Have we lost the art of conversation in sales?
Timothy "Tim" Hughes 提姆·休斯 L.ISP
Should have Played Quidditch for England
Many years ago before the?internet,?there were things like?"free?newspapers"?and the?yellow pages, I'm not going to describe what they are, but?they provided a massive service to the world of?sales.
Products like these were run on?advertising?and there were teams after teams of people selling advertising on the phone.?There was no?text messaging, no?whatsapp, no?social media, sales people?HAD to use the?phone?to call people up.?We had a conversation.
Let's remember, what you and I sell in the world of B2B needs a conversation, so conversations create sales.
You may know here at?DLA Ignite, as a business we focus on one thing, which is being the best at social selling and social transformation.?
We don't want to be a?"full service agency"?for us that is?"Jack of all trades, master of none"?which is a figure of speech used in reference to a person who has dabbled in many skills, rather than gaining expertise by focusing on one.?We want to focus on the one set of key skills, being digital.
Anyway, my business partner,?Adam Gray?got called up by an old friend and was asked to do a piece of work, which was to teach a sales team how to have conversations.?It's not something we usually do, but as it was an old friend we helped out.
Maybe you know a sales team like this.?They get a meeting and turn up and pitch.?Then the client says no and sales blame "marketing" for rubbish leads.
Now there is a physiological condition in all of us humans called "persuasion reactance", which the internet defines as ...
"Persuasion Resistance is a natural defense against pressure. Reactance?occurs when a prospect senses that someone is trying to compel them to do something; they automatically resist and attempt to move away from the conversation."
In other words, when you pitch at me, my natural reaction as a human is to push back against it.?
Think about when somebody cold calls you, send you a spam email, tries to pressurise you into something, we hate it and push back.
What Adam did was explain to the salespeople how to go into a meeting with somebody you don't know and how you can control the conversations so they actually?ask you?what you do.?Then not pitching, but outlining the business issues you solve, so the other person actually asks for more information.
Maybe the art of conversation is not lost in sales entirely.?
Now Imagine .....
How about if I said,?I can take you to a place where all your prospects hang out, would you go?
I can pick you up in the?car?tomorrow and you can hang out there, having conversations with them.
When you arrived, what would you do?
Grab a?coffee?and go up to the first one and start a conversation??Of course you would.
Or would you walk in and say?"buy my stuff, because we are great".?Of course you wouldn't, as somebody would call security.
That's the difference.?Selling on social is ...... social.?You have conversations with people.
You don't go up to people and pitch to them as people will call security.
The great thing about social is that there is no "prime selling time (PST)", you can have as many conversations as you want.?One of my customers, does his prospecting between putting the kids to bed and when he goes to bed.
It's time to bring your demand generation into the second decade of the 21st century and it's time to?"start fishing where the fish are"?...... on social.?
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".?Here at?DLA Ignite, engagement is important but we are about driving?revenue,?EBITDA, for your business using social media.?This is about you winning business from the competition and having a competitive advantage.?
Social is about having a strategy and there are two key drivers
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?
Posting and hoping or posting random stuff is not a strategy, in fact I doubt it's driving anything for your 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, and?DLA Ignite?customer, 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,?Vanessa,?Lorena,?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 sponsored by the?Institute of Sales Professionals?(ISP).
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Our VP of Sales Just got 83 likes on a LinkedIn post, so that means we are social selling? No!
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2 年Timothy (Tim) Hughes 提姆·休斯 Lenwood M. Ross pitches will running in future by automated language creators and probably decided by Al:ml evolutionary model is evolving But in the other side would love understand more on b2 b selling especially product saas segment
At my core, I am a teacher. I'm great at the middle of conversations. I'm not as athletic as I remember being.
2 年"... not pitching..." If you're not pitching, is it really Sales Timothy? ??