First, let me define “you”.
80% of businesses have fewer than 4 or no employees. If you have fewer than 4 employees, I’m talking to you. Even though there are so many VSB‘s, many sales and marketing consultants consider them unworthy because they don’t have enough money to spend. And, they’re right. These businesses have average revenues of $45,000/year. When you contrast that with the $5M average of the top 20%, it’s a ‘no-brainer‘.
So, if you’re one of the 20% that’s got 5 or more employees and your revenues are in the gazillions, I’m not talking to you. I don’t care. Spend all the money you want on marketing, advertising, promotion, PR and while you’re at it, give all your hot shot salespeople a big raise.
I’m talking to the business owners that do it all; that are their business (or most of it); that don’t have huge budgets and are trying to make ends meet. If you are tired, frustrated or tired of being underpaid or under appreciated, I’m talking to you. Look at all the time that you put into marketing. Seriously, is it working? How about inbound marketing? When was the last time somebody called you and said, “I just saw your tweet. Can I buy from you?” Clearly, you have to be on line. Clearly, you don’t want to be a spammer. Clearly, you don’t want to resort to cold calls.
Here’s the secret. If you tell Joe (imaginary ideal prospect) that you’re wonderful, you’re bragging and you’re trying to sell him. He’ll very likely tune you out and you will waste your marketing and sales resources. If Sam respects you as a professional resource and Joe respects Sam as a professional resource and Sam tells Joe how wonderful you are, Joe is much more likely to listen to Sam and he is more likely to listen and buy from you because Sam has paved the way.
How do fire marketing and find your Sams and Joes (and Sallys and Joans)?
RainMakers & Sales Rock Stars 
In less than 5 min, you summed up what takes the top marketers in the world an hour to sum up. Marketing is broken, marketing knows it is broken. As a result, marketing tries to get smarter and uses big words and big data.Sales can fix what is wrong with marketing. Marketing just needs to be smart enough to be quiet long enough to listen. Sorry… here is your soap box back.
Perfect. Like the founder of IMG Worldwide proved, someone else can sell you better than you can sell yourself.