social selling — Social Centered Selling

How Content Curation Makes You a Smarter Social Seller with Stephen Walsh

September 20, 2017 by Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

In this episode, my guest is Stephen Walsh, CEO of AndersPink. We focused our discussion on the art of content curation. You probably already know that part of your social selling strategy includes using content to connect and engage with new buyers. Contrary to what many “experts” tell you though, you don’t have to create your own content. If you are able to do that at some point great but when you are first starting out, it just isn’t that easy. Your job is to sell, right? Plus, not everyone has the time, inclination or talent to write blog posts. There are other ways to create content like recording audio tips, hosting webinars, etc. but that takes time too. That’s why I like this topic. You can learn to curate content like a boss in ways that help you to engage with buyers and positions you as a thought leader in your field.

Stephen and I discussed:

What content curation is and what it has to do with social selling.

Why sharing other people’s content is a good idea. Learn how it helps you.

Learn tips for finding great content fast without losing your day to the internet.

How you can be more targeted in how/when you share content with more than just the folks in your network.

How you should think about social selling and content curation as a team sport. You don’t necessarily have to do it all on your own.

Finally, we talked about the FANTASTIC new ebook that Stephen and his team put out on this topic. More than theory, this is a “boots on the ground” field guide you will reference again and again. I’ve already read it twice! You’ll find specific strategies that you can put into practical application right now to improve your results when curating and sharing content.

Enjoy the interview!

About Stephen:

Stephen Walsh is the CEO and CoFounder of AndersPink. Stephen is passionate about helping sales teams stay smart, share better content, grow their business and keep learning every day. He’s has worked in learning, sales, and marketing for over 20 years. He co-founded Kineo, an elearning company, ran sales and marketing and grew it to a $20m business before selling it. He’s a co-founder of BuzzSumo, a leading content discovery tool and of Anders Pink, a new tool to help social sellers with content curation. He’s written 2 books on learning and selling and is a regular blogger and speaker.

Connect info: twitter: @stephentwalsh LinkedIn m: [email protected] w: website

Sales Messaging and the Sales Experience

August 18, 2017 by Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

“The greatest inhibitor to sales effectiveness is the inability to communicate a value message.” – SiriusDecisions

Sales organizations make huge investments in hiring salespeople, getting them upskilled and productive quickly, implementing sales enablement and technology solutions, but when it comes to focusing on the quality of activities that create the sales experience from the very first touch point onward, there is a gap. A pretty big one. I’m talking about the sales message that is delivered either through email or phone calls.

Automation has made it easy to crank out large numbers of emails each day, and often this is where salespeople start when they are pursuing their target list of buyers. Probably for a very obvious reason. Someone ignoring your email feels less like personal rejection than when making the phone calls. Still, most sales leaders tend to have a KPI (key performance indicator) that measures the number of phone calls made, in addition to the number of emails sent. And, I’ll just say right now that I think the focus on these two measurements as sales performance indicators is off base. Here’s why.

What does it matter if I call 100 people each day if this activity doesn’t result in a higher percentage of booked sales meetings? The answer is pretty simple. It doesn’t make sense.

If you are a salesperson who knows your sales performance is largely measured on calls made and emails sent, you’ll likely do whatever you have to do to hit those numbers. You may have checked the KPI boxes, but what you end up with is a lot of activity that wasn’t very effective.

On Dave Kurlan’s Blog, Understanding the Sales Force, I read a recent post of his that makes it clear that salespeople are having a difficult time bypassing gatekeepers and getting to the decision makers. His research indicates that when salespeople do not begin with procurement, they can only get through the gatekeepers to decision makers 13% of the time. But Dave filtered his research data even further to focus on salespeople brand new to sales and that percentage drops to 1%. Though it isn’t the subject of today’s post, ponder for a moment that many of the salespeople hired for Sales Development or Business Development Roles are brand new to selling. They are expected to reach decision makers and set up the appointment for the account executive, but they get through to the targeted person 1% of the time.

