Is your business just spinning its wheels and it seems you are going nowhere?
Timothy "Tim" Hughes 提姆·休斯 L.ISP
Should have Played Quidditch for England
Had a conversation with a CEO this week and she said
"To be honest, the business does not seem to go anywhere, we always do the same things and we always make the same number, but we are not growing organically like we would want."
We often see this in business, companies doing what they have always done, and being OK, but the leadership has a hunger and aspiration to do more.
There are only so many levers in business
In business there are only so many levers to pull, you may do some advertising, some pay-per-click (PPC), some cold calling and you may have an email list and you do this year after year. But let's be honest here if you do the same thing year after year, you will get the same result.
It was Albert Einstein that was supposed to say
Let's do something different this year
If you feel in business you are spinning your wheels, why don't we do something different this year?
I'm not asking you to do anything new or risky, afterall we have been doing this for 7 years.
My ask is you look at out tried and tested social selling and influence program.
Let's walk you through how you can make that difference this year
Let's walk you through a story of how we are evolving companies, from doing all that analog stuff to being digital. Critical to be digital in sales.
Another sales pitch? Nope, we walk you through, case study after case study.
Companies that are seeing a 30% increase in revenue and a 20% reduction in the sales cycle.
Companies tseeing the competitive advantage of being digital when your competition are analog.
Not a one off, but we are going to give you new life skills you will get this year after year.
It's time to step up and energise the team.
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.
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).
Other articles you might be interested in ....
Articles for the CEO
Articles for Sales leadership
Recommended by LinkedIn
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!
Because life’s too short to buy cheap guitars.
3yThese days the challenge being faced requires a different solution rather than just re-running the same (ineffective) response over and over again.
Creating safe spaces to enable individuals and teams to learn, grow and develop. When not doing that cycling, reading and drinking wine...
3yCouldn't agree more Timothy, organisations need to be working differently within the new environment which many find themselves and social should be one avenue they explore seriously..