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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. NHR CASE STUDY
“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.
On January 26th, InsideView reached its 5,000th follower. Although some may not view this as an astronomical milestone in the metrics of social media, to us it is a huge accomplishment. We are not your typical company when it comes to social marketing, where the number of followers rule the measured success of our social engagement. Though more followers is always nice to have, we’ve held the position that its better to have 200 engaged members in our community than 10,000 people that don’t really care what we have to say and never interact with us. InsideView marks each follow as the establishment of a relationship geared towards benefiting all individuals throughout all cornerstone of business.
Congratulations to David Greenwald of PGi for being our 5000th follower! David has been using InsideView to make him more productive for years. It’s awesome to have customers like him making an impact by leveraging sales intelligence. PGi is a developer of video conferencing software that has a pretty slick interface. They were the first video conferencing platform I saw that integrated social networks into their product, and you all know how much of a fan I am when it comes to B2B use of social networks.
As a Global Sales Executive, David can really benefit following our tweets as we generally like to reach out to sales people around the world to better their skills and selling methods. Give him a follow @nexgentechsales. Thank you David!
We would like to take this opportunity for those who are reading this blog post and follow InsideView through any social media channel, to say thank you for all of the tweets and feedback you have given us over the years…You truly are our #1 fans.
2012 is here folks. New goals and high ambitions are in place as the slate is cleaned for the new year. It’s time to stoke the 2011 coals and fuel the 2012 fire. Here are 15 posts I put together with some very interesting predictions and strategies for this coming year. Hope you enjoy it and best of luck for this fine year!
- 30 Social Media Predictions for 2012 From the Pros – Social Media Examiner
- 5 Sales Management Questions We Answered in 2011 – Selling Power
- 8 Great Marketing Infographics To Inspire Your 2012 Objectives – B2B Marketing Insider
- 11 B2B marketing trends to watch (or wish) for in 2012 – Customer Think
- How to Get Your Prospects to Call You Back in 2012 – InsideView
- Sales Discussions That Need To Disappear in 2012 – Paul Castain’s Sales Playbook
- Things I’m Wishing For In 2012 – Insider Sales Experts Blog
- Social Media: Five Facts to Bank On in 2012 – Ad Age Digital
- CRM 2012 Forecast – The Era of Customer Engagement – ZDNet Blog
- SaaS Predictions for 2012 – Smart SaaS
- Top 7 Critical Sales Trends for 2012 – Heavy Hitter Sales Blog
- 12 Sales Trends for 2012 – Barrett Sales Blog
- Bring on 2012 – Salesopedia
- Your 2012 Marketing Plan: Tell Me What to Do – Business Grow
- How to Create an Enchanting Pitch #OfficeandGuyK – Guy Kawasaki
Closing out the year we wanted to look over the content that you have found most interesting and shared most often. 2011 was a big year for sales intelligence and the use of technology by sales teams to be more effective in finding new opportunities and closing more deals.
This is the list of the top 25 sales intelligence posts that people read during 2011
- 25 Influential Leaders In Sales
- How Science is Changing Sales As We Know It
- Why Cold Calling is the Bottom of the Barrel
- 40 Social Media B2B Infographics
- Gamification of the Sales Process
- 10 Reasons You Need a LinkedIn Profile
- 15 Posts on Why Cold Calling Is On Its Way Out the Door
- The History of Apple CEOs
- Bridging the Massive Social Media Gap Between Sales and Marketing
- Have No Fear: Why Sales Teams SHOULD Be On Social Media
- Creating a Sales Plan and Executing It.
- 10 of the Best Sales Sites
- The Death of Cold Calling – Ending the Debate
- 10 SlideShare Presentations That Will Make You a Better Salesperson
- Why Social Media is Important to the Sales Process.
- Top 10 Reasons for using Facebook for your Business
- 20 Awesome Sales Posts You Should Read
- 5 Great SlideShare Presentations on B2B Selling
- The Social Media Landscape – Facts and Figures for B2B Sales (Infographic)
- Should Sales People Be Blogging?
- The Problem with Big Data
- The Future of Social CRM
- Do You Listen to Your Customers?