When salespeople are making all those dials and sending all those emails, why aren’t sales leaders evaluating more carefully when the activity isn’t converting to actual sales conversations. Though I don’t have hard research data to back it up, my observations suggest that what happens is that sales reps are just asked to do more. Doing more of the same, however, isn’t going to lead to a better outcome. In Cracking the Sales Management Code, authors Jason Jordon and Michelle Vazzana tell us that “success is no longer found in making enough sales calls to reach your quota. That is a trial and error marathon that you may or may not win. Success is now found in making the right sales calls to achieve the right Sales Objectives to reach your quota – a quicker and more predictable path to the winner’s circle.”

The big problem isn’t the activity itself. Instead, it is the quality of the activity. Poorly conceived subject lines. Messages that do not contain an ounce of value for the target buyer. Messages that include gimmicks to get attention. Sales emails and phone calls more often than not are sender oriented, and usually, include a mix of look how great we are and a laundry list of features. Survey after survey confirms that buyers say these messages do not engage them. Rather than standing out, the salesperson’s message goes in the delete pile with everyone else’s. But, the cycle of poorly constructed sales messaging rages on.

Throughout the course of the sales experience lifecycle, many things can go wrong but if you can’t even get on first base, where do you go? What salespeople say in the first interaction with a potential buyer is critical to moving from touch to sales conversation. Maybe it’s time to stop wasting the opportunity!

Tune Up Your Social Selling Strategy

July 26, 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.

Should Salespeople Create Their Own Content?

May 30, 2017 by Barbara Giamanco 1 Comment

You’ve probably heard that content is king (I say queen). Content is the way to start wooing your prospects in advance of sales opportunities. Every conversation related to social selling includes a focus on using content to boost your credibility as a thought leader in your field. I don’t disagree with that premise. Buyers are doing early stage research, and the use of content that is relevant and educational can certainly work to your advantage. Buyers turn a deaf ear to the pitch, but they do pay attention when what you do, say and share makes it clear to them that you understand what is important to them.

The right content used strategically at the right time definitely, helps you stand apart from your competitors. But the big question is – should salespeople be the ones creating their content?

Many in the social selling space will insist that the answer is yes. Others say, absolutely not. After all, isn’t that marketing’s job? Me? I say it depends on your personal situation.

When you think about how to use content as part of your sales process, there are three ways you can approach it:

Share the content of others.
Share the content your marketing team produces.
Create your own.

Let’s talk about each one.

Share the Content of Others

This can work to your advantage PROVIDED the content is relevant to your audience and offers them specific insights that can help them improve their business. This assumes something really important – you have to know what your buyer cares about.

Some investigative work is required. Your marketing department may have done buyer persona work you can use, and you can use social media to do your validation about what your targeted buyers are interested in. How? Ask yourself these questions about your target buyers:

-What content do they share on LinkedIn? Not just the topics, but the medium. Do they tend to share more articles or it is video or podcasts?

-What content topics do they comment on? Could be in tweets, LinkedIn status updates or on posts others are publishing.

-Who are the LinkedIn influencers they follow?

-Do they publish LinkedIn posts? If so, what topics do they write about?

-Who do they follow on Twitter and what kind of content do they share there? Is it business, more personal or a little of both?

- What about groups they have joined on LinkedIn, what types of questions do they answer or like?

The point is that online social behavior will provide clues to help you determine how to structure your thinking around the type of content to share. Then you can study your industry to determine who produces content that you believe your customers and potential customers will find of real benefit. Could be top bloggers, publications like Forbes, Harvard Business Review or Inc. Magazine. If you are appealing to folks in the sales world, perhaps you are sharing daily doses of content from Top Sales World. Might be a well-respected publication in your specific industry.

Will this take a little sweat equity to figure out and plan for? Yes. But, honestly, it isn’t too much and if your end game is to secure opportunities to have a sales conversation with buyers, well then, put in the effort.

Share Company Produced Content

Now that you’ve done the digging and have a good idea of what content will appeal to your prospective buyer, you can match those interests to the content your marketing team has worked hard to create. I’m thinking white papers, research reports, informative blog posts, interviews with industry leaders, etc. Be careful, though. If the content isn’t much more than dressed up sales pitches, I’d rethink how much company produced content you share. If the content is simply pitching products or services, that will turn buyers off.

