We are implementing best practice - in other words you want to look like your competition and not out innovate them
Timothy "Tim" Hughes 提姆·休斯 L.ISP
Should have Played Quidditch for England
Yesterday I was in a meeting with a?CRO, the head of sales for a very large?US?company with a salesforce of over and 1,000 and he said?
"we are implementing best practice"
He said it in all seriousness, I spat my?tea?out.?
Peter Drucker famously said:?“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not turbulence itself, but to act with yesterday’s logic”.?
What's the one fundamental thing you need to do in business?
When I first moved into?sales, I was allocated to three sales people as their bag carrier.?These salespeople were the new business team, the rest of the sales team sold to existing clients.?
On the first day, I said to them,?"what is it we need to do?"?and the advice was?"we need to be different",?they went onto say,?"we have to out innovate the competition".
It's something I deeply believe in.
For me, it's the number one thing we do here at?DLA Ignite, we out innovated our competition and they fell by the wayside.?We did not use "best practice" and fall into line with the rest of the industry.?
Why the push to best practice?
The term "best practice" is?management consultant?speak.?When I moved in to sales, I sold?accounting?systems, we have a fancy name of?ERP.?It was still an accounting system.
With the software, we sold "best practice" implementations and people bought into it.
It was strange,?companies are ruthlessly competitive, but we sold them a set of process that made them the same as their?competition.?Nobody seemed to realise that being the same as the competition means there is no?competitive advantage.
Best practice means, you haven't taken the time to be faster, quicker, providing a better service at a lower cost.?It means you are the same as the rest.
Maybe it is something you need to implement in the back office, but in the customer facing departments, surely you need to provide the best customer service at the lowest cost.?
Best practice means you are willing to allow your product to be a commodity.?That you are will to fight your competition on price, which will lower your margins and slowly strangle your business.
Or, of course, you can innovate, differentiate and win!
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
1. How many leads / meetings / conversations will I get from this post / blog / activity?
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.?
Here at?DLA Ignite, we work with our partners such as?Crux,?Little Bird Marketing,?Funnel Amplified,?Accelery,?EDPE Consultants, etc. We are the only social selling and influence company in the world to offer a certificate 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!
Great article Timothy (Tim) Hughes 提姆·休斯
Monopoly, Charades, and Rummikub -- dominating family game nights for 30 years and counting
2 年Best practice suggests there’s no room for improvement. But we know there’s always room to improve. Great insight, Timothy (Tim) Hughes 提姆·休斯 !
Save Ferris!
2 年The very nature of the concept of "best practice" is following the herd. I believe James Goldsmith who once said "by the time you see a bandwagon it's too late."
?? Slay your revenue dragon as your NERDY self ?? Unleash your inner social selling HERO ?? JOIN our fantasy-inspired community ?? Head to the featured section BELOW ?? or CLICK Visit My Store??
2 年These are just buzzwords to most companies, sad that they will be the ones that are left behind by companies that truly embrace digital first principles Timothy
Digital Commercial Strategist - Developing people and organisations to become leaders in their sectors - TedX Speaker - Keynote speaker, event host/compere/moderator - Artist
2 年Its time to sop messing about in the margins and make a lasting improvement to our working practices and results.