Social Selling is just Selling with the word Social in front of it, that's right isn't it??

Social Selling is just Selling with the word Social in front of it, that's right isn't it??

Going Going Gone, why a Sales strategy is just as important as marketing, and content

Yes, it is newsletter time again but first, Happy New Year to all of you, and thanks for being in my network and subscribed to the newsletter it means a lot.??

Are you ready, well It’s the start of a new year, hopefully you have your plans in place ready to execute and here is to a great year for all of us??

Let’s hope it is up, up and away as the effects of the pandemic slowly dissipate.

This week I wanted to have a think about sales strategy, why because it is super important for your business, but I know many business owners don’t like to SELL, and think selling is a dirty word.?

The problem with this is we all want customers to BUY our stuff, but closing and lead generation is the end game to the content we all create and the marketing we all do.?

Think of it like this, It is the bottom of the funnel activity, and if not done well, it will mean you will have a much higher drop off and loss rate or a smaller close rate from all the work you have put in to filling the funnel in the first place with great social content.

Sure, you can argue that great awareness will lead to referrals and customer interest, and maybe a few bluebirds will fly into your pipeline, but I’m sorry to say that is not really a viable growth strategy.

Now, that said you might be thinking I don’t want a growth strategy; I just need to just keep going and generating enough business to fund my lifestyle.

If that is the case, I concur you don’t need to really plan a strategy for sales.?For those of us that have a sales target or a future sales target of 3m + per year there is no cookie cutter, no one size fits all and sales planning is going to be needed, if you want to get there.

I mention this not because I’m some guru selling coach, and I’m certainly not trying to sell you my super-duper course that will make you a guaranteed millionaire, more that I’ve been there and got it wrong several times, and now have several t-shirts as the saying goes.?

Life does have a nice way of making you repeat until you get it right, so it is the start of the year, so it’s worth having a plan if you are looking for growth in your business of more than a few percent, over the next year. ??

The thing is normal business fundamentals and activity has not really changed the functions are pretty much the same today as they have always been.

What is business, well you either have product or service and you either sell or advise.?Sure this can be broken down into consulting, shipping, installs but these are direct activities of running a business.?

In principle you have a thing and then you sell a thing and then support the thing if it needs supporting.

So, business fundamentals are pretty simple, so what has changed, what is all this noise about social selling, personal brand, authenticity and accountability, I’m sure you’ve heard and seen all the posts and you recognise all the buzz words.?

Well, the thing is, change is happening and that change is the approach we now take to doing business.?

As each generation enters the workspace, and with each generation there is a change in the dynamics in how things get done.?This is usually down to process change tech change and different ideas nothing stays the same.

But the significant change right now is social media, the Gen Z generation have grown up, created businesses and entered the workplace and now the millennials and Gen X’ers like me need to catch up or fade away.

Sure there will be the usual push back and resistance to change but being socially engaged right now within your business is critical.

The channels have changed and if you are not on the right channels then your pipeline might start to look like a bit of a wasteland or tumbleweed town over the next few years.

Sales was once done through boardroom meetings and marketing meant hard copy in the post.?Then email and telesales grew in popularity, and now the best place to be is social.??

Activities like cold calling, email blasting and trifold company brochures even in person trade events are now heading the same way as the dinosaurs, business approach evolves and continues to do so, digital business social and online is now becoming the priority.?

Even the big companies are realising that the power of social and becoming digitally dominant in your sector carries huge benefits for growth and revenue for your business.

You will know that I own MyCRMGroup.com and Mapsimise.com both B2B technology focused offerings, in 2018 our approach and channels for engagement were mainly blog and email blasting.?

As we move into 2022 only 4 years on, our approach as a business will become 95% social and 5% email, why well this is where our audience has moved to.?

We know our current and futures customers are online, on Twitter, YouTube and on LinkedIn we don’t worry too much about Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, but future services that we develop may again need a different strategy for these channels.

Covering social and using social selling skills to your advantage in your business does not mean you have to be on every single social channel.?It does not mean you have to amass a huge following

What it means is you have to have a strategy for Sales, Marketing and Content for the channels you select so that you can drive additional and growth revenue.?

So YES selling what you do is important, having a strategy for build relationships means growth and great revenue, that is the purpose of social.

But what does this all mean when it comes to Location Intelligence, analytics and the data you have as a business.

Well we help you understand where you customers are, how they relate to other businesses and being able to prospect is just one feature, there are many more.?Understanding where to target and where to deploy you sales teams along with where to fine tune your marketing activity counts as part of your strategy.

Sure, the old way would be to buy a list and just email or phone everyone, now with social media you have much more insight, demographics and understanding of engagement with your brand.?

This data can lead to you understand what is popular where and help you build revenue and repeat revenue from customers. ??

Location tools like Mapsimise.com can be used to understand and manage many different data sets, I really can’t write all the options down here, but if you have data and you want to understand it by location then we can help

My Calendar thing is here

Thanks once again for reading, have a great year building your businesses and here is to 2022

?

Alistair

CEO Mapsimise.com ?