Make a point to share relevant content once a day through the network of your choice. The platform where your prospective buyers are most likely to see it. Add a comment before sharing to bring attention to why your buyer should read the article. Tell them what you believe will be valuable to them.

Posting once a day doesn’t take a lot of time. What it requires though is knowing where the content is so that you get to it easily. Could be your company’s LinkedIn page, a content sharing portal that your marketing team has created and so on.

Produce Your Own Content

This one is tricky because there are only so many hours in the day. The main job of those of us in sales is to, well, you know, sell. The zealots will insist that no matter what, you have to make time to create content. Well, I don’t know about that. If you have a family you go home to that includes a spouse and kids; I’m not sure how much they’d appreciate you getting right to work on content once they finally have time with you. Okay, sure, you can get up an hour earlier. Maybe stay up after the kiddos have gone to bed. The point is you have to figure out what rhythm you can commit yourself to in this area.

If you don’t have a lot of experience creating content, it won’t be quite as easy as some experts would have you believe. You’ll need a content plan that includes topics, what type of content you will create, and where and how you’ll distribute the content. Questions have to be answered. If you blindly jump in, you will likely flounder and feel frustrated.

I know a few folks in the social selling space who INSIST salespeople WRITE their own content. I vehemently disagree! This is just another example of trying to force a one-size-fits-all approach onto everyone.

First, you must like writing. It isn’t easy.

Second, the goal is to create content that backs up your professional brand promise, demonstrates your expertise, and paints a picture of how you think and what working with you might be like. You want your words to lead buyers to think – hey, I want to talk to that person, I think they can help us.

Third, you need to do it well. I’ve read some of the most poorly written posts on LinkedIn ever. Words missing, capitalizing every word in a sentence, grammar way off, run on sentences and the like. Same goes for blog posts. Everyone makes mistakes but it is clear that some folks are writing stream of consciousness and don’t go back to edit themselves. Did I say that the content is representing you? If it looks like you are unable to string a few sentences together coherently, what message are you communicating to a potential buyer?

Writing is only one way to create content. There are many great ways to create content that is yours and here are 17 ideas to get those juices flowing. Maybe it is a presentation you create. How about conducting podcast interviews. What about a webinar you host with a panel of leaders in your industry that you invite prospects to attend, which you record and repurpose later. You might like creating short little video clips.

What I’m saying is that you need to figure out what you are most comfortable creating on your own and start there.

About that original question.

The answer isn’t yes or no. Most things are not black and white.

The answer is that salespeople need a content strategy that works for them. That much is true, and I believe it will be a mashup of the three approaches I shared in this post. It is probably a mix of 70% (other), 20% (company), and 10% (yours) in the beginning. You have to determine for yourself what will work best for you. Don’t listen to anyone insisting it has to be one way – as in you must write your own content - just because they said so. This is about your brand – not theirs! Never forget that!

Status Quo is Your Biggest Competitor

January 29, 2017 by Barbara Giamanco 1 Comment

When CEB reported that 57% of the buyer’s journey was happening without the engagement of sales, it led to the mistaken assumption that sales had no role in the early part of the buying decision. Similarly, when SiriusDecisions reported that 67% of the buyer’s decision-making journey happens digitally, once again the assumption was that sales had no role in the process. Yes, buyers do leverage online tools to do their early stage due diligence and research when they believe they have a business problem that needs addressing. How that became translated into buyers never talk to sellers at that stage is interesting.

I never viewed either of these statistics as something to be afraid of, instead, I saw it as an opportunity for salespeople to find ways to be out in plain sight when buyers were in that early education and research phase. How to engage buyers online whether through content or direct interaction has been the subject of many of my blog posts and that of many others in the sales profession. When it comes to improving sales pipeline or what to do to move deals along to close, what isn’t talked about enough is that your most challenging competitor is the status quo.

Planning for status quo.

Status quo is Latin for existing state. Typically when buyers decide to maintain the status quo, they are often resistant to the risk associated with doing something differently than they do today. If your deals are stalling out because buyers do nothing and stick with the status quo, one reason this is happening is that the risk they associate with making a major change to a new solution was not mitigated. That’s where you have an opportunity to help them. If the perceived risk of making a change is greater than staying with what they’ve got, you won’t close the business. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you will help buyers assuage their fears with data to back you up, which then positions you more strongly for moving a sales opportunity along to close.

