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Selling to people has not changed dramatically over the past hundred years. You have a product or service, identify a pool of prospects and then discover how many of them you can help. Sure thats over simplified but when it boils down, those are some of the key components. What has changed a great idea over the past few years is not so much the overall process but the details of how to sell to people.
Most sales people do not have the opportunity to walk into the offices of their prospects, see the awards on the wall, photos on the desk and bag of golf clubs in the corner. These were the details a salesperson would use to break the ice, find some common interests and start a conversation. Without these insights, a salesperson is left to their own devices and would be left with being just another sales guy with a pitch. Get beyond the contact data of someones business card and get to know your prospect as the person and not just a contact in your CRM.
People buy from people. Business is done not necessarily with the company with the best product but more often with the salesperson who has found a connection with their prospect through a shared interest or a referral. In the post on the 8 ways to increase sales we outlined some best practices to follow.
More than 90 percent of executives never respond to cold-call sales or unsolicited emails.
Sales intelligence can identify connections between colleagues within an organization and prospects to reveal opportunities for meaningful sales contact. By arming sales professionals with actionable information from social sources, media outlets, company information and changes in business dynamics they are more likely to trigger sales. Sales professionals can quickly identify relevant connection points and build profitable, trusted relationships with prospects and customers that win more business and drive revenue.
‘It’s like watching an Ancestry.com commercial’
You’ve seen the commercial, a site that starts connecting the dots between you and your family and then builds a map of your entire family tree. It lets you see your connections to people you may never have known existed just by following the trail of connections through out history.
How can that apply to B2B sales?
- What if you could identify connection across multiple social graphs and include people you may not be connected to through a social network?
- How valuable would it be to have social streams from your prospects so you could see the updates, pictures and interactions they share?
- Would it be beneficial to be able to follow these people so anytime they were mentioned in the news or online you would get an alert so you could show you are listening?
Early adopters of People Insights like Network Hardware Resale are already seeing an impact in lead generation, opportunities and revenue.
“Social media mapping is my favorite feature. It’s just so cool. It’s almost like watching that Ancestry.com commercial- it’s like ‘I got a leaf!’ It’s when you find that connection that absolutely breaks you into an account; and once you’ve done that, your energy in looking for more of those connections goes WAY up. That becomes your best lead gen strategy ever. Now you want to have and create personal relationships with people through social media so that you can leverage those relationships.” - Michael Lodato, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing at NHR
Leveraging people insights isn’t just a good idea, it’s the only way you will increase your lead generation and create new opportunities in 2012. As explained in the post 5 ways sales intelligence can increase revenue, research shows that:
- 59% of the best in class companies have leveraged sales intelligence tools to identify or disqualify prospects with more accuracy
- 53% of companies have been able to identify existing customers that have upsell/cross sell opportunities
- 48% of companies have increased the quality of leads intheir pipelines
- 28% use technology to capture and share sales knowledge internally.
- 21% of companies reduce the amount of time doing sales research
For salespeople and sales leaders, understanding how to sell to people not contacts will be the difference between hitting or missing your number.
How a few shifts in your sales process can have a huge impact on sales revenue.
I read a great article on Inc. yesterday on 12 ways to increase sales. The author Geoffrey James pointed out some of the most important things a salesperson or sales manager should do to increase sales in 2012. He hit the nail on the head when it comes to why these 12 ways to increase sales revenue will work, I want to tell you how to do it in 8.
1. Reduce the number of opportunities you pursue. It’s not a numbers game. By focusing your sales energy on fewer opportunities that have a higher chance of closing, you can give these customers more of your time to move the deal along. Leveraging traditional sales drivers and trigger events you are aware of, you will know which prospects have a much higher percentage of closing.
2. Increase the percentage of time you spend selling. There will always be admin work. As a salesperson you may not have the ability to hand your busy work off to others but there are ways that you can still increase your time selling. Most sales people on average spend 10hrs a week researching prospects. By leveraging technology and sales intelligence you can cut that amount of time in half and free up some of that precious time to be talking to prospects and customers and sell more.
3. Stop buying technology because it’s cool.
Stop spending your money on the next shiny object. Invest in technology that is actually going to help you sell. Focus on tools that will provide you
- Trigger events that effect your prospects and customers
- Valuable connections through multiple social networks and existing business relationships
- More personal insights that turn your CRM contacts into people you can relate to and add context around
- Highly targeted and intelligent prospect lists
4. Terminate weak engagements–politely but immediately.
Just as your company should have a solid lead qualification process to identify new opportunities you should spend the time to disqualify deals. A sales team should know what their ideal customer looks like and focus their energy on them. If a prospect doesn’t fit the mold, quit trying to force them into it.
