In 2019 each sales person drove 20,000 miles in a year, now they drive 500 miles, should we change how we sell?
Timothy "Tim" Hughes 提姆·休斯 L.ISP
Should have Played Quidditch for England
We were doing a review with a CEO of a company that has been through our social selling and influence transformation. We asked, him so why did you start reviewing different ways of selling?
and he said
In 2019 each sales person drove 20,000 miles in a year, now they drive 500 miles, that is just one reason why we should change how we sell?
And that is the conundrum.
For all of us, the internet, social media, mobile and Covid has all impacted on our ability to sell and market and even through we know things have changed. We carry on doing the things we did before.
After all, we don't know what we don't know.
How do we get a salesforce that is sitting at home to sell?
Another CEO recently asked me, "my salesforce is sitting at home, the results from cold calling and email have tanked, are you saying that we are able to create conversations with prospects over social media?"
And the answer is "yes".
But there is a caveat.
If you think your sales team can spam their way over social, you will get few results.
If you suddenly think that somehow your sales team will "get" social by reading blogs like this on the internet, it won't happen.
Or you could help that your sales enablement team are going to come up with something, sorry, they haven't so far, so why will they do something now?
How we can help
In our social selling and influence course, we teach sales people how to have a buyer centric profile that people are not only attracted to, they will "walk towards you". There is a great example of this below, where that turned into a $2.6 million deal.
You need to grow your network, stand to reason, if you want to sell to Johnson and Johnson (for example) then you need to be connected to to the relevant people in Johnson and Johnson.
One of the things that people often find difficult to understand, is the impact of content. Content proves that you are an expert, which you are. If you think about the $2.6 million deal, here was an Oracle customer who had a business issue. They went onto to social to see if they could find an answer, they looked at one of our clients LinkedIn profiles, that got them curious and then they saw an article (like this) which proved that this Oracle reseller could solve their problem.
The buyer walked towards the seller and asked "can you help me?".
This is just one of the ways that content (not brochures) will help you salespeople prospect and close deals.
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!
Fractional Marketing Director | Tireless idealist | There’s always a way to get where you want to go
2yGreat analogy Tim and an incredibly thorough set of resources. Thank you for putting this together.
WSJ Best Selling author & founder of QCard, a SaaS platform designed to empower professionals to showcase their expertise, grow their reach, and lead their markets.
2yVery informative, Tim! Being digitally available has become a necessity instead of it being an option - and this has certainly changed a lot of things in the industry. Indeed, only a few results can be driven if they spam their way into the online space. This is why expert opinion is needed.
Digital Commercial Strategist - Developing people and organisations to become leaders in their sectors - TedX Speaker / Coach - Keynote speaker, event host/compere/moderator - Artist
2ySo, saving time, effort, energy and money and being better to the environment….all whilst contributing to growth and improving ebitda….? Must be a catch 🤣
Save Ferris!
2yNo, no need to change how you sell at all...in fact keep travelling 20,000 miles per year and do it by horse because that worked perfectly for my great great great grandfather!