Let’s talk about ROI.

A key theme that emerged from Demand Gen’s 2016 B2B Buyer’s Survey Report was the subject of ROI. That’s an important hurdle that salespeople have to help buyers get over. Overwhelmingly respondents said they are feeling the pressure of financial scrutiny from corporate. And when asked how their purchase process had changed over the past year, the survey revealed that 61% said they “conduct a more detailed ROI analysis before making a final decision.” Now that company leadership has increased scrutiny on the financial side to justify purchase decisions; it is easy to see why buyers proceed with caution.

More decision makers also increase the odds of status quo winning.

Another contributing factor to overcoming status quo is the number of decision makers now involved in buying decisions. This new reality is especially true if you are selling into a complex B2B environment. CEB has said their research indicates that 6.8 people are involved in the decision-making process these days. I would say that those numbers are conservative because there are far more people inside an organization who have influence into the ultimate decision than you may realize. The stakeholders involved in these buying decisions are in a variety of roles, work in multiple geographies or regions, each with a unique perspective on the challenges and pains that a particular business problem may be causing. They also have their unique opinion on what will be the right solution to correct the situation.

There is good news.

The challenges of beating your toughest competitor in any deal situation – status quo – provides an opportunity for salespeople who understand this challenge and plan for ways to overcome it.

In Demand Gen’s Report, there were four top reasons why buyers ultimately choose a winning vendor. They are:

98% – Timeliness of a vendor’s response to inquiries

97% – Demonstrated a stronger knowledge of the solution area and business landscape

94% – Demonstrated a stronger knowledge of our company and its needs

90% – Provided content that made it easier to show ROI and build a business case for purchase

Notice that these buyers didn’t say, we choose a winning vendor because of their product pitch! The salespeople who “ditch the pitch” and focus on demonstrating their consultative business value to buyers have a greater shot at kicking status quo out the door to win deals more often.

The Disconnect Between Social Media Spend and Business Impact

October 6, 2016 by Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

With spend on social media channels expected to increase to a 20.9 percent share of marketing budgets in the next five years, according to a recent CMO Survey, the big question is if that spend investment is translating into an increase in overall business performance? The answer appears to be not so much. In a C-Suite Study conducted by IBM, they reported that almost half of Chief Marketing Officers feel that they – and their teams – still aren’t fully prepared to meet the challenges of operating in social media channels.

If CMO’s aren’t feeling that their teams are fully prepared to deliver on corporate objectives, what could be getting in the way?

There is no clearly defined social media strategy that aligns with core business objectives. With no formalized social media strategy in place, you leave your social media teams flying solo without a clear connection back to overall corporate business goals. In the Harvard Business Review article, Fix Your Social Media Strategy by Taking It Back to Basics, they mention that a Google search provides 140 million results for “social media marketing tips,” but no matter how many headlines promise it, there is no one-size-fits-all social media strategy. Tips, instead of a clearly defined strategy, won’t cut it if you want to see real results.Though the marketing team may be taking the lead on the creation of the social media strategy, the company’s social media efforts need to impact sales opportunities and revenue also. Don’t leave this important business strategy to marketing alone.

There is a gap between social media activity and business performance. It is important to link your sales and marketing goals to social media KPIs. Buzz, clicks, likes and followers are good initial gauges of social media marketing success, but long-term success requires that you go much deeper. Ultimately, social media activity needs to demonstrate how the effort led to improvement in revenue outcomes, either in qualified leads to nurture, new customer acquisition or retention.

The team doesn’t have the right balance of expertise. Don’t assume that young 20 something is the right person to drive your social media strategy. They may understand the inner workings of Twitter or Snapchat, but that doesn’t mean they understand how to apply social activity to core business objectives. Make sure your team includes people who understand the technology and have solid business experience. You need both!

All data sources are not being integrated. Be sure that you’ve built a plan that includes the seamless integration of social media data with other types of customer information, such as the data that comes from sales, purchasing, social media, and other communication channels. Though you might be able to source potential sales leads via Twitter, how is that information then integrated back into marketing’s lead nurture process or the sales CRM system for follow-up and tracking?

