Why stay analogue when your buyers and competitors are moving to digital..?

I was watching CNN this morning and Eghosa Oriaikhi Mabhena, Head of Global Aviation & Global Lubricants at Puma Energy, was being interviewed in the Business Section.

Eghosa outlined that Puma Energy’s sectors have been hit pretty hard and they have seen significant dips in many of their business streams. She outlined that they didn’t waste time, “we have used the time to greatly accelerate our Digital Transformation….”.

What struck me about this statement was, there was no debate or stalling about whether Digital Transformation was right or wrong for them, they were always on the path and used the impact of Covid to accelerate the pace. This makes absolute sense to me as we see global Digital transformation taking off at unparalleled pace.

But debate or stalling is something we see regularly. Company leaders worried or concerned about transforming to Digital though Social. People who don’t get it, people who don’t understand it, people who think they already do it....we meet them all.

But makes sense right? Everything had changed, and changed rapidly. Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft recently said "We saw 2 years of digital transformation in 2 months...".

A more recent McKinsey article titled The Quickening (see link below) showed how US e-commerce penetration had experienced 10 years’ worth of growth in just three months:

We know for sure the world had changed, we know for sure that how we do business had changed or is changing. And its likely to change a whole lot more in the next year, as we get to grips with how this all works now.

How have you really changed about what you do and how you do it….?

We work with a client base who have seen the writing on the wall and stepped forward. They have embraced the fact that Management teams and Sales and Marketing teams in 2020 must be trained and advanced in Social Selling, if not, they are being left behind. The people who have realised this and taken action are getting ahead of the game.

The people who analyse this sort of thing for a living, agree with them. In a recent article by Gartner, they give us some hard hitters -

Please take a few minutes to take these in..:

"Over the next five years, an even greater rise in digital interactions between buyers and suppliers will break traditional sales models."

"The Gartner Future of Sales 2025 report predicts that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions between suppliers and buyers will occur in digital channels. Chief sales officers (CSOs) and other senior sales leaders must accept that buying preferences have permanently changed and, as a result, so too will the role of sellers."

“Sales organizations must be able to sell to customers everywhere the customer expects to engage, interact and transact with suppliers"

"Gartner defines the future of sales as the permanent transformation of organizations’ sales strategies, processes and allocation of resources, moving from a seller-centric to a buyer-centric orientation and shifting from analogue sales processes to .... digital-first engagement with customers."

"Gartner research shows buyers typically only spend 17% of their time meeting with potential suppliers when considering a purchase. With less and less customer face time, virtual selling via digital channels will predominate."

"B2B sales reps need to embrace ... a new manner of engaging customers, matching their sales activity to their customers’ buying practices and information-collecting needs."

If you are in Sales, Marketing. BD, Management, Leadership and you just read that….what is your reaction? Are you still "on the fence....."?.

We are neck deep in this environment of change but, has everything changed as much as it should?

Think back to when we used to create our annual Sales and Marketing plans, were they really that different from year to year? Many just changed the year on the top of the PowerPoint slides, upped the numbers by 20% and adjusted some of the text – Sales and Marketing plan theatre.

We came back after the holidays in early January and carried on with the same techniques, methods and tools we used the previous year (and 30 years before that) – Perhaps we added a CRM or hired a new Sales person to cover a new Sector or Geography but, we didn’t really evolve that much.

Why? Because we really didn’t need to…

We kept the Sales cycles going, the quick wins, the longer burns, the quick proposals and the big meaty tenders. That big deal that saved the number, the smaller wins that added the jam on top.

We attended the right marketing events that got everyone rallied around and we hoovered up new leads and opportunities.

The recent upheaval has likely impacted your cash flow, your ability to generate leads and close deals and, your ability to map out the future.

As business leaders, we have to look at the cost of sales closer than ever before. Take it a level deeper and look at the overall cost and return of sales and marketing.

How is that 2021 Sales and Marketing plan looking – If it looks anything like the one created in Q4 19, you have a problem.

Why? Because the pre-covid plan won’t work, you need to change and that means you need to take calculated risks.

Your salesforce needs leads and meetings, as it’s only sales that are going to generate you cash in the short and medium term. You need your Sales teams consistently making and building relationships on Social Media – You need them trained in Social Selling and the organisation to be working to a Social Media Strategy.

Knowing what good looks like in Social Media and, the results that can be expected is key – that’s where we come in. We at DLA Ignite have developed a Strategic Social Media Discovery Programme, to show you how it all breaks down and works.

What Discovery does:

Allows time for you stop and reflect on your current Business and Metrics
Measures your “As Is” status in terms of People, Pipeline, Partners & Process
Benchmarks against best practise and enable you to understand how you check the viability of current business aspirations and target outcomes.
Creates a roadmap (“To Be”) provide recommendations as well as offer process improvements to meet your Targets•
Provides a Competitive ‘Growth’ Platform and Digital future state for Sales and Marketing teams and functions.

How it works:

DLA Ignite consultants will run a detailed survey of your teams Social Media presence and behaviour and give you a Current Health Indicator (CHI).

We perform analysis and measure you against industry best practice as well as offering a competitive analysis.

The results will be mapped against high performing organisations.

Client data capture and analysis (pipeline, quota, win rate & conversation ratio)

A report will be provided outlining the expected performance increases to be expected should improvement be made in Social Media presence and behaviour. As well as offer best practice and competitive position analysis...