Does Your Social Selling Approach Need a Tune Up?

July 14, 2017 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

When I began evangelizing social selling as early as 2006, the majority of sales executives just didn’t see how using tools like LinkedIn would make a real difference in terms of reaching buyers and generating leads. But as buyer behavior and expectations began to change, now not a day passes that you don’t hear about why you need to be social selling. If you are still fence sitting, either your target customer isn’t using social networking platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter actively, or you haven’t fully grasped how to incorporate social selling strategies into your sales process in a way that drives sales results.

Many salespeople come to me frustrated that their online efforts don’t seem to be panning out, and that can certainly be happening for several reasons, which I’ve highlighted below.

Unrealistic expectations. One glaring reason why sellers struggle is because they mistakenly believe that using social channels helps to short-cut the sales process. That’s not true at all. Like every other aspect of selling, work is involved. It takes time to develop a relationship and earn someone’s trust. That’s true online and off. And if you have no plan, are not following a specific social engagement routine and measuring the results, it will be hard to justify the effort you are putting in. When done right, the rewards make the investment in time worth it!

Sales messaging. Being on the receiving end of sales pitches myself, I can tell you that most sales messaging is just plain awful. Email and phone messages are rarely constructed from the buyer’s point of view. In other words, buyers have business problems they trying to solve, so your feature focused product pitch falls on deaf ears.

As the old saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a good first impression. You have one shot at that first moment of engagement. Make it count. Do your homework. It isn’t the number of emails you send or phone calls you make that lead to that net sales return you want; it is the quality of the message and approach that matters.

Quality versus Quantity. Feeling the pressure to hit revenue goals, sales managers insist that sellers do more when leads are light in the sales opportunity pipeline. Make more cold calls. Send more emails. Connect with more people. Just – do – more. More of the wrong activity, however, isn’t going to lead to the right result. If all you focus on is the activity – more feature dumps, more demo’s, more calls, more emails… nothing will change if the activity provides zero value for the buyer. Buyers are looking for business people who can help them solve business problems. If you can’t do that, it will never matter how much hustle you put into it. When you understand the buyer’s pain points, their decision-making process, and can articulate the type of quantifiable value you bring to them, that’s when they will give you a shot.

Go Where Your Buyers Are. This suggestion falls into the category of stating the obvious. Go where your buyer is likely to be. Choosing the proper social media platform is paramount. Otherwise, you’ll waste time spinning your wheels and become frustrated. Your goal is to build an integrity-based relationship that over time may lead to a sale. But first things first. You must fish where the fish are, and as I said earlier, it is possible that your target buyer isn’t as active online. That means you’ll need to explore other ways to try and capture their attention. My strategy includes a mashup of things like speaking at events or on webinars, in-person networking, podcast interviews, facilitating buyer peer-peer networking lunches, writing articles, making the outbound phone calls and more.

Content Not Relevant. Content is a big part of social selling. The worst thing you can do is to push content out there randomly that isn’t consistent with what your target buyer will find valuable. That means you need to understand what they care about or the challenges they likely face. Therefore, creating your plan is important. It will help you determine whom you sell too and what is important to them. Things like trends in their industry, competitive pressures, their company’s strategic priorities, the financial health of the organization and more. It isn’t difficult to find that information and armed with that knowledge you can share the right kind of content to demonstrate that you get what your target buyer cares about.

Lack of Follow Up. Here are two statistics that may surprise you: 1) Per industry estimates, between 40 to 50 percent of all inbound sales leads are never followed up. Wait. What? Close to half of inbound leads are left to die on the vine? 2) The average salesperson only follows up two times on every lead. How can you expect to be successful in sales if you don’t put more effort than that into your follow up? Calling or emailing a prospect “just to check in” or asking for “an update” on prior interactions is not effective follow up. Your mission as a salesperson is to provide value at every stage of the buying cycle.

Summing it Up. Salespeople need to continually evolve and adapt their approach to serve the voice of the customer. The most successful and forward-thinking sales representatives will use social media as part of their sales process to connect with buyers, develop relationships, demonstrate their credibility and increase their odds of getting buyers to take notice.

However, social selling isn’t a cure-all for your sales challenges. It is a set of tactics that combined with other sales strategies can help to improve the quality of your lead generation efforts and the size and quality of your opportunity pipeline. These tactics aren’t the only thing you’ll do to be successful in reaching your quota goals though, but engaging online is simply part of today’s selling playbook!

Like this post? Please share with your networks. And if you missed my Selling in the Age of the Customer webinar, you can watch it on demand HERE.

Your Lead Generation Strategy Isn’t One Size Fits All

February 22, 2017 By Barbara Giamanco 2 Comments

Over the past ten years, we have witnessed a shift in how sales and marketing teams approach how they engage buyers when buyers quite often block their traditional efforts via phone and email. The use of social channels have become popular mediums, especially during the past five years, to try and reach buyers in new ways.

There is no one way to drive your pipeline and revenue.

