If you’re a business owner, it’s probably not a stretch to say you could use some help with sales.

A quick Google search for “small business owner sales tips” brings up nearly 700,000,000 results (for comparison’s sake, that’s about 6 times more than “small business owner marketing tips” at roughly 160,000,000).

So yeah. We’ll call that a need.

It’s not a surprise. As a business owner or entrepreneur, you have to wear all the hats, but the two most well-worn are product development and sales.

You have to have a thing to sell, and you have to sell it. Those two tasks take up all of your time.

In fact, on average, business owners spend about 20 hours a week marketing their product or service, and as we’ve pointed out before, most of that marketing consists of outbound sales strategies like traditional advertising or cold calling leads.

That’s an awful lot of time spent on sales strategies that don’t always yield a ton of fruit.

And let’s be honest, you didn’t exactly start your dream business because you’re passionate about cold calling leads all day.

But what if you had a secret weapon?

Imagine you have the revenue to hire a new employee. Not just any employee, mind you. A bona fide sales guru.

This is the type of professional that eats, breathes, and sleeps sales. A rock star. This employee brings leads through the door all day every day.

And good leads, too. Highly-qualified leads that barely take any convincing to convert into clients.

This is a true MVP. “Always-on,” as they say.

So, what would you pay to retain this absolutely essential team member?

Imagine An ‘Always-On’ Sales Team

This employee is exceptional in other ways, too.

First, this employee literally works 24/7 and does not sleep.

This employee doesn’t take off for long lunches, because this employee does not take off for lunch at all.

This employee doesn’t need health benefits, a 401k, doesn’t take sick days, and never goes on vacation.

Even better, you don’t even have to pay them a commission on their sales!

You only have to pay this employee a few hundred bucks a month as a “salary,” and you need to set a couple of meetings with this employee each week. But that’s it.

I think you’re seeing where we’re going with this.

This employee isn’t human.

It’s your blog.

If you’re feeling a little gypped at this point, stick with me for a little while longer, because this actually makes so much sense, you can’t afford to ignore it.

Content Marketing Is Your ‘Always-On’ Sales Team, And You’ve Had It All Along

Your sales efforts are finite.

You only have so much time in a day to focus on sales and time is money.

We mentioned up top that on average most small businesses spend about 20 hours a week on sales and marketing. With that in mind, let’s do a little math…

If, on average, you are spending 20 hours per week on sales, that’s 80 hours per month.

The average annual compensation of a salesperson (base, bonuses, health and retirement, etc) is $62,800 or $30 per hour. Your hour is obviously 10x more valuable than a salesperson’s time but let’s just say your sales hour is worth $50 per hour.

So, if you’re putting 80 hours per month into sales at $50 per hour, then you’re investing $4,000 into your sales efforts every month.

That’s a $4,000 monthly expense for just one salesperson.

But with your blog content, each blog post you publish is a new sales rep.

Imagine bringing on one or two new sales reps every week. By the end of the year, you’d have a sales team of 104 always-on, always-selling sales reps.

If we use our monthly cost number from above, we can then calculate:

104 sales people at a monthly cost of $4,000 per salesperson per month = $416,000 worth of sales effort.

Conversely, let’s say you invest just $600 into blog content every month. That’s $7,200 worth of blog content at the end of the year.

An annual investment of $7,200 gets you a $416,000 sales team?

Seems like a sweet deal.

The best part is you only have to pay them once at the very beginning and they work for you 24/7 after that.

Can you say that about your work ethic? You have to sleep at some point, right? And when you’re sleeping, you’re not selling.

But your blog is.

Your social channels are.

If they’re doing their jobs well, you’ll have new leads in your inbox waiting for you to get out of bed and brew a cup of coffee.

But here’s the kicker…

You Must Invest In A Quality Sales Team

The most important point to consider here is the quality and performance of your sales team. Or, in this case, your content marketing.

What’s it worth to you to bring on a rockstar new salesperson who brings in a bunch of new sales?

Are you willing to invest money in order to receive a quality salesperson?

Or, would you hire a cheap, low-quality salesperson who rarely makes a sale just so you can say you are staying active with your sales efforts?

The same mindset needs to be applied toward investing in your content.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Investing in quality content is like investing in quality sales people – you wouldn’t settle for the cheap option.” quote=”Investing in quality content is like investing in quality sales people – you wouldn’t settle for the cheap option.”]

Investing in cheap, poor-quality content just to stay active on your blog and social channels is like investing in cheap, underperforming sales reps. By the end of the year, you may have 104 salespeople, but none of them are going to close any deals for you!

You need to be investing in a quality sales team in order to make sure your money is working for you while you sleep.

And, don’t forget because this part is essential to business owners, an extremely affordable sales team.

Google returns just over a million results for “inexpensive inbound marketing.” Among the top results are content marketing listicles preaching the gospel of cheap (or free) strategies like blogging, email, and social.

A recent Hubspot survey shows how much cheaper inbound leads are than leads generated from outbound strategies as well. Makes sense, right? When the tactics are free, the leads are way more affordable.

But what about effectiveness?

You invest into quality salespeople because you know they are working to provide an ROI to your business. This is the same thinking when it comes to your blog posts. When can you expect content marketing ROI on that investment?

It takes time, that much is true.

But when you only have to invest a few hours a week, and a few hundred bucks a month at most, how can you afford not to invest when the reward is so dramatically high?

It’s time to change your thinking. It’s time to put down a small investment in making your voice, your knowledge, and your expertise work for your bottom line, bringing in qualified leads with quality content.