Most Of Your Sales Peers Will Miss This Fourth Quarter Opportunity, Tim Hughes

I read this article and it inspired me to write my own version.

Fourth quarter is always one where we need to focus on closing business, but we also know we should be building pipeline for next year otherwise we will start behind.

For many of us, it's the same old hamster wheel ..... closing and prospecting.

So here's a trick that allows you to do both at the same time.

1. Buyer centric profile

The first thing you need is a buyer-centric profile. This is the profile that a buyer would want to find, the person they would want to work with.

Not your CV or saying how many times you made quota. A profile that shows you are a human, you help people (like your buyer). Now don't forget that nobody likes being sold to, so nothing about selling anything to anybody. This by its very nature is implied, because you are a salesperson.

In our social selling and influence course, we teach salespeople how to create a profile, that buyers are actually walk towards you. Sounds like magic I know, but let's get a customer to explain.

If you check out this video of Chris Mason CEO at Oracle reseller Namos, fast forward to 19 minutes 55 seconds. Chris talks about a $2.6 million win from being on social, after completing the DLA Ignite social selling and influence course. Chris explains that this $2.6 million deal was done because the buyer look at the salesperson profile and asked the salesperson could he help they buyer.

Just think about the power of that to generate business for you and your team(s).

2. Digital Territory

Something that will make all salespeople life easier is to have a digital territory. Do this. Connect to everybody, in your accounts and then some. Everybody you would like to influence. BUT and it's a big but, don't sell. When you connect, this is about the person you want to connect to.

Better still, think of a connection request as a way to start a conversation. Why? Conversations create sales.

Because if you send a connection request and you try to sell it will be ignored or the person will tell you to piss off.

The great thing about your digital territory is that you have conversations with your clients and prospects and they come back when they have the time. Calling them up time after time and emailing them after time just pisses them off. Now you have a way to have a conversation, so keep it human, but you can also keep it about work.

Think of going to a networking event, you wouldn't go up to somebody and pitch. You would have a conversation.

It's at this time of year where having connections and conversations high and low in an account will get the deal closed. When you take a client to dinner or sports you don't talk about work, so keep these conversations social.

In our social selling and influence course we teach people how to connect, build a digital territory and how to have conversations online. Let me repeat myself, conversations create sales.

3. Content that will make buyers think

The third thing you need is content. Not the boring brochures that marketing keep asking you to share, nobody comes onto social to read a brochure.

Buyers want content that will make them think. My background is selling accounting systems, I had a meeting with the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of one of the large telcos and he told me his business issues. Till this day, I tell people what he told me. So write a blog, share this, you don't need to mention the person or company. Better still ask permission. People will be flattered.

So what? This will help you, create deals, but it will help you close deals.

Another example. We had a private equity (P/E) company as a target, so we found out the business issues faced by the CEO of that company and we wrote articles on "international expansion" because that was one of his issues. Due to Covid, they were not selling as much, so we showed how using social they could sell more overseas. That CEO called us up. You can use content like this to start conversations (note be using that word again) and in terms of closing business.

What about ghosting when closing?

We often use that technique with content, when we are being ghosted. In fact, if you do all of the three things above, it won't eliminate ghosting, but it will reduce it.

So who's social selling?

In case you missed it, the Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch have banned cold calling and have moved all their people to social selling. This isn't some trendy tech company that might have decided to do this on a whim, this is a very conservative financial services company that has made a decision based on data.

But surely cold calling has a better ROI than social selling? Not according to Merrill Lynch.

"They will also be encouraged to contact prospects over LinkedIn, which has a higher hit rate than cold calling"

The CRO (chief revenue officer), Richard Eltham of Namos Solutions, of one of clients posted a comment on LinkedIn about social selling. See here.

“Social selling is not an option now it is the way of the world and you either learn and execute it or fear getting left behind”

Kevin Murray who is the Head of Sales at MacArtney Underwater Technology recently posted about his success with social selling here and wrote an article about the transformation that has happened in sales here.

I don't believe you Tim!

Here at DLA Ignite we don't do "hints and tips sessions" we don't want you to waste your money. Our social selling and influence methodology will provide your sales team with the stable platform for growth. It is also the only social selling program based on 70:20:10 change management principles which gives your business the mindset change and habit change they need in this digital world.

Other articles you might be interested in ....

Would you buy social selling training course from somebody that doesn't use social selling?

How to create budget and build a business case for your social selling project