I need my sales people having more conversations with prospects
Timothy "Tim" Hughes 提姆·休斯 L.ISP
Should have Played Quidditch for England
On a call with a sales leader last week and she said to me
"I need more salespeople having conversations with prospects"
Being a sales leader myself, I understand what it's like to have a great pipeline.
The number one thing you need to focus on is pipeline, why? Because pipeline gives you choices, while you sort all the other problems out.
You must forget the pre-covid ?thinking
Come on, you are new in post, doing what you did 20 years ago is a pathway to a salesperson graveyard.?You need new tried and tested solutions and new tried and tested solutions fast.
Come on, be honest with yourself, you are not going to cold call or spam email your way out of the problems you are in.?
The answer isn't sales teach, why? Because?"a fool with a tool is still a fool" ?you have no idea what the sales team is like, if they are all rubbish,?a tool will just amplify the problem.?They will be rubbish using the tool and you will be fired.?
You need to get you and your team into modern selling
Using modern selling techniques is now the only proven way to get the pipeline levels you need.
I'm not talking about getting a?Linkedin ?trainer in to talk "hints and tips" or so sales guru in to talk "hints and tips".
I'm talking about having a?modern selling?methodology .
For the sales people it will be clear, you do this, you do this, you get results.?Binary process.
Our social selling and influence course and coaching will give you and your team the tools they need to come out of this situation fighting.?Modern, tried and tested methodology that will sort out the other issues as we go along.?
You need measures and governance
The?Board ?will be used to sales leadership fudging the figures,?they will be used to a?CRM ?full of hopes and dreams.?You need to cull that.
You need to qualify your pipeline by running QBRs (quarterly business reviews)
How do you do that??Read this?blog .
The next thing you need is a measurable way to report to the board, using leading indicators.?These are the indicators, BEFORE deals get to the CRM.
It means?you can see which salespeople are contributing, better still, which are not.?
This will give you the measures to take to the Board.?This will blow their mind.
In this article by SBI Research they talking about?"establishing your fact base", I agree 100%, and?the above plan will give you the "air cover"?to do that.
I'll be honest, the modern selling program will sort the sales?"wheat from the chaff".?
SBI also talk about aligning with the?CMO , I agree with that, your modern selling program will do that. It will also sort out any "funny business" that might be going on.?
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).
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Our VP of Sales Just got 83 likes on a LinkedIn post, so that means we are social selling? No!
Solving the motivation problem in employee advocacy | CEO: TOGETHR | Speaker | Podcaster
2 年Spot on Tim. It's the conversations that count not the likes.