What is an evangelist?

Words are more than vehicles for communicating information. They are also chronicles of history. 

The world evangelist, for example, comes from the late 12th century. Its etymology means, quite literally, "bringer of good news."

Your network of evangelists are zealous advocates for your cause. They share your good news far and wide because they believe in it. 

Because they feel a part of something bigger than themselves.

And if we dig a little deeper into the word’s history, we find something even more interesting. 

One of its beginnings comes from the classical Greek euangelion, which means "the reward of good tidings." 

It’s not just about sharing, but about the rewards that come with doing the work.  

Call upon your bearers of good news 

Nearbound wields the most power when you leverage evangelists—or nodes of trust—from both your internal and external teams. 

As Jay McBain, Chief Analyst at Canalys once said, “We know that the average B2B customer has 28 moments before they make vendor selection, and your company only owns 4.” 

This means there are at least 24 moments in the buyer’s journey where vendors have a shot to gain insight and influence through partnerships. There are external evangelists that can help you gain that trust. 

Logan Lyles explains that to best activate your evangelists, you need to do 5 things:

1. Identify: Find who is closest to your market, and identify who your audience already trusts. Each one of the evangelists you identify has a different view and perspective of the market and a different level of trust with your audience. These people are the ones that will help you influence your deals, so choose wisely. 

2. Evaluate: Now that you have your list of possible candidates, you need to evaluate who’s the most suitable person for the job. This means, who’s willing to help you, who may want to co-create content on a regular basis, and who can help you distribute this content.

3. Activate: Create processes around the following list of questions to best activate your evangelists: 

• How are you going to approach them and pitch them?
• How are you going to set the expectations? 
• Which incentives are you putting in place? 
• What’s the co-creation process? 
• What’s the encouragement and education process?
• 
  

4. Distribute: Once you have your content, don’t keep it to yourself. Your evangelists are not a channel—you have to distribute with them, not through them.

5. Track: There’s no doubt that your leadership team will need the success indicators. Use qualitative and quantitative data to prove that your evangelists are effective. 

Jill Rowley makes a big move into Nearbound

The Queen of social selling has announced that she will be nearbound.com’s Chief Evangelist. Besides being thrilled to work with Jill, this speaks to the larger shift in the market. 

Jill is not a partnership pro. She is a heavy-hitting sales and business leader. And she is #TeamNearbound because she believes wholeheartedly that Nearbound is the only way forward. 

She is joining the ranks of the movement. She is sharing the good news and reaping the benefits.  

Get on this train with Jill and all the cool kids!

Stuff you don’t want to miss!

• September 13, 2 PM EST — Successful Tactics for Product Partnerships — Join Patrick Hu, Head of Product Partnerships at Amazon (New Initiative) and Scott Pollack (CEO at Firneo) as they tackle what it means to develop successful product partnerships today. Register here.
• Apply by September 22nd for Firneo’s Certified 8-WeekCohort — Learn the frameworks and tactics to excel in every facet of your partnerships role. Apply here.
• September 28, 12 PM EST - Game Changers: Isaac Morehouse — Isaac will join Oana Manolache to talk about how to use content creation to define a category. He’ll share the 3 elements to help you build brand awareness, drive pipeline, and unite your team. Register here.

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