January 9, 2012 By 2 Comments

B2B Sales Competition Is Fierce And Survival Is On Stake

We must develop our minds and continually sharpen and invest in the development of our competencies to avoid becoming obsolete, this is mainly a choice we make.

Discipline Yourself

When I started in sales I had devoted myself to sports for approximately 12 years. I was definitely not a talent, but it gave me a strong sense of discipline in whatever I did then and what I’m doing today. So it early became a natural part for me to work with sales because I could apply and use this discipline to create a business momentum. During the journey of this profession I early discovered that most sales people are lazy and they not have the discipline to put in the daily effort to learn new things every day and self improve.

The New Ballgame In B2B Sales

The main difference between old world B2B sales and the new ballgame is that now your potential customers are much more in control of their environment, and you are the one who has to fit in, this is definitely affecting your sales process and you can’t ignore it. I left you with this statement in an earlier blog post “you are losing approximately 80 percent of potential business which shows it room for improving the sales process with social media marketing”. We will start with looking at how you can improve the leads generating phase by using social technology, but first I want to brief a bit more what is going on online today.

The Marketing Channel Is Now Reversed

Internet users can now let the world know what they think about your brand, and trying to play and control this game is totally wrong way to spend your energy. Accept that the game is reversed, rather than top down things now move from bottom up and if your customers are in control I promise you it pays to listen to what they have to say. Don’t make the mistake to think traditional marketing because you hear the word “media” in social media marketing. Unlike the passive advertisement like TV, radio and billboards your customers now can talk to each other, form groups and create a social movement for or against what you have to offer.

Bring Something To The Table

If you want to make impact in the social online world is your responsibility to bring something to the table, and when I say something I mean providing your audience with content and the right context to develop and nurture long-term relationships, so please don’t spam me with your advertisement on your social networks. Start with the most important part in sales; listening!

The Call Is Yours

You must selectively approaching your customers on a more social level today. Select those who are your potential customers and mapping their social life online, if you think that sounds like hard work you are right, but it’s hard work trying to screen people by working the phones too. I will not even spend time on arguing with you about lack of resources and time here. I’m pointing on the clock because the time is ticking and competition is getting more fierce and survival is on stake. The call is your; learn or perish!

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January 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

How Can Your Company Increase Sales With Social Media Marketing

The art of traditional B2B sales are changing, are you aware of it? Are you as a sales manager aware of it? Or are you still just paying attention to old metrics like; booked sales meetings, performed sales meetings and number of new sales orders? Today Internet helps salespeople be at the right place at the right time on a scale that never has been possible before, and at a cost close to zero. If you don’t leverage this you are losing business right now. Period! So let’s build new strong business muscles 2012. 

Build New Business Muscles 2012

Savvy Buyers Now Have Control

If you are trying to understand how to embrace the opportunity of improving B2B sales by implementing social media marketing to your sales process you have ended up on the right place because this is what I will focus more on in the coming posts. Why? Because we must learn and adapting fast to this game at the sales arena 2012, savvy buyers now have control of your sales process and you can’t just wine and dine your customers to new orders, we are living in a new era today. Regardless of the product or services you are selling buyers will very likely check online at some point to see what others are saying about you and your products.

The Activity Fuels Your Business

In a traditional sales process we are always talking about the ratio in the different stages of the process. For an example different stages could be leads, phone calls, sales meetings and new orders. You get your ratio by measuring how many phone calls you need to make before you have a meeting with a potential customer, how many meetings do we need to do before we have a new order. So with other words your activity fuels your business, and this is why many people in the game is familiar with the expression; sales is a numbers game. 

Improving The Sales Process With Social Media

If we are putting this into practice it will look something like this. If you have ten potential customers on list, you might be able book seven meetings depending of your skills, out of these seven meetings you will maybe get business with two new clients, and the sales cycle will of course differentiate depending of the product or service you are selling. The point I want to make here is that you are losing approximately 80 percent of potential business which shows it room for improving the sales process with social media marketing. Let’s together see how we can reduce the loss and increase sales.

It’s Your Turn

What is your take on this?

If you want to understand how I think regarding the sales process when you integrate the online world with the offline, check out this infographic.

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December 22, 2011 By 3 Comments

Adapt Your Company Culture To Social Media Marketing With KASH

You have heard me ranting before about how people sometimes lack the right attitude for change, when they continue ignoring the biggest communication culture shift ever; I’m talking about where Internet is heading today. Therefore I thought it was time to also write a blog post about what I think we need to consider when we approach social media marketing or other stuff that we don’t maybe know so much about yet, stay open and let’s apply KASH.

Knowledge - Attitude - Skills - Habits

Old habits are like comfortable beds

When we now are approaching 2012 this is a great thing to really consider, probably we know what we are grateful for and what we want to change in our lives. I remember when I heard the KASH concept for the first time, I’m not sure but I think its was Denis Waitley I learned it from. I often try to lead with the KASH concept in my mind when I help people and company cultures adapting themselves to the social media environment. Remember; adapting to change is hard because old habits are like comfortable beds.

Remember that the six most expensive words in business are: We’ve always done it that way! – Catherine DeVrye, Author.

K.A.S.H:

Knowledge: You need knowledge about social media marketing, you need to know; why, what and how to get rid of your fear and let go of some control, this is important because fear comes from lack of knowledge. You need to invest the time to get the knowledge and when you invest your time make sure you invest it properly and learn from knowledgeable people in the industry.

Attitude: An optimistic attitude is always benefiting you when you are adapting to changes, you need to be optimistic that this new way to do business will turn out great and an attitude of courage is always important when you exploring new areas.

Skills: When you have the right skills you have a much better chance to survive in this social media jungle. The only way to get new skills are training your own muscles, and you need those new muscles when you should replace your old habits. You don’t get skills by just reading books you must execute and learn by your own mistakes. But know when you have the knowledge you are not afraid for mistakes.

Habits: 95% of all the thoughts you have had today you also had yesterday, and in fact, every day in the past months. It’s very hard to break habits but we all know that athletes improve their performance and skills by practicing more, the same applies to creating new habits in both your personal and professional life. When it comes to implementing social media into companies one big challenge is the lack of time to be social on because people already have a lot old busy habits, it’s not any room left for new habits, so the right approach here is replacing some of your old habits with new social media marketing habits.

You need to stay hungry

Equipped with KASH makes you tuning into new social media marketing habits more easy, most people make the mistake of trying to do everything at once, instead take one step at a time. Creating your own edge takes time, so you need to stay hungry if you should have the motivation to pull through and make it to the top in your industry.

It’s your turn

Do you have any tips how to handle change?

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