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Surprise: ‘You don’t have to lie or be rude to sell,’ says BKLYN Commons founder

Plus more nuggets of sales wisdom from the first-annual Brooklyn Marketing Week.

(Left to right) Anthony Gallegos, Tiffany Ashitey, Kishshana Palmer, Tasha Morris, Jack Srour and Paul Evseroff after their panel discussion at Brooklyn Marketing Week. (Photo by Grant Engle)

Tiffany Ashitey and Tasha Morris, founders of Benchmark Creative Group, kept hearing about the complicated relationship smaller companies had with marketing. So they decided to launch Brooklyn Marketing Week.
“Working with small companies and entrepreneurs, they often say “I need marketing, but…” and then they say they don’t have the time, money or resources,” Ashitey said. “So, we thought these workshops could help them see there are still important things that could be done within their budget and time constraints.”
Ashitey and Morris are Brooklyn natives, so alongside living and working in the area, they said they feel a bit of a responsibility to help push the borough’s entrepreneurial culture forward.
“We called this event ‘Brooklyn Marketing Week’ to show we’re not going to move to the city to throw a big event,” Morris said. “It’s about what’s going on here.”
On a balmy evening next to Prospect Park last week, in a back room at coworking space BKLYN Commons, Thursday’s gathering seemed like less of a networking event and more of a group of friends from the neighborhood coming together to share stories, catch up and help each other’s businesses grow. Below, find our main takeaways from the event.

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The theme of the night was “Deal or No Deal: Creating and Closing the Sale,” and a group of around 50-60 people packed into BKLYN Commons’ artsy, industrial workspace to hear some sales-focused wisdom.
The panel featured a diverse cast with unique backgrounds, who each shared their experiences as sales professionals in highly-competitive industries.

Kishshana Palmer, CEO of Kishshana & Co.

Experience: Palmer’s consulting firm assists nonprofit organizations with several different administrative needs, including fundraising, vetting and selecting board members, operational design and more.
Sales advice: “Be a resource for people. Maybe they aren’t a good fit to buy from you right now, but if you help them find what they want, they’ll remember you later when you are a good fit for something else they need.”

Paul Evseroff, director of business development at WNBC 4

Experience: Evseroff sells advertising to companies of all sizes for WNBC/Channel 4.
Sales advice: “I tell people that we’re here to be an extension of your salesforce. We can help you meet your goals and that helps build trust.”

Jack Srour, president of BKLYN Commons

Experience: Srour is a real estate developer who entered the coworking space business with the opening of BKLYN Commons in early 2016.
Sales advice: “You don’t have to lie or be rude to sell. It’s a common misconception. Sales can be mutually beneficial and it should be. It’s about two sides helping each other achieve something.”

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Ashitey and Morris are already planning Brooklyn Marketing Week 2017.
After what they estimate to be around 24 consecutive hours of sleep after their Herculean effort to put on this year’s festivities, they plan to be back on the vision board finding local entrepreneurs and enterprising interesting topics for new workshops.
And they’re doing it for their city.
“Brooklyn is slept on,” Morris said. “Things have been happening here for a while, and let’s see if Manhattan really catches on. It’s going to be a good 2017 for technology and entrepreneurs in Brooklyn.”
 

Series: Brooklyn
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