- 10 tips for Driving Sales Productivity: Tip #1
- A Dip Into Sales Data vs. Sales Intelligence
This is the final post in a study we created along with Focus.com to discuss the best practices to leverage social media for sales teams. After talking to eight of the top thought leaders in sales training and sales technology we wanted to bring their insights to you. This is going to be a 3 part series that covers what successful salespeople are doing to leverage social media in lead generation and accelerating their opportunities. Some of these experts are listed in our post on the 25 most influential sales leaders. Much appreciation to these experts for taking the time to address the question “How do your successful salespeople leverage social media for selling?“
- Miles Austin
- Marge Bieler
- Dave Brock
- Barbara Giamanco
- Matt Heinz
- Carlos Hidalgo
- S. Anthony Iannarino
- Craig Rosenberg (AKA The Funnelholic)
Cultivate your own personal brand on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and beyond.
“The one thing I learned early in sales is that the most unique thing you are selling is not always the company or the product, but it is always you. Social media provides you a unique opportunity to build your brand — as well as endless opportunities to ruin your brand. The first thing anyone does before meeting with someone is to check their LinkedIn profile. Successful social salespeople carefully and thoroughly complete their LinkedIn profile, including a picture. All their social bios (Twitter, etc.) are meaningful, unique and memorable. Limit access to your Facebook if it has any offensive or borderline offensive photos.” (Rosenberg)
“Many sales managers dont think Twitter is a place for sales people. I disagree. With social media exploding as a form of communication, there are going to be more and more people leveraging the channel for business conversations. Not just brands but real people that want to solve business problems by asking others online. Learning how to listen and track people on Twitter will be a goldmine of information in some cases for salespeople.” (Sexton)
“Social media provides platforms for the individual sales rep to stand out from the crowd like never before. To be the one who is providing the most helpful information, the best references, and what is going on in that industry/market. I recommend that sales open their consideration more broadly than just the big three of LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Each has its place and purpose in an overall social strategy that must be in place prior to any active social media use for a company or an individual producer. How about a personal landing page for you as an individual where prospects/customers can go to learn more about you? Take a look at creating an http://about.me page, and then highlight all of your other online activities with links to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and even your company website for example.” (Austin)
Establish your expertise by contributing to conversations — without selling.
You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand how the science of sales intelligence has an effect on driving revenue. In addition to knowing more about yur industry and prospects than your competition, you will be able to lock yourself in as an expert of your market. By not just being a salesperson, you will open more lines of communication that will lead to more opportunities.
“Step 1: Figure out where your buyers are. Step 2: Be there Step 3: Contribute without intruding on the safe social environment people are interacting in. You hear a lot of stories of vendors finding leads in social platforms, but a lot of salespeople are just ‘there’ — contributing and building both trust and reputation. This approach serves them well. Many people are not just turned off by sales in general, but are absolutely repulsed by salespeople invading their online conversation to sell them something. My advice to salespeople is to get ‘in the mix,’ but don’t sell. Join the community and have conversations with industry leaders, peers and end users. There are salespeople who have built their online presence to the point where prospects have reached out to them for advice. That’s a big win.” (Rosenberg)
“Directly share information, become an expert, and generate a following. You are an expert. You understand your market, your customer’s problems, and the information they need to be more successful. You read the trade publications and regularly (possibly daily) find articles that your prospects and customers should read.” (Heinz)
“If our customers are already there (as research would indicate), then we as salespeople can’t afford not to be there and participating. Initially, salespeople should use social media (blogs, discussion forums, websites, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter) primarily for listening and learning—what are the customers saying/asking, what is competition doing, etc. They should be engaging customers there, as well as using traditional channels. They need to be taking part in social conversations, they need to be representing their products and solutions in those conversations.” (Brock)
“With all the talk in the market about the importance of customer/buyer engagement, it is vital that today’s B2B rep use social as a means to dialogue with their buyers and customers. As reps thought the dialogue must change from one of pure sales to one of helping shape the discussion and to establish themselves as thought leaders and knowledgeable about their market, their buyers’ challenges and seen as a resource for answers. The best way to do this is via social, and the more reps understand that their involvement in this medium and having an active part in the discussion is key to the buying decision, the more they will begin to engage.” (Hidalgo)
“Become an industry source of knowledge by using one or more of the many curation tools that are now available, many at no cost.” (Austin)
In the last post we explained that most companies deal with some very specific business pressures that slow down the process of finding new prospects and getting them into the sales funnel. Knowledge about your customers, finding new prospects and having a sales process that takes too long is a common pain point for businesses.