5. Hone your lead generation effort.
Sales people need to understand the art of lead generation is shifting to an online world. Stop waiting for your phone to ring and look for the people you can help in real time. Social networks are a goldmine for the socially savvy sales rep. If you know what you are looking for, finding new opportunities with social media isn’t difficult. For example our sales team found this update on Twitter and jumped in.
What’s a good company database alternative to Hoovers? They don’t seem to want to sell me anything.
— Ross Mayfield (@Ross) January 10, 2012
These types of updates are something your sales team needs to be on the look out for. After 24 hours, Hoovers still has not replied to Ross’s update on Twitter. Listening is key. Leveraging connections and personal insights our sales team was able to connect and help Ross with his business needs.
6. Don’t focus on the gatekeepers.
Understand who the real decision makers are. Get to know them as people instead of the contact that makes decisions at XYZ company. Stay engaged with them during the sales cycle by engaging with them outside of the actual sale. Connect with prospects on social networks and try and help them with other questions they may have and add valuable insights on their industry.
7. Stay on top of your opportunities.
Build a watchlist on your opportunities so you can be fed news and other alerts to things that are changing within their company. Leveraging technology to keep your finger on the pulse of your opportunities will insure that nothing slips by you and you can even stay a step ahead during the sales process.
8. Outflank your competition.
I say it during my speaking engagements: Be different, Be better. Your prospects are getting 100+ emails a day and called as many times a week. This tactic may work some of the time but don’t do what your competitors are doing. Stand apart from them by leveraging your connections to get the introduction, connect with the decision makers on social networks to have more engaged conversations in a medium that they are already spending time in.
It works!
It can be a pain in the rump trying to find a couple of blog posts worth spending your morning reading and jump-starting the week. Literally hundreds and thousands of sales blogs with self-proclaimed “best sales solutions” trying to cram their way into your Twitter feed, Google search results and your existence. Fret no more as I have done the searching for you and found what I deem some great sales blog posts. Take a look and have a phenomenal week.
- The Secret Lesson Hiding in Nucleus Research’s ROI Study – CRM Outsiders
- 5 Steps to Create a Killer Google+ Business Page – BrainSell Blog
- Are You Lost In a B2B Sales Lead Paradox? – Marketo Blog
- New Study Says Customers Think Companies Don’t Give a Damn ABout Their Time…Just Their Money – Brent’s Social CRM Blog
- Customer Relationship Innovation for the Emergent Social Business - Brian Vellmure’s CRM Strategies Blog
- Eight Business Apps That Will Change the Way You Work - Emergence Capital Partners
- How Much Will You Sell in 2012 With Social Media? - Selling Power
- Video: The Biggest Mistakes Sellers Make – Selling to Big Companies
- Data Myth #4: Integration Ensures Cleaner CRM Data – DataMyth
- Three Steps to Develop Yourself – S. Anthony Iannarino; the Sales Blog
You’ve finished your leftover turkey and the Christmas lights are starting to come up (cue Jingle Bell Rock!)…time to relax and look forward to the holidays? Wrong. At least not totally wrong. With the beginning of the holidays comes the end of the 4th Quarter. Like any team in sports, you don’t want that 4th quarter, second half or 9th inning to come down to the wire because it will shave years off your life. Here are 10 great blog posts that will get you ahead of the curve for the end of the year, allowing you to drink that egg nog a little deeper.
- Converting B2B Sales Data into Social Intelligence – Social Media B2B
- Five Ways to Measure If Facebook “Likes” Work for Your Business – Selling Power
- Myth #1: More Data Is Better – DataMyth.com
- 3 Big Data Myths for Enterprises – Smart Data Collective
- CEOs on Sales – What Company Leaders Want from Sales Leaders – The Sales Operations Blog
- Salesperson: Hunter or Farmer? – The New Sales Coach
- Are Your People Selling What They’re Supposed to Sell? – Partners in Excellence
- Social, Content & Selling – a Chief Revenue Officer’s Take – Inside Sales Expert Blog
- Four Keys to a Great 4th Quarter - Salesopedia
- Six Simple, yet Powerful Benioff-isms – The Sales 2.0 Advocate
Any sales reps worth their salt does their homework before contacting a lead. The following best practices can pave the way for highly effective conversations with prospective buyers.
Ignite Smarter Conversations
Once a contact becomes a qualified lead or opportunity, sales needs to know who to reach and how, and what to say to get their attention. It’s no longer just who you know that will make business deals happen, but what you know about who you know, tightly synched with when and where you should know it. After all, according to IDC, IT buyers indicate that ~54% of sales reps are unprepared for their initial customer meetings.
To prep for the meeting, your reps can tap into sales intelligence to pinpoint what’s top of mind for the contact and immediately establish rapport on the call. With access to multiple data sources in a single place, your sales reps will spend less time on research, yet will be more effective on the phone.
