The fundamental problem with "hints and tips" and "masterclass" training
Timothy "Tim" Hughes 提姆·休斯 L.ISP
Should have Played Quidditch for England
I often see posts and?adverts ?for?"hints and tips"?or?"masterclass "?training, and as you would expect it's positioned as being the answer to your problem.
Take?social selling ?for example, I often see?"attend this 2 hour hints and tips webinar and all your questions will be resolved".?Really?
It's tempting, after all, what can I lose?
The fundamental shortcoming in the way that people are trained, especially with any?PowerPoint? only training.?For example, 2 hours of training from somebody just giving you?PowerPoint ?over PowerPoint is going to pretty tasking on you the?student .?Firstly to pay attention.
The other problem is that the trainer will make that look easy?"use this inmail and I got $1 million deal"?they might say and that sounds easy,?"I can do that"?you might say.
Problem is, you get home and you will find you cannot.
People are scared of?social ?as they don't want to do the wrong thing
The other issue with?"hints and tips"?training is that it does what it says on the tin.?It gives you hints and tips, it does not get over the fundamental problem that most people are scared to use social.
Now the trainer may have been on social for years, so for them it's?"easy", for you, not so much.
For a team to get over this they need empowering, hints and tips are useless.
All of the training we do here at?DLA Ignite ?has?
1. Social training?- All sessions have exercises which means people can learn in a group, listening to other people's suggestions and examples.
2. Confidential coaching?- We have always found, since we started 7 years ago that it's in the coaching sessions where we see the most advancement of the students.?
It's worth saying that if you are trying to train a person on something factual, "hints and tips" and "masterclass" training is fine.?The thing is, social selling requires a change in people and you cannot train "change" by PowerPoint after PowerPoint.?
It's not all about the algorithm
We often have people coming to us asking us to give them the secrets of the?algorithm .
It comes as a surprise to people that the algorithm has nothing to do with it,?if you are doing the right things the algorithm will take care of themselves.?
Social selling is NOT about a tool, it's about the way you are social
It was?Grady Booch ?the American software engineer who said
No amount of sales teach is going to help, if you sales team don't understand how to be social and how to walk digital corridors.
Social is about conversations
Want a constant stream of leads??- How about I pick you up in my car tomorrow and?I drive you to a place where I know all your prospects and customers are hanging out???Sounds great doesn’t it??All you have to do is go up to them and have a conversation.
No need to pitch, in fact, people hate that.?Just have natural everyday conversations.?You can stay as long as you like, the more conversations you have, the more leads you get.?
The tool is?LinkedIn .?The best tool for anybody who wants to build authority, influence, trust, and get a constant stream of leads, is?LinkedIn .?
Social is about digital dominance
Now imagine, walking into a?conference ?where your prospects and customers are.
Each of your prospects and your customers are talking, laughing and joking with somebody,?is it a salesperson from your team or is it a competitor?
Imagine how you will feel if they are talking to a competitor??
This is what is happening on social media everyday, brands have the choice to continue to ignore these conversations, keep slapping people with brochures (employee advocacy) or empower their teams to have conversations on social and walk the digital corridors.
Our clients understand?“digital dominance”?so they suck all the oxygen out of everybody else’s conversations all you will be able to hear is them.?So when they walk onto social and digital, they know that the prospects and customers are talking to their sales teams and their sales teams alone.
You always talk to the person in a line at?Starbucks
Have you noticed that when you stand in line at a?coffee shop ?or for many things, how you start having a conversation with the people in front or behind you??This is what being social is about.?Not pitching and hitting me with brochures.
Talking and being social is natural to use as humans.
What is social selling?
Here at?DLA Ignite , we define social selling as
"Using your presence and behavior on Social Media to build influence,
make connections, grow relationships and trust, which leads to
conversation and commercial interaction."
It's not?witchcraft , it's?enabling your salespeople to work from?home , (or the?office ) and create conversations with prospects and customers.?Conversations on social media and conversations that convert.?
The problem with the name "social selling" is that people think that this is selling on social.?All these pitches that you get on social are not social selling, they are?spam .
The other thing you need to know about?social selling?is that this isn't about "putting out some videos" or "putting flowers on your profile" or "going viral" this?is about?revenue ,?EBITDA , you winning business from the competition and having a competitive advantage.?
With anything you do on social there are two questions you need to ask
2. How much revenue / EBITDA am I getting as a business?
So who's social selling?