Lack of cross-functional skill and leadership stymies success. Today’s marketing leaders must be adept at traditional marketing strategies, and they also need to be proficient in the use and understanding of how new technologies impact their efforts. I believe this applies to sales leaders as well. Reaching buyers through the traditional avenues of phone calls (rarely answered) and emails (often ignored) mean that everyone in sales is using the appropriate social media channels to engage buyers in advance of clearly defined sales opportunities.

Investing in social media marketing and social selling strategies is important and must continue. Buyer behavior is the key factor driving the importance of engaging prospects and customers on multiple channels. To justify that investment, though, also means that your social media/social selling strategy goes beyond the surface indicators of success and aligns to key business drivers like new customer acquisition, revenue growth, and customer retention.

3 Reasons to Use Video in Selling

April 23, 2016 by Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

Incorporating video into our social selling content mix makes sense on many levels, although I’m the first to admit that I didn’t do much with video until last year. Prior to that I was involved in several Google hangouts that were recorded, which I shared with my network, but I really didn’t get more serious about creating video content that I could use in a more intentional way.

I had my reasons for not making video content creation more of a priority. One of those reasons was most certainly ego. Not a big fan of how I look on video, I used that as an excuse not to get going. Perhaps that true for you too?

Finally, I got over myself.

My colleague and good friend, Doug Lehman (@douglehman on Twitter) has been in the Video Brand Ambassador game longer than most. A very early evangelist and practitioner, Doug has honed his craft and now works with clients to pull together video content that helps salespeople best represent their personal brand and topic expertise.

Watch a series that Doug and I created together called the Sales Accelerators. Sales Accelerators Video Series Watch for more videos coming soon.

Naturally, when thinking about writing this post, I wanted to interview Doug to get his take on the role that video content plays in sales and social selling. But before I turn you loose on part 1 of the interview, here are 3 reasons that Doug shared with me regarding why salespeople need to get involved:

-Use video to educate, demonstrate your credibility and expertise, provide social proof and promote your products and services. When buyers are doing their solutions research, they turn to video for quick, informative answers to their questions.

-Reduce travel costs and other expenses. Unlike back in the day, sales interactions don’t always happen face-to-face, which explains the rapid growth of video technology being used in sales and marketing and incorporated into CRM processes.

-A sales video can be used as follow up after a sales call or meeting. Guaranteed to be more engaging than a static follow-up email.

Bonus reason: Video is great for capturing user-generated content (UGC), referrals and testimonials that build on the social proof that buyers consider during the decision making process.

Now, let’s hear from Doug.

BG: How important is the use of video in selling today?

DL: I think video is important today but will more important tomorrow. Today, buyers and customers do their own research and look for immediate answers. Using video to educate, train and promote your products and service is powerful. Most buyers would rather watch a one to two minute video versus spending time reading a full text column or whitepaper. Video is not a substitute for face-to-face meetings, but it is the next best thing to being there.

Video itself can expedite the sales cycle. We now live in the age of information at your fingertips with buyers and customers researching solutions online and using mobile devices to access quick answers to their questions. Simply put your buyers are influenced by video and sales and marketing needs to be using video to their advantage. The rapid growth of video technology in sales, marketing and CRM is on the rise and demonstrates how important video is to your content strategy. Just look at all the new video technology providers. The simple fact is that your potential customers are using video to evaluate people, products, services and companies. Proactive engagement is paramount.

From a sales point of view, video that is compelling and engaging with the correct call to action will assist increasing revenue and expanding exposure and reach. Video works well with email, which is still a very popular form of communication. Cut through the email noise that customers and prospects receive daily, capture their attention and improve your click-through rates.

Leveraging video can reduce travel costs and other sales expenses. Video helps accelerate the sales cycle on all levels. Educational, explainer videos, product-training videos will provide buyers with more clarity about what you offer, but these videos also demonstrate advanced credibility and social proof about your capabilities. It has direct impact on the buyer’s journey. Leveraging video content for lead generation with educational and explainer videos will allow for customer clarity in answering questions in the buyer’s discovery and evaluation phase. Your customer will be further along in their decision process and closer to making a purchase decision. Video can shorter the sales cycle time for complex and transactional sales.