A study by CSO Insights shows that even when using CRM:
- It takes sales reps an average of 4 voice mails or emails to get that first, pivotal appointment with a prospect
- They often have to wait 3 to 4 days for a response
- 60% of sales reps waste the equivalent of 6 selling weeks a year just trying to get customers on the phone.
Combined, traditional business information services and social media can help create the best prospect intelligence, enabling sales professionals to sort through potential deals and dealmakers. With insight into companies (for example, M&A activity, new leadership, and major initiatives), contacts (title, email, and phone number), and social profile information or people insights (“I see we have friends in common,” or “We went to the same school,” or “You recently tweeted about X”), your sales reps can start the conversation off right.
The sales reps that take advantage of the intelligence to be found in the online conversation are reaping the rewards. In a study of sales reps within 2,000 companies, the reps that turned to sales intelligence ended up with higher win rates.
How ‘smart’ are the conversations you have with prospects?
Your professional connections can create new opportunities.
To be an effective sales person, it’s best to know how connections you have can get you into new accounts. Instead of relying on more data and names of contacts to call, leveraging intelligence in your sales process can build your pipeline faster. We are expanding further on our lead of people insights of selling to people not contacts. Connection based prospecting is a enhanced way of identifying prospects that you have direct connections to through co-workers, past employers or reference accounts.
Leverage your existing connections for accelerated pipeline growth.
Having connections into a prospect company makes getting in contact with a decision maker much easier. If you foster your professional connections correctly, your network should be happy to introduce you to someone within their company and make a warm introduction. Maybe you are looking for new accounts to contact and you find out that 4 of your coworkers and 2 people you worked with in the past have direct connections to people in a large account you’d like to talk to. That would make getting a warm introduction easier than trying to figure out how to cold-calling into a prospect.
Instead of blindly targeting companies based on contact data focus on getting new customers based on the number of connections you have into the company. People you work with, reference accounts and past coworkers will add a layer of trust to your communication with a decision maker. Leverage those connections to get an opportunity.
We have several new enhancements in our application this month. You can see more about all of them in the InsideView Community.
Too many sales managers are trying to build their business by using methods that have been outdated for a decade. Imagine going to a doctor that is still practicing medical advice from 1990? Sure they can give some insights and may even be able to help you with whatever is troubling you but their ability to make an impact on your health is determined on old information. Wouldn’t you rather have a doctor that is up to speed on the latest medicines, research and technology? (You don’t have to answer that.)
Understanding the science of sales and how sales intelligence can have an impact on decision makers is a major competitive advantage.
Science of Selling
There was an interesting experiment by the Universite de Bretagne-Sud in France that says people buy more from you when you act like them. By mimicking customer behavior, 78.8% of the customers ended up buying the product. Without mimicking customer behavior, buyers only made a purchase 61.8% of the time. Along with increased likelihood of buying, mimicked customers were more complimentary of the salesperson and the business.
The study abstract states: “An experiment was carried out in a retail setting where four sales clerks were instructed to mimic, or not, some of the verbal expressions and nonverbal behavior of the customers. On their way out, these customers were asked to evaluate the sales clerks and the store. Results showed that mimicry was associated with a higher sales rate, greater compliance to the sales clerk’s suggestion during the selling process and more positive evaluations of both the sales clerks and the store.”
Another study was performed on Duke University undergrads where participants were told that its purpose concerned the impression formation, process and marketing of unfamiliar products. The study was set up to see if a decision maker would/could be influenced to make a purchase based on on a sales person mimicking customer behavior when the decision maker is aware that they are dealing with a salesperson. Turns out the decision maker was over twice as likely to buy when mimicking was employed.
One might have expected that a person who is aware that a salesperson is trying to affect their behavior may try to guard against this influence, thereby being less likely to respond positively toward the product promoted by the salesperson. Instead, the mimicry led to more engagement when the salesperson was highly invested. Thus, in this case there was in fact an observed disassociation between the conscious desire to guard against persuasion and the nonconscious tendency to be engaged.
It’s a common understanding in business that people buy from people and not companies. Having a complete picture of your prospect and understanding how to sell to people and not contacts gives a sales person an definitive advantage.
Neuroscience and buying decisions
Inc.com had an article explaining that companies are starting to look at brain activity during sales presentations see whether or not prospects are being convinced. This technology exists now and is being marketed by a company named Affectiva that is run by David Berman, who was president of sales and service at Webex.
neuroscience is now proving what many sales professionals have long suspected: that decision-making, even among top executives, takes place mostly at a “gut” level.
Measuring emotional arousal via skin conductance that grows higher during states such as excitement, attention, or anxiety and lower during states such as boredom or relaxation can be a game changer for companies trying to get even deeper sales effectiveness during negotiations and sales discovery.
