thought.
• Staying curious and open to multiple perspectives and recognizing that situations can be interpreted in different ways.
• Engaging fully with what is happening, rather than mindlessly operating on autopilot.

There are few things that can use a big dose of mindfulness more than B2B marketing and sales. We first became aware of the real buyer’s journey nearly twenty years ago and yet many businesses still operate like they always have, relying on outdated models of communicating their value and following up with prospects.

And now an even bigger change is under way at a historically fast pace with AI-supported smart technology. New, disruptive developments have probably happened while you were reading this.  

Mindfulness is what we should be embracing rather than that cup of mushroom tea!