- 42% have insufficient knowledge of the business needs of prospects
- 40% do not have the ability to identify the most likely buyers of their product
- 34% complain of having a sales process that is too long
- 21% See an increased customer churn forcing them to focus on filling the funnel
I predict in 2012 that these numbers will not change too dramatically but the results from companies that are actively leveraging technology and sales intelligence as a method of combating them will. Sales managers should be constantly on the lookout for ways to solve these business pressures and based on research by the Aberdeen Group, the top performing sales organizations have built strategies that can drive measurable results in building a sales pipeline and increasing the quality of leads.
- 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
This research is important because it’s showing that companies that are having the problems listed above are able to continue achieving results by leveraging sales intelligence in traditional and non-conventional ways. Top performers in lead qualification teams understand that moving less qualified prospects out of their view has more value than dumping a volume of under vetted opportunities on the sales team. By not relying on data but the contextual news and social profiles of the companies and people you are contacting, better decisions can be made on which prospects to pursue and which leads to abandon.
The research study on the science of sales intelligence goes a long way in showing that companies that want to increase revenue quickly with your existing sales team can do so by leveraging technology to speed up the sales process. A strategy around using sales 2.0 applications to identify strong/weak prospects should be a key focus for your 2012 sales plan.
Just a quick poll: Are the issues described above the same as for your company?
The traditional approach to demand generation focuses primarily on outbound offers and campaigns to drive new leads into the funnel. However, the shift in buyer behavior forces companies to rethink their approach to demand generation. Social media stands out as a new source of customer engagement because it provides sales and marketing organizations with a tremendous opportunity to follow potential customers – even before they reach out to them.
Because the buyer relies more on peers and independent research in the early stages of engagement, it has become even more imperative that B2B firms bring sales and marketing together with a shared approach to revenue generation. Social intelligence has proven to be a key piece of this aligned approach as it enables deeper, more relevant engagement.
According to B2B’s “2010 Outlook: Marketing Priorities and Plans” survey, more than half (53.5%) of marketers surveyed said they currently use social media as part of their marketing strategy, up from 45% the prior year. Lead generation (cited by 48.9% of respondents) ranked as the second highest use for social media, behind only thought leadership (59.8%).
In one case study illustrating how progressive companies are integrating social media into their demand generation efforts, Concur Technologies has successfully integrated social intelligence across sales and marketing, influencing performance at each phase of the funnel.
Because the buyer relies more on peers and independent research in the early stages of engagement, it has become even more imperative that B2B firms bring sales and marketing together with a shared approach to revenue generation.
In the early stages of lead generation, Concur has utilized the list-building capabilities enabled by sales intelligence platforms to better target the SMB market. The company also improved conversions within the funnel by using social intelligence to address lead pre-qualification for inside sales. Finally, reps are able to receive alerts notifying them on trigger events at key accounts.
Despite the dramatic impact social media and social intelligence can have on demand generation, many companies do not integrate social media into their existing processes. During a recent presentation at the 2011 SiriusDecisions Summit, Jonathan Block, VP and Service Director for Reputation Management Strategies at SiriusDecisions, proclaimed, “Organizations ignore the leverage social media can offer throughout the cold-to- close process.”
Block emphasized the important factors that go into a successful social media strategy. He pointed out holistic measurement and reporting are key aspects of building an integrated social strategy. By effectively measuring both activity and impact, companies realize positive paybacks in brand reputation, demand creation and sales enablement.
Yesterday Google announced the ability to create company pages on their Google+ social platform. Google+ hasn’t proven itself to be a primary social network yet but the integration possibilities and what it can do for search results has some potential. I poked around a bit looking in our industry and didn’t find a ton of Google+ pages in SaaS or sales applications. It’s fitting to be the first Google+ page on sales intelligence. Each of our blog posts has the ability to share via Twitter Facebook and also Google+. If you are a Google+ member, head over to our InsideView Google+ page and give us a +1.
Since this is a new social network, we’d like to hear from our community on how you would like us to use Google+. After adding InsideView to one of your circles post your suggestion on your wall and tag +insideview. We’d love to hear what you’d like us to share on our Google+ page.