Video works well in post sales meeting follow up. Leveraging user-generated content, referrals and testimonials can be extremely powerful as buyers look to peers from recommendations. A simple sales video follow up after a call or meeting speaks volumes. It will stand out and personalize the sales process.

From a research point of view, video is a great tool. As salespeople, we can look for trigger points and reasons to engage with buyers. Though we call it social listening, why not perform social watching. Look at your customers videos and SEE what they are talking about in a more personalized format.

Finally, customer advocacy, repeat business, referrals, references and testimonials are powerful for influencing customers. Authentic Video Marketing resonates well with customers at the highest engagement level.

BG: What are the top 3 ways to get started?

DL: Before you get started, your first order of business is establishing your plan. Watch other video examples. Replicate and test out those concepts. Spend some time evaluating what works in the business world. Do your own research by looking at video production agencies. Use YouTube as a training research tool watch videos to get your planning down.

Start with a small video project first and get comfortable. Produce shorter videos with tips and simple calls to action (CTA’s). Rehearse your project and practice before live video shooting commences. If you have someone that is more comfortable on camera, let them do the first video project or start with having your customers do a video testimonial.

Be natural and authentic and let your personality shine through. You want viewers to connect with you, which happens when your video is focused on something that is of value to the buyer. If you just make your video a sales pitch, you’ve wasted an opportunity. User generation content goes a long way too. Encourage your current customers to film a short-clip talking about why they decided to buy from you and what they liked about the process.

Using pictures for slideshows or screen casts are another way to get started. Interview style videos, live streaming and panel video chats like Skype, Google Hangout, Blab or Skype are great video tools to get started. The more experience you have on camera the better. The key to starting video is to start small, build and practice.

Breaking it down…in Lehman’s terms, as Doug would say.

By now, I hope you can see that video is a compelling way for you, as a salesperson, to stand apart from your competitors. Don’t keep waiting. It’s time to get started!

Find part 2, where you’ll learn about common video mistakes, the best platforms to host your videos and how to build your audience, here.

Make sure you connect with Doug. Talk to him about his services. He can help you get over the getting started hurdles. Reach Doug at:

Website
LinkedIn
Twitter
YouTube
Social Selling Video

Create Winning Sales Experiences

November 29, 2015 by Barbara Giamanco 1 Comment

Access to decision makers is tough. An IDC study reported that inundated with data and sales pitches, buyers return only 10.5% of phone calls and 9% of emails from new vendors. Yet, pressured by management KPI’s, every day salespeople use the same tactics – cold calls and cold emails – in an effort to convince a prospective customer to agree to a sales meeting.

Activity is NOT the same as effectiveness.

Using technology to cast a wider net has given rise to the delusion that if you just broadcast your message to more people you are bound to land more meetings. If sales people expect to make quota, they need to remember that it’s all a numbers game, right? Wrong. The theory that simply increasing the number of “people” you contact means you’ll get more business is outdated. Buyer expectations have changed.

In IDC’s Social Buying Meets Social Selling whitepaper they concluded that “While time is scarce, trust and confidence can be even rarer. Buyers making high-impact decisions will gravitate toward methods that make confidence building easier.”

Spray and pray selling isn’t going to instill confidence in a buyer any time soon.

Spamcasting the same email message to 100, 500 or 1,000 people is not an effective prospecting strategy. Moreover, you put yourself at serious risk of creating a negative impression in the mind of your potential customer. Competition is stiff and buyers have choices. If your goal is to fill the pipeline with qualified leads and secure sales meetings, you need a different strategy.

Two things need to change:

Sales approach
Message

Chasing anyone with a pulse is a costly waste of time and energy.

Though it may seem counter intuitive, you actually have a higher likelihood of securing meetings and closing deals more quickly when you focus your attention on a targeted list of decision makers to pursue.

