HBR is Wrong Again - Social Selling is not the Remedy for Lousy Salespeople
Dave Kurlan
Sales Transformations | Sales Performance Expert | Best-Selling Author | Award-Winning Blogger | Columnist at Top Sales Magazine | Top-Rated Sales Trainer | Top-Rated Speaker | CEO
Recently, the Harvard Business Review Blog ran this story on how social selling will benefit B2B Selling. Really? Aside from the fact that it's old news, the story contained some misleading information!
In November of 2014, following a year of research, I published a comprehensive study - The Modern Science Behind Sales Force Excellence. You can download the free White Paper here. One of the conclusions in the study was that the B2B companies that were having the greatest success were formally engaged in Social Selling. Those companies reported that they were experiencing nearly 40% more qualified leads.
The HBR article says that if companies don't change their outdated thinking and sales models then 1,000,000 salespeople could become obsolete. True. In March of 2015 I wrote that 1,000,000 salespeople would find themselves obsolete - more old news. But the answer to this problem is not where they say it is. The article claims that Social Selling could be the solution. Wrong. Social Selling works at the top of the funnel, before a first conversation has taken place. Social content might be applicable after a first conversation but by then it's too late. It is during the first and subsequent conversations where differentiation takes place and that is exactly where changes in selling strategy, tactics, process and methodology must occur.
Companies with a transactional sale will always be vulnerable and their salespeople are likely to be replaced. The most important thing to understand is that there will always be a several categories of company which will always require salespeople - but they must change in order to remain relevant: Those who require salespeople include, but aren't limited to those:
- Who don't have the lowest price (like Priceline)
- Who aren't the easy, low risk decision (like IBM used to be)
- With a high-ticket, complex sale (like capital equipment)
- With a new company, new product or new technology (with a story to tell)
- Who aren't the recognized brand leader (like Apple)
- Who aren't the the recognized quality leader (like Ritz Carlton)
Companies that meet my criteria above are perpetual underdogs and underdogs must have great salespeople to help change minds. But those salespeople must also have a great milestone-centric sales process that leverages a consultative approach to selling.
I have written extensively on sales process before as well as the adoption of a Consultative Selling approach.
Let's use common sense. Social Selling helps salespeople to be more visible and helps them passively connect with potential customers. If you look at the graph at the top of the article, you will see that of the 1,000,000 salespeople that have been assessed and evaluated by Objective Management Group, 77% of them suck. Social Selling will not overcome the ineffectiveness of that large percentage of the sales population.
I continued this conversation on my Blog, Understanding the Sales Force, where I asked, "Why Do You Think That Harvard Business Review Does This When it Comes to Sales?"
National Account Executive at Performance Food Group
7 年I agree with the premise in your article social selling is not the new way. Stick with the basics. I don't understand why you describe the companies who do not have the lowest price as "Perpetual Underdogs". Why do you call them underdogs?
Australia's leading Authority on selling to the C-suite. Co-developer of "Selling at C Level" training program & author of "Selling at C Level" eBook. Coach, Devil's Advocate, annoyingly opinionated.
7 年Hi Dave, Even though I'm excruciatingly old I'm not averse to social selling, in fact I use it and advise clients on it. But as you say, it initiates the sales process, it doesn't replace it, at least for complex and high value B2B sales. One challenge is that digital marketing and to a lesser extent social selling can initiate contact at the wrong level - that is, too low. If you're trying to sell value at executive level, not that many C level executives are trawling the net looking for solutions. They leave that to the minions. And while minions are important (and small, cute and yellow) you don't want first contact with a target prospect to be with a minion, you want it to be as close to the CEO as possible. Social selling is a tool, as John Smibert says, and a useful one, but it's far from being the only one.
Helping Estate Managers Reduce the cost of Void Space.
7 年Excellent insight - social media selling is frequently promoted by those selling social media sales solutions or by those without the depth of understanding of its place in a complex, solution orientated, sales process. Spot on with regards to "order takers" too, they are the redundant sales managers of the future.
Sales Acceleration & Change Catalyst - Take a true 21st-Century approach to Key/Strategic Account Management, Advanced Complex Sales & B2B Product Marketing | AKAM Board Member, founder of the KAM Club France
8 年Very good article Dave and your white paper on Sales Excellence is a piece of Gold. It reminds us that Excellence cannot come from a "super technique" but only from playing smartly on various levers and in a sustained way. I wrote a post based on this idea compairing the search for Sales Excellence with diamond cutting. https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/what-diamond-cutting-sales-effectiveness-have-common-olivier-riviere?trk=pulse_spock-articles