B2B digital selling programme

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Do you have more elephants or frogs in your sales team?

Alastair McIvor, one of our respected and experienced sales trainers, talks about the B2B Digital Selling Programme and social selling behaviours…

alasatir 2016

 

Which is more important would you say Alastair, face to face or on- line / social selling?

The fact is today both are equally important. Our actions in each domain can make or break a sale. Just like the cult films Avatar and The Matrix, we must be able to interact effectively and seamlessly in both environments, following clients and prospects where they choose to do business.

What examples of this do you see in your daily work?

We know that most B2B buyers do research on-line before making contact with sales people: Some estimates suggest that over 50% of the buying decision process is completed before first contact with a sales person.
Smart sales people know this, and look out for buyers doing research on forums and interest groups and interact early to start showing their added value. Many large organisations now use marketing automation to track what content potential customers are viewing, and share this with the sales team to act on. The problem comes when customers don’t perceive a joined up experience: For example, I’ve heard many stories of sales people following up ‘leads’ by phone and asking many questions they should already know the answer to.
Also, there are still many sales people who are unsure about how to interact on-line, and end up being too salesy too soon, putting customers off. You can see this in just about any Linked-in special interest group.
Exhibit I

And the elephants and frogs thing…?

Nature shows clear examples of 2 separate strategies for survival. The Elephants use high investment, high nurture models. In terms of networking, this means having a few, strong, regular connections / customers. The Frogs use low investment, low nurture models, meaning lots of connections / customers, with little time for each. Nature has shown us both models can survive: For example, in many sectors, leads typically come from our “weak ties”. In selling, we have to figure out which model is closest to our needs. Sometimes a hybrid approach can help.
During the B2B Digital Selling Programme, we help participants decide how to best build and use their personal networks on-line and face to face.
Exhibit II

 

Sounds like you advocate taking lead generation away from marketing?

The days of sales and marketing as separate entities are hopefully fading fast: Social selling forces us to join activities up traditionally performed in silos. Actually, sales people can have excellent networks, and if supplied with great content and ideas to mobilise their network, more leads can be the happy result.

What does the B2B Digital Selling Programme cover?

We have designed the programme to give the skills modern sales people really need. This includes high quality influence, preparation, persuasion and presentation, as well as substantial sections on social selling.
In particular, we show participants how to really get the maximum from their Linked-In accounts.
The programme also focuses on time and opportunity management. With the added extra choices now available with social media, this has become an even more important skill than ever before.
I am very passionate about the new selling environment we face: it offers great opportunities for those who are prepared to adapt and work hard.

Who is the programme suitable for and how can I get enrolled?

Anyone in B2B selling can benefit from this programme: We have carefully defined the core essential behaviours in professional selling and made sure we give people a solid understanding of social selling too.
We can run this programme in house for teams of 5+ sales people – just make contact via info@sellinginteractions.com and we can set things up for you.