The New Virtual Handshake and How to Get It Right (Hint: It’s the Future of Sales)

As I travel the US, everybody I talk to say that cold calling is dead and laugh at these gurus that still push this legacy sales method.

Let me qualify this, if you are selling B2B Enterprise, like I do, then cold calling is dead.  If you sell something low cost, with low level sign off, sure you can use cold calling for that.  For example two corporate entertainment tickets for Baseball would be a great example of where you can use cold calling.  Low value, low level sign off.

$100K Accounting system or a $500K outsourcing deal, you won't sell through cold calling.

Everybody is moving to social or as some people call it digital selling.

This is where you build relationships with people over social.  You prove to buyers that you are an expert and those buyers come to you, called inbound.

The problem is, or the problem is as I still see it is that people think you can just be a social seller by reading an hubspot article.  So what happens are that the results are weak.  I hear so often "we are social selling, but we don't really get much from it".

My reply is usually "if you had a methodology to follow and your salespeople didn't look like spammers then do you think you would get better results?"

Just like driving or sky diving, if you had to learn a new skill, do you really think it's that easy?  Would you read an article from Hubspot and drive a car or read an article from Hubspot and jump out of a plane?  No!

That's why you need a methodology.

I'm not talking Linkedin training, that is just training you to push buttons and in what order.  I'm talking about the mindset change and habit change you need to deal with the digital buyer!

And trust me, it is the future of sales ... it is also the present of sales.