How do we break into accounts and win business where are competitors are active?, Tim Hughes

It's the "holy grail" of sales, how do we break into accounts, where are competitors are active?

And win!

In my last corporate role, each salesperson had to have a "moon shot", the Dutch team called them "dream accounts". These were the ones that if we won one them, it would have been landing on the moon or as the Dutch would put it, these are "the new logos we can dream about".

All of us at some stage in our lives have had to break into new accounts, get new logos, it's what I built my career, so how do we do it?

Cold call them? It's highly unlikely that the world of B2B Enterprise, our prospects will take cold calls. The other problem is that this pisses clients off and that isn't a great way to start a relationship. In reality, making a few cold calls are not going to transform a competitive account over to your product or service.

Send an email? This could work, problem is that a person's inbox is the most noisiest part of a person's life. When I was in corporate life I got 120 emails a day, that's not a boast, it was a way of life. Inserting your message in there with everybody else's sales message, it's going to get lost.

I know a way we can get into competitive accounts and win!

How about we use social selling to get new logos especially in competitive accounts?

How do I sell global deals with social selling? - In this blog I explain how to sell new logos, when the company is a global account.

My customers don't like talking to vendors, what shall I do? - In this blog I explain how to sell into accounts where they have a culture of not talking to suppliers.

How do I sell into new business accounts?

Both of those blogs above explain how you can sell into new accounts, even when your competitors are active.

By having a social selling strategy, you can easily wipe out the competition, so that you are the obvious answer to the client. Leave the "deal sequences" at home, they don't work, by using social you will be selling, higher, faster.

What is social selling?

Here at DLA Ignite, we define social selling as

"Using your presence and behavior on Social Media to build influence,
make connections, grow relationships and trust, which leads to
conversation and commercial interaction."

It's not witchcraft, it's enabling your salespeople to work from home, (or the office) and create conversations with prospects and customers. Conversations on social media and conversations that convert.

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.

Andrew Ferrier who is the CEO of Display Technology Ltd and in this article it talks about why Display Technology have adopted social selling. His team have also created a social media strategy with help from our partner, Crux.

Their social media mission statement is

“We want to position ourselves as a forward-thinking, knowledgeable team of individuals who are all experts in our own right, therefore, collectively awesome!”

Andrew also says in that post

"Adopting this (social selling) strategy has taken all of us well outside of our comfort zones but the rewards we have seen in a short period of time have created an excitement within the business development team (new term for sales team).

Because of the nature of social media, quite often you can get instant results. Even if that is just a comment left on your post, or a like, or someone taking the time to want to connect with you.

The excitement around the sales team is infectious, it’s no longer a chore to reach out to the market place because the results can be instant and are there, right in front of you."

What sort of results can you expect?

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.

Here at DLA Ignite, we work with our partners such as Crux, Little Bird Marketing, Funnel Amplified, Accelery, EDPE Consultants, etc. We are the only social selling and influence company in the world to offer a certificate provided by an independent qualification body (OfQual) and sponsored by the Institute of Sales Professionals (ISP).

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