In case you missed it, the?Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch ?have?banned cold calling ?and have moved all their people to?social selling . This isn't some trendy tech company that might have decided to do this on a whim, this is a very conservative financial services company that has made a decision based on data.
But surely cold calling has a better ROI than social selling??Not according to Merrill Lynch.
"They will also be encouraged to contact prospects over LinkedIn, which has a higher hit rate than cold calling"
The?CRO ?(chief revenue officer),?Richard Eltham ?of?Namos Solutions , of one of clients posted a comment on LinkedIn about?social selling . See?here .
“Social selling is not an option now it is the way of the world and you either learn and execute it or fear getting left behind”?
Kevin Murray ?who is the Head of Sales at?MacArtney ?Underwater Technology recently posted about his success with social selling?here ?and wrote an article about the transformation that has happened in sales?here .
Andrew Ferrier ?who is the?CEO? of?Display Technology ?Ltd and in this?article ?it talks about why?Display Technology ?have adopted social selling.?His team have also created a social media strategy with help from our partner,?Crux .
Their social media mission statement is
“We want to position ourselves as a forward-thinking, knowledgeable team of individuals who are all experts in our own right, therefore, collectively awesome!”
Andrew also says in that post
"Adopting this (social selling) strategy has taken all of us well outside of our comfort zones but the rewards we have seen in a short period of time have created an excitement within the business development team (new term for sales team).
Because of the nature of social media, quite often you can get instant results.?Even if that is just a comment left on your post, or a like, or someone taking the time to want to connect with you.
The excitement around the sales team is infectious, it’s no longer a chore to reach out to the market place?because the results can be instant and are there, right in front of you."
What sort of results can you expect?
If you check out this?video ?of?Chris Mason ?CEO at?Oracle ?reseller?Namos , fast forward to 19 minutes 55 seconds. Chris talks about a?$2.6 million win from being on social, after completing the?DLA Ignite ?social selling and influence course.?
What happened??They buyer was on social media looking for a solution to their problem, spotted one of the Namos salespeople, who had a buyer-centric profile and asked if the salesperson could help them.?That turned into a $2.6 million deal.?
Contact any of the?DLA Ignite ?team,?Eric ,?Adam ,?Nick ,?Vanessa ,?Lorena ,?Brentney, ?Priscilla ,?Lenwood ,?Alex ?and they will be more than happy to help.
Go and look at their?LinkedIn ?profiles .... look how they can have digital conversations, create insightful content.?This could be your company!?
We are the only social selling and influence company in the world to offer a certificate in social selling provided by an independent qualification body (OfQual ) and sponsored by the?Institute of Sales Professionals ?(ISP).
Other articles you might be interested in ....
Articles for the CEO
Articles for Sales leadership
领英推荐
Can programmatic social selling sort my pipeline issues?
Articles to support sales people - sales process and sales tips
Can I use prospect sequencing with social selling?
Articles to support channel and third party selling
Articles to support Account Based Marketing / Account Based Selling - ABM - ABS
Articles about Employee advocacy
Articles for Marketing
Our VP of Sales Just got 83 likes on a LinkedIn post, so that means we are social selling? No!
Senior Service Delivery Leader
2 年Yes, the number of Masterclasses where the person is not a master never ceases to surprise me
Visionary R&D Professional | Expert in Digital Transformation & Digital Literacy | Global Speaker | Bridging Academia and Industry for Sustainable Growth
2 年Great article Timothy (Tim) Hughes 提姆·休斯 Social selling is the art of building connections
Socia Perú. Marketing y comunicaciones para firmas de abogados, desde la mirada de abogados y la experiencia de los clientes.
2 年OmG, I read this and feel so identified Timothy (Tim) Hughes 提姆·休斯. Have never believed in shortcuts and receipes for success. If you want or need to be (active) social, to get results, conversations, clients, revenues, you have to learn, practice, internalise, the formemost, to live this. And, the highlight: keep your team with you in that trip. ??
Monopoly, Charades, and Rummikub -- dominating family game nights for 30 years and counting
2 年Great advice, Timothy (Tim) Hughes 提姆·休斯! Hints and tips aren't going to get you anything. When you learn a new skill, it's challenging at first. But once you get it, it continues to deliver. In the case of strategic social selling, it delivers more leads the more you do it. It's remarkable!
Member of Camara Internacional da Indústria de Transportes (CIT) at The International Transportation Industry Chamber
2 年Nice one Timothy (Tim) Hughes 提姆·休斯