Can I get accountability across my sales team for prospecting with social selling?
I'm just kicking off a number of sales transformation with our social selling / digital selling methodology. At the kick off, I always introduce the idea of a sales playbook, which we use suggest is used to make sure the team are kept on track.
Sales playbook
It provides salespeople and sales leaders with a framework, so sales leaders and sales people know that on Monday, they "do this" and on Tuesday they "do this", etc. It takes the thought out of what they need to do. Obviously you can leave things "free form" but they majority of salespeople tell us the structure helps them.
Fluff vs Revenue
This isn't about fluff, this is a measured structure and we work back from your own metrics. You will know how many proposals and meetings you need to make your number. We work back from there. If all of the salespeople implement their playbook then you make your number or over achieve your number depending on how you structure it.
So what's in the playbook?
SWOT
A personal SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), this details, where the salesperson is strong and what elements they need to work on. It also covers, what in their territory they need to work on. This maybe new business, this maybe current account growth (account based marketing (ABM)) or a mixture of the two.
Prospecting road map
Description of the “as is” and a vision of the "to be". For example, the direction that the salesperson needs to grown with regard to their prospecting. How do they confidently define what they truly need?
The strategy for prospecting the target accounts. Are you a hunter or a framer, or are you a bit of both. Do you need to get traction across a wide territory or are you focusing on a number of accounts. Either way the Playbook will detail how this will be achieved by the salesperson with social selling.
Sales plays / value propositions
The sales plays or value propositions, if you tell your prospects why your company is great, that you have a better offering than your competitors, and how you can make or save your prospects time and money, you are already losing. What changes are coming that have yet to reach them that will impact their decisions?
Where do get help?
Where to get help - sometimes we place objectives on salespeople without them knowing who they can turn to help. It's not always their management or marketing, so we detail they different routes they can take.
What is your insight, influence?
What are you going to offer your prospect over and above what they can find on your website, across the internet, and where your competitors sowing the seeds of doubt.
Often this is set of talk tracks and will be value based not product or company based.
Confirmation of commitment
Confirmation of their commitment which they sign up to. This play book, the salesperson signs up to that they will execute this.
Notes of 1 to 1s
The playbook will also have notes from the various 1 to 1s, this can be more than just the sales leader, depends if DLA Ignite is retained to provide social selling support, advice and guidance. What mistakes might your sales team be making and what are they unaware of?
Action plan
Action plan of course, we all need a direction of travel. Because this is being run across all sales people, we can learn at scale. What questions should the sales team be discussing internally to get better results?
The whole process maybe between the sales leader and the salesperson or sometimes DLA Ignite are retained to coach the sales people in terms of current social selling and digital selling skills as the whole social and digital selling process is constantly changing. Especially if your customers go down a path of digital dominance, this is a great way to exclude the competition from the market.
Appendix
Appendix of how to record calls and campaign codes in the CRM. It's critical for any sales related project that there is a measure.
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