One of the big issues in sales, that we have all come across is where a deal sticks in the pipeline.

I remember as manager saying to me "just ring the people up and tell then what a great deal we have for them". The person's mother had died. They had bigger issues in their life, than to buy our software. In fact a little empathy from me well down well. I still had to take a "kicking" at the next sales meeting.

The deal happened, but not when we wanted it.

These things happen, there can be pandemics, competing budget, deaths, I had one customer who was arrested soliciting a male prostitute. The male prostitute was an undercover policeman. I'm sure we all have stories to tell and we all know "incidents" can delay sales.

How do we unstick deals?

One way in social is to use content. You're thinking WTF, I know you are.

(Let's assume you have a great profile and are already connected to the various decision makers on social media.) Let's first cover why people get content all wrong. 

The mistake people make with content

The mistake people make with content, is that they assume people are talking about a white paper. I'm not, I will come to the answer, but, let's think about white papers for a second.

A white paper is where some writes everything they know about a subject and the reader remembers one thing. Now if I send you a white paper, you won't read it, you will store it on your desktop in the folder "interesting articles to read". You never read any of them, and every now and again you delete the folder and start again.

It reminds me of the Japanese word "Tsundoku" for those that don't know this is the art of buying books and never reading them. That's the problem with white papers, people might download them, but nobody reads them.

Now, if I give you a 300 word blog, you will read it now.  Straight away.

Plus with a 300 word blogs it has just one idea. Simple.

With a 300 word blog, you will read it and you will remember it.

How do we unblock deals?

You don't call or email the person and annoy them and risk them telling you to piss off, you write a 300 word blog, here are some suggested title:-

5 issues we see in the XYZ industry that is impacting on cash flow

How inventory management is life science is freeing up cash?

Why Cloud and SaaS has transformed the construction industry?

You get the picture, make it highly relevant to the business issues you are solving and to the industry you are working in. 

(From the questions above you I can see I'm working with a number of supply chain and ERP vendors at the moment.)

When you create this content, no more than 300 words, using the business issues that is stucking your deal.  Then what do you do with it?

You post the content on your Linkedin profile, use the right hashtags for your industry and the relevant business issues. Tag the relevant people in your accounts or industry.

You could even write to your prospect a message on Linkedin and ask them to tell you, what they think of the article.

Content is a great way to unstick pipeline stuck in the forecast.