How Expensify Builds Sales Without a Sales Force: Can You Do the Same?

From Social Media Today


The growth of expense reporting software companyExpensify was built on more than the features of its product.

The company creates advocacy among employees within customer companies to influence those responsible for procurement. This activation, along with responsive support — via email, online videos fromGrovo and multiple webinars each week — supplants the need for a traditional sales organization.

In this conversation, Jason Mills of Expensify and I take a deep dive into the company's non-traditional marketing approach.

Among the subjects we explore are:

• Creating advocacy within companies by focusing on those who spend the most time using the product
• Being responsive to the needs of those who procure and administer the product once the internal conversation leads to product interest by "those at the top"
• Whether there is a revolution starting in the way IT products are sold to enterprises
• If your company considers support a cost center, perhaps you are doing it wrong
• The right training assets can serve both as content marketing to drive sales and support tools
• Creating unique support assets for each targeted constituency — such as administrators andusers

We shouldn't forget that social starts in the real world, while social channels, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+, are just proxies for genuine, personal interaction.