In some ways, I think the pendulum has swung too far. Using content as one way to attract buyers into a conversation with you should be part of your marketing and sales strategy, but it doesn’t replace other activities that are part of the acquisition of new customers. Outbound phone calls, emails, in-person visits, online Skype meetings, presentations, referrals, and networking. These things all matter, regardless what you hear from the social selling fanatics. You need a balanced approach to generating leads, and if you are in sales, that means picking up the damn phone too, as my colleague Joanne Black would say. If you think sharing content is all it takes, come performance review time, you’ll be in trouble. Social selling isn’t some stand-alone methodology that done on its own generates leads. Far from it. If that were the case, 50% of salespeople wouldn’t keep missing quota, and lead generation wouldn’t top the list of challenges most companies are struggling to overcome. Frankly, it’s all just sales! The integration of social into the selling process is a part of the process; it is not THE only thing you can rely on to make your numbers.

Lead generation remains a top priority for most organizations.

68% of B2B companies are still struggling with lead generation. -CSO Insights

From the conversations I have with sales and marketing leaders, building a strong pipeline from effective lead generation is a top issue. This challenge has led to the outgrowth of a multitude of strategies and new technologies designed to help companies improve their lead generation effectiveness.

In addition to direct outreach to prospective customers, content has become the “hot” approach to driving leads through inbound inquiries. As with social selling, the inbound crowd has crowed for years that inbound is all you need. Except for one thing. It is a lie. Even companies like Hubspot, who coined the term and made it their mantra, put in place an inside sales team that does outbound – wait for it – cold calls.

Buyers do use content as part of their buying and decision-making process.

51% of B2B buyers rely more on content to research and make B2B purchasing decisions than they did a year ago. – DemandGen Report – 2016 Content Preferences Survey

Yes, buyers are using content to aid them in decision-making, and I would argue that they are becoming increased overwhelmed with the sheer volume of content out there for them to sift through.

Companies are producing all types of content. Videos, interactive presentations, analyst reports, infographics, blog posts, eBooks, webinars, white papers and more. But which type of content is the most effective? In DemandGen Report’s 2016 Content Preferences Survey, they found that white papers were the most effective at 82%, webinars came in at 78% and in third place was case studies at 73%. That doesn’t mean that eBooks (67%) and blog posts (66%) aren’t effective. They are, but they rank 4^th and 5^th respectively. The only reason that I bring this up, which might seem obvious, is because it is the right kind of content, as part of an overall integrated lead generation strategy that makes a difference in getting buyers to pay attention to your message.

Forgot what’s hot today and gone tomorrow. Fancy names mean nothing.

Account based selling (or marketing), in my opinion, is simply another example of an old strategy dressed up with a new name and definition. It’s catchy, and proponents tout it as the best way to improve your lead generation strategy.

I pulled this definition from a KnowledgeTree blog post – “Account Based Selling is a B2B sales model that uses an account-based approach, rather than a lead-based or contact based approach, to predict which companies are ready and likely to buy. Under this model, sales teams focus on a set of highly-targeted, high-value accounts with the goal to convert them to customers. To do so successfully requires talking to the right people, at the right time, with the right content and messaging.” With all due respect to my friends at KnowledgeTree, how is this different than the way successful sales teams have always sold?

Maybe I’m just old-school. I have always started with a targeted list of companies I want to hire me. I then look for opportunities to build relationships or secure introductions to the key decision makers. And, when has it not been about talking to the right people, at the right time, with the right message? Did I miss something these past 25+ years selling?

There is no one way. Accept it.

Much as I wish I could tell you there was an easy fix to a tough problem, there is no one way to solve the lead generation challenges that plague your sales organization. Don’t believe anyone who tries to convince you that there is. Nothing related to sales and marketing these days is easy. It is time to ignore the hype, buckle down, create a strategy that you test and refine until you find the one that works best for you. Anything else and your pipeline results will continue to be more of the same.

Your Sales Messaging Needs an Overhaul

February 14, 2017 By Barbara Giamanco 2 Comments

For the last several years, I have spoken and often written about my belief that an overhaul in organizational processes and mindset is long overdue in today’s businesses. Experienced industry leaders and researchers agree. The mountain of evidence is clear – buyers want and expect more from the buying process, whether that is B2B or B2C. They want a seamless, positive experience no matter whom they interact with at your company. That experience, as I’ve written about before, starts with the very first touchpoint, often with a salesperson’s phone call or email, and that’s when things go right, or they go wrong.

Issues affecting sales and marketing effectiveness and financial performance challenges are not solved with the latest social selling (or any sales) training. It will not be solved with the purchase of another piece of technology to force fit into an already burgeoning sales stack. Pipeline and revenue problems are caused by internal systemic issues on a broader scale related to people, process, systems, and accountability.

In the area of sales messaging, whether you deliver that message through phone calls or emails, a transformation is needed in a big way. Time and again, I see sales and marketing teams focusing on something low level that may temporarily relieve some of their sales performance pain points, but makes no real positive gains over time. That includes one-off training to improve prospecting and lead generation efforts. Maybe it is a class on how to improve how your salespeople “pitch.” Alternatively, perhaps it is hiring a trainer to teach you the latest email hacks designed to improve those email open rates. Guess what. Those things are not working! You might write the best email subject line ever that gets the email opened, and, if in the body of the email, you fall back to the vendor centric pitch, does it even matter that your email was opened? You will still be ignored.

Message matters. What does yours say about you?

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