Now that you’ve narrowed your focus, it is time to personalize your message. The Internet and social media in particular, is full of insights that can help craft a message that is relevant to the buyer you’ve targeted. That means you need to do some homework prior to crafting your message, and yes, it does take more time but aren’t positive results worth the effort?

Don’t fall into the 90% of communications that are deleted without a second thought.

Follow these tips:

It is not about you. Prospects don’t care about your company history, the latest infusion of VC cash or the fact that you won an industry award. Tell them what is in it for them!
Create a compelling subject line that captures interest.
Keep the message brief and to the point.
Check your facts. If you sell services to staffing agencies then be sure you are emailing staffing companies.
Stop asking people to visit your website to learn more. Lazy and presumes your buyer has the time to do your sales job.
Make sure the customer examples you use are relevant. Don’t tout examples of enterprise organizations if you are emailing a small business.
Provide the social proof and include specific metrics that clearly show how results were achieved by the companies you are referencing.
Don’t try to be a comedian. One email I received said that perhaps one of the reasons I didn’t get back to him is because a file cabinet fell on me and I couldn’t reach the keyboard to contact him. Delete.

Buyers expect more.

They want to work with people who can help them solve their business challenges. Order takers aren’t needed or wanted.

When you earn the right to a 30-minute meeting, use your time wisely. Don’t pitch. Focus on bringing insights to the meeting that will benefit the buyer in some way. It could be information on the latest industry trends or data related to their competitors.

Ask great questions to guide the sales conversation.

Why should my target buyer care about what I offer?
What happens to their business if they do nothing?
Why should they trust me versus my competitors?
How are their peers solving the same challenges they face now?
What expertise will I need to move this ahead to a successful win?
What do I need to know about their competition or their industry?
How do I gain their commitment? What’s really important to them?

The sellers who succeed are those that swim in the blue ocean. Let your competitors continue to do what they’ve always done. Let them pitch features and fight it out on price.

CEI discovered when they surveyed decision makers that 86% said that they would pay more for a great customer experience but felt that only 1% actually delivered.

Creating a sales experience that sets you apart from everyone else is your competitive advantage. Go make it happen!

Sales Blunder #1: Selling Features Not Value

September 8, 2014 by Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

In the early days of my sales career, I was taught to sell features and benefits. Later, Solution Selling, Consultative Selling, Precision Questions, Spin Selling and other sales methodologies like them espoused the importance of asking the right questions to understand buyer pain in order to sell your solution.

For there to be pain, a problem had to be identified. Once identified, you then draw the correlation between the buyer’s pain and how your product or service is the buyer’s cure. Taking it further, if you are doing your job well, you also have to break through the inertia of what is likely your toughest competitor – the status quo. Your prospect may have identified a problem that is causing them business pain, but is the pain acute or chronic? In other words, is the pain something that they’ve lived with long enough that they will continue to allow it to go on, OR has the problem become so acutely painful that they absolutely must make a change?

Recently, I’ve had conversations with Judy Mod and Matt Rosenhaft, Principals at Social Gastronomy. They work with technology companies to overcome what they call the “buyer adoption” problem. Turns out that companies are getting in their own way. They very often hinder the buying process rather than further it along. In an April 2014 blog post, Chuck Carey had this to say, “Buyers measure success based on how well you resolved their problem, not how well you met their expectations.”

When it comes to problems, there are two things happening.

1. Your prospect thinks they have identified a business problem that they need to fix. Is it the right problem? Are you sure?

Doubtful that your buyer is sure. According to Matt and Judy, the challenge sellers (and marketers) face is that it is darn difficult for internal teams to all agree on what the acute problem is much less agree on how to fix it. As with so many things in life, most folks simply focus their attention on symptoms without delving deeper into the root cause of the pain the organization suffers from.

I think of countless sales situations I’ve found myself in where the buyer tells me the problem is X, and after I ask more questions, I find out that on surface X looks to be correct, but the deeper digging uncovered something more revealing.

