Using social selling to compel your prospective clients to change from your competitor and buy your stuff
Timothy "Tim" Hughes 提姆·休斯 L.ISP
Should have Played Quidditch for England
Why change?
Often you will come across?a client that needs to?change?what they are doing to buy your product or service.?
They will either need to swap out what they are doing,?software?for software or they need to implement new?processes, either way they have to change.?Change is hard.
It feels strange.?The first thing you want to do is move it back to where you were before.?This is what happens with all change.?
Change is hard, we resist it, then if we go through with the change, we go back to do what we did before.
Selling change in accounts with?social selling
Prospects and clients are not compelled to do anything to change and certainly that?slide deck?you have internally that talks about your capability and credentials is the same as every other vendors.?It will get you a 1 : 1 draw, not a 1 : nil win.?You must compel your prospective clients to change.
But the client is?dissatisfied
Having an unhappy client of the competitive product?you are trying to replace isn't enough,?we have all "put up" with products and services over time, partly because the effort to move is too much.?
You need to answer the question?"why change now?"?and that debate isn't about feature and functions.?
The three things you need
The three things you need are
1. A buyer-centric profile?- In our social selling and influence course we teach and coach you on how to have a social profile that buyers will "walk towards", people will want to connect to you.?Below I explain how a business got a $2.6 million deal just by having a great profile, as you can see, well worth the investment.
2. A digital network?- You need to be connected to the accounts you want to sell to and influence.
3. You need to look like an expert who can help?- The final thing is you need content.?Not brochures, nobody cares and?research?shows that nobody comes to social to read brochures.?Content creates conversations it also shows that you are an expert.?In our social selling and influence course we will show you how to use content as a way to prospect in multiple or single accounts.?
How do we do this ourselves?
In our social selling and influence course and coaching we take the information in our heads and pass it to you.?We don't do this by endless powerpoints and hints and tips sessions which are usually more about the individual and how great they are.?We work with you, in teams and as individuals to coach you.
We follow this process ourselves, come and look at your profiles of the?DLA Ignite?team,?Eric,?Adam,?Nick,?Vanessa,?Lorena,?Priscilla,?Lenwood,?Alex.
We use the techniques above to sell change into accounts.?
Now Imagine .....
Imagine, I pick you up tomorrow in my?car?and drive you to a place which is full of your prospects and customers.?All you have to do is go up and have a conversations with them.
Remember, social media is, social media.?In the past you interrupted somebody with a cold call or an email and pitched your services.?As social media is being social on media, interrupting and pitching does not work.
If I walked up to you at a social event and pitched, you would make your excuses and go and talk to somebody else.?
So how about tomorrow, I pick you up in my car and we go to a place where all your prospects are hanging out.?You can stay as long as you want.?All you have to do is have a conversation with them.?It's that simple, if you are interested, read 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,?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!
Should you outsource your social media?
Articles for social procurement
Articles for the CFO and Finance
?
Bridging Academia and Industry for Sustainable Growth | Digital Transformation & Digital Literacy | AI Advisor | Global Speaker |
2 年Competition is for losers. It's much better to identify markets where one is substantially better than any existing competition
Developing people and organisations to become leaders in their sectors - Digital Commercial Strategist, Sales trainer - TedX Speaker / Coach - Keynote speaker, event host/compere/moderator - Artist
2 年Resistance to change and unwillingness to evolve has resulted in many a vacant office and 'To Let' signs on corporate HQs.