How scientific is your sales process?
Do you really know your customers? All of the research points to the massive effectiveness of sales intelligence. Knowing more about your prospects can make a dramatic impact on your revenue. Aberdeen’s paper on the science of sales intelligence shows even further that companies that invest in knowing more about their prospects reap larger rewards when it comes to building a fatter pipeline and closing more deals.
We are seeing more companies investing in things like adding game mechanics to sales teams to drive performance and that dovetails into ways to be more engaging with prospects with the same mechanics. Customers have evolved, has your sales process evolved in a way that mimics them?
A New Type of Connection
What are People Insights? Connections are more important than ever for reaching and engaging your prospects. More than 90 percent of executives never respond to cold-call sales or unsolicited emails, while more than 80 percent do engage when referred by a connection – whether through a friend, colleague, customer or industry peer. Intelligent Connections grow your reach beyond social networking sites (your personal connections) to automatically leverages your extended business network of coworkers, executives and board members, previous employers, and customers (your corporate connections). Even young professionals, who often have a limited Rolodex and professional network, can now instantly leverage their company’s extended network of corporate relationships.
“The biggest business impact comes from knowing how best to connect to prospects, what is top of mind for them and their business, and when you should pick up the phone.”
Going beyond the business card
“There is little value in basic contact data – for example a phone number or email address – for today’s business professional,” says Umberto Milletti, CEO of InsideView. “What’s important is cutting through the noise and getting the accurate information that matters about leads and prospect. The biggest business impact then comes from knowing how best to connect to them, what is top of mind for them and their business, and when you should pick up the phone. And for a busy sales or marketing pro, this kind of insight needs to be delivered directly where they are working most – email or CRM application.”
“There is no competitive advantage to be gained by using basic contact data. Everyone has access to phone numbers and email addresses, and response rates are abysmal,” said Umberto Milletti, CEO of InsideView. “What creates differentiation is cutting through the noise and engaging people. The biggest value of People Insights is knowing how best to connect to people, what is top of mind for them and their business, and when is the best time to reach out.”
With the launch of People Insights, sales and marketing organizations can now easily find the right person to contact, identify any mutual connections, get a complete picture via social media profiles, view recent news mentions, and be alerted about when to reach out. No other solution brings together such a comprehensive set of insights about people within a business context.
Sell to people, not contacts
Most good sales people know this already. This is supported by research by Marketing Experiments that dives event deeper. When engaging with new prospects look at them as people and learn about WHO they are not WHAT they are.
Let’s face it, making contact with C-level executives and other decision makers is not an easy task. 92% of C-level executives NEVER respond to email blasts or cold-calls. According to the 2011 Sales Performance Optimization Survey from CSO Insights, the average sales professional spends 25% of the workday researching potential prospects. Yet after hours of scouring the web, you still don’t know who the right buyer is and what technologies they use.
In this interview 1to1 Media‘s Tom Hoffman speaks with Ralf VonSosen, Vice President, Marketing at InsideView, about the steps that decision-makers can take to collect and act on intelligence about B2B customers.
Spray and pray tactics don’t work.
Contact data is not enough. A phone book is not an efficient tool to go after new prospects. Traditional methodologies of cold calling is dead, without context around your contact and having relevant information on your prospect you are not going to get their attention. Building a story around your product and how that can help a specific prospect can’t be achieved by dialing for dollars. That sales process just doesn’t scale any longer.
The average sales professional spends 25% of the workday researching potential prospects
Gathering personal insights
Once your sales teams learn to leverage sales intelligence applications and cut down their research times they can become more effective selling machines. Most sales professionals do not have the opportunity to go into a prospects office and look at the photos on their desk, understand their pains and get the complete view of their situations.
Contact data can’t provide this but through other technologies all sales people have the ability to get into the customers brain and see what they are dealing within the industry, corporate initiatives and even their personal lives. Traditional news and social profiles open up a world of possibilities to both customers and sales reps to make sure that communications are timely, relevant and welcomed. We are now dealing with the social enterprise where companies and the employees are actively engaged with social networks, sales teams that can adjust to this trend will reap all the rewards while companies that lag behind will be left wondering “Where did all my customers go?“
Things are moving fast around here at InsideView. We went through a website redesign and though most of you noticed it and sent us messages about it, we never called any attention to it.
The new InsideView website is designed for more dynamic content and gives a better experience for our customers and prospects to get the information they want. It’s now easier to look at the different sales intelligence options and choose the plan that fits your sales team. Our resource section lets you quickly find up to date research and information about trends in sales enablement that can have an impact on your company. With the new design we wanted to focus on the specific pain points of sales teams that are finding it more difficult to gather intelligence on their customers during pre-call research, identifying upsell opportunities and getting automated trigger alerts to business events that can be turned into sales opportunities.