Here’s a few suggestions that were thrown around here at InsideView HQ on ways to use the page.
- Industry news
- How to’s
- Partner news
- Curated content about sales and marketing
- Product releases
- Social Selling tips
Let us know what you think on the page.
Times are tough these days with the economy and many of you may be feeling the slow, turtle-pace of sales in your business. Give these posts a look and see how you can fire up your Q4 with better sales practices.
- Selling Successfully in a Down Economy – Selling Power Blog
- Four Keys to a Great 4th Quarter – Salesopedia
- What I Learned From Steve Jobs – How to Change the World
- Deal Stalled? There Is Always More Than One Way. – The Sales Blog
- Video: The Biggest Mistakes Sellers Make - Selling to Big Companies
- Who is Killing Your Sales Motivation? – The Sales Hunter
- Tips for Finishing the Year Strongly – Jonathan Farrington’s Blog
- Chasing Your Passion! - Sales Playbook
- Sales Presentations the Don’t Suck [share this with your team] – Inside Sales Experts
- Are Top Salespeople Born or Made? - Heavy Hitters Sales Blog
LinkedIn has quickly become one of the most effective and business-savvy social networking sites. Sales professionals are able to take advantage of valuable insight about prospects and peers, in turn developing a strong network that translates into increased productivity through resources, tips, advice and much more. By joining these groups, you will gain some incredible knowledge in the world of sales as well as discovering some of the top leaders in the industry.
To help those in the sales industry, the following groups and channels are among the most influential and valuable on LinkedIn.
Description: Social Selling University is not like social media courses which are typically designed only for marketing departments. This is how to use social media tools like LinkedIn and Twitter for sales people. Join this group to find out how and pass this group along to anyone you know in sales.
Owner: Koka Sexton | 632 members
This group allows Inside Sales practitioners to share ideas and information, and provides networking opportunities for global professionals from a variety of industries to connect with their peers.
Owner: Trish Bertuzzi | 11,521 members
Description: Sales, leadership, management, marketing, CRM, Salesforce, recruiting, business development, selling tips, lead generation, prospecting, training, networking, jobs, career, Web 2.0, technology, software, strategy, social media, blogging, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and more.
Owner: Doyle Slayton | 36,356 members
Description: The Sales Association is the premier association for sales & business development professionals. We provide members a powerful means to connect at events and online. Topics: sales, marketing, sales jobs, convention, conventions, jobs, trade show, trade shows, conference, conferences, CRM and careers.
Owner: Troy Davis | 26,483 members
Description: Sales, leadership, management, marketing, CRM, Salesforce, recruiting, business development, selling tips, lead generation, prospecting, training, networking, jobs, career, Web 2.0, technology, software, strategy, social media, blogging, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
Owner: Paul Castain | 25,110 members
Description: This group is for: sales people, sales managers and business owners who want to: 1. Exchange information about the emerging discipline of Sales 2.0 2. Partner up to help each other sell more, penetrate accounts and exchange leads.
Owner: Nigel Edelshain 4,160 members
Innovative Marketing, PR, Sales, Word-of-Mouth & Buzz Innovators
Description: Innovate with innovative marketing, public relations, promotions sales and selling professionals skilled at using creative marketing methods. Join thousands of members to learn & share best practices & advice. LinkedIn’s largest Marketing & PR Innovation Group.
Owner: Gerald “Solutionman” Haman | 148,010 members
Description: The Sales Management Association (www.salesmanagement.org) is a global, cross-industry professional association for sales managers, sales executives, sales operations, sales trainers, sales enablement practitioners, and thought-leaders engaged in supporting or leading the sales organization.
Owner: Bob Kelly | 15,274 members
Description: Sales Gravy helps Sales Professionals, Sales Leaders, and Sales Recruiters gain the winning edge. We discuss sales techniques, sales training, sales jobs, sales careers, sales tips, sales recruiting, sales process. www.SalesGravy.com is the most visited sales content website on the internet.
Owner: Jeb Blount | 15,274 members
Description: Have you some Sales or Marketing skills? Let’s share our experiences: Sales development, marketing, CRM, productivity and trade performance, team management and more.
Owner: Laurent J.V. Dubois | 82,904 members