In one sales meeting, the buyer tells me that the “problem” is that their salespeople are having trouble getting access to decision makers. They reached out to me thinking that social selling was the way to go. Maybe. During the conversation, the buyer assured me that once a salesperson secured the meeting, they “always closed the deal”. When I hear that, I’m suspicious. I don’t care how good a salesperson you are, you never win them all. Curious, I ask them to tell me the percentage ratio of meetings to closed deals. Guess what. They can’t. Why? Because by their own admission, their salespeople are notoriously bad about entering sales opportunities and communication into their CRM system. They just don’t do it most of the time. If there is very little data regarding the sales pipeline and funnel progression stages, how do they know salespeople always close the deal? The discussion went on from there but you get the idea. They were not close to being clear about the real problem.

2. Do you know what problem your solution solves and can you clearly articulate that message?

Given how many sales presentations I’ve listened to, I’d say that the answer is no. If you, as the salesperson, don’t know what problem your solution solves, do you really think your prospect can simply connect the random dots and figure it out on their own? When it comes to marketing and selling your products and services, your potential customers DO NOT CARE about the process of how you get things done. Nor do they really care about the technical details. Sure, if it is a technology solution the IT guys might, but that comes later. In the initial stages of determining what product or service to purchase, your prospect cares about one thing - finding the right solution to solve their problem.

Forget the Features

I cannot say this enough. Though I know this is sooooo difficult for sellers to hear. They’ve been brainwashed to think that buyers make decisions based on features. They don’t.

Consider this basic recipe:

1. Understand the problem your solution solves. If you can’t speak to that, you’re sunk.

2. Get to the core of the problem that the buyer you are talking with needs to solve.

3. Determine if there is a match.

4. If so, help the buyer connect the dots by mapping your solution to their problem. Again, it isn’t the features that will win the deal!

The feature dance leads nowhere, and if you keep selling that way, you’ll be dancing all alone! That sounds kinda lonely to me.

You Got My Attention

March 26, 2014 by Barbara Giamanco 11 Comments

Or did you?

What you really did is interrupt me. I don’t know who you are, but you think you are special enough that I’ll stop everything just to meet with you, talk to you or respond to you.

You don’t really care if the initiative that I am responsible for rolling out is a success. You certainly don’t care about what is at stake if I fail. All you care about is getting your sale.

Even if I meet with you, you hear nothing that I say. Actually, I didn’t have much chance to say anything, because you can’t stop talking about how great you, your product and your company are.

You know absolutely nothing about my business. What’s worse, it is obvious you haven’t even bothered to try to find out what’s important to me. That’s insulting. There’s this thing called the Internet and social networks. You may have heard of them. Do you use them? Don’t think so. All you care about is getting your sale.

You think all you need to do to bond with me is to ask a few outdated questions like “what keeps you up at night”. If you really want to know what keeps me up at night, I’ll tell you. It’s you.

In your desperation to sell me something, you are not thinking about the bigger problems that I am facing. Revenue keeps declining, leads are drying up, my sales people don’t follow up on the leads that marketing gives them, or they waste time with people not qualified to buy from us. Senior management is on my back, and I may not have a job in 6-months if I don’t find a way to stop the bleeding. I know we need more than a quick fix but that’s what you are peddling.

Even if your product or service fixes one part of the problem, how do you help me solve the rest of it? I know, I know. That’s not really your job is it? I think it should be.

You should care, but you don’t. You’ll protest, of course. You’ll say that you do care, but we both know that you just want the sale.

I know you complain about me. You whine to your buddies that I just don’t get it. You think it’s rude not to return your phone call or answer your email. You can’t fathom that the reason for my silence is that you’ve said nothing that tells me you are different. You are as bland, selfish, lazy and vanilla as every other sales person who approaches me. It soothes your ego to point the finger at me and proclaim it is my fault. You believe that if I just took the meeting, sat through your demo and listened to your company story, I’d understand.

The problem is that YOU don’t understand.

You refuse to listen to me. You can’t accept that everything you thought you knew is useless now. I want something more from you. You need to tell me something that I don’t already know; otherwise, what’s the point?

I don’t need sales people. I need trusted advisors. People that I can count on to tell me the truth, present fresh ideas, look at the problem holistically, work seamlessly with other providers and challenge me to think differently.

When the day comes that what keeps YOU UP AT NIGHT is that I might lose my job if what you sell me doesn’t work out, that’s when I will know it is time to welcome you with open arms.

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