How on earth are we going to break into this list of new target accounts?, Tim Hughes

How often do we get told in sales, here's a list of accounts, go and sell to them?

They are, just names on a list.

We know nothing about the accounts, some may even be using our competitor's products.

So here's the key to open that door.

How do we sell to accounts we have no relationships in?

One of the questions I often get asked around global deals is around sales origination.

How do you create desire in a global business for your product and service?

There are two issues.

1. The company you are trying to sell to, have no idea who you are, and it will take time getting your target companies aware of you. Putting it another way, the companies you will be targeting have zero awareness of you.

2. How do you build relationships and have conversations throughout the global business?

How do you create something from nothing?

Social selling is the ideal vehicle for originating deals.

Why? Because it allows you to sell higher and wider than legacy sales methods, it also gets resonance with people higher in organisations.

But you are here to find out how to sell new business deals, so let's walk you through it.

1. Buyer centric profile - The first thing you need is a buyer-centric social media profile. This is a profile, that when your target accounts look at you, they see you as the expert you are, they see you say a human being that can help them, they see you as that sherpa, that helper, the person that can solve their business issues. Don't forget, that they don't know they have the business issue that you are going to solve. Well they don't know, yet. Let's not forget this company has zero understanding about what your business does. Hold that thought.

The last thing you you want is your LinkedIn profile to look like is a CV, it means you are looking for a job, or maybe you look like just another salesperson? These are global deals, this is the big prize, invest some time. Don't forget, you need to look different, like an expert and look human.

2. Build your digital network - Then taking your buyer centric profile, you start building your network, that is connecting with the people you want to influence and sell to in these global accounts.

There is a tip here, don't sell. Yes I know you have an amazing solution and you are passionate about it, (after all it pays your mortgage) but I don't know that. Yes I know it's called "social selling". But simple psychology tells us all that we all hate being sold to. So don't. It's your job is to get me into a conversation.

People buy from people they know, like and trust. We don't buy from people who turn up and pitch to us on social.

Don't worry we train and coach you on how to create a buyer centric profile and how to create a digital territory at scale as part of your social selling and influence course.

One final thing on a network in global accounts, let's take BMW as they are clients of ours. How many people do you think you need to connect to in BMW to make a success of the account?

There are 100,000 people in BMW and 100,000 people in the dealer network.

To be honest, I have no idea how many people, but it will be more than 1.

We are transforming a supply chain software companies salesforce and they tell me there are 100 stakeholders in their sales. In that case, it's going to be more than 100.

3. Content - The final thing you need is content.

Please forget the brochures that marketing create, nobody reads them.

I would suggest you flip articles from an app like Flipboard or better still, create your own blogs, like this. Let's not forget, I'm not telling you "buy my product, because we are great" I'm giving you insight, I'm showing you I'm an expert, I'm explaining how to sell global deals.

This is what you need to be doing, with your content.

Explain the business issue(s) one at a time.

Post everyday, don't forget if you don't post you are invisible.

We will take you through how to create content as part of our social selling and influence course.

Selling new business deals is easy

Originating and creating new deals, in fact any deals is very easy today as social gives us a global stage. Then it's down to you, do you look (on social media) like a person the company can do business with? Are you influencing, having conversations and building relationships with the right people? Are you influencing people and getting conversations with your content?

It is, that straight forward, and if you need any help you know where we are.

Now Imagine .....

Imagine, I pick you up tomorrow in my car and drive you to a place which is full of your prospects and customers. All you have to do is go up and have a conversations with them.

Remember, social media is, social media. In the past you interrupted somebody with a cold call or an email and pitched your services. As social media is being social on media, interrupting and pitching does not work.

If I walked up to you at a social event and pitched, you would make your excuses and go and talk to somebody else.

So how about tomorrow, I pick you up in my car and we go to a place where all your prospects are hanging out. You can stay as long as you want. All you have to do is have a conversation with them. It's that simple, if you are interested, read on.

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.

The problem with the name "social selling" is that people think that this is selling on social. All these pitches that you get on social are not social selling, they are spam.

The other thing you need to know about social selling is that this isn't about "putting out some videos" or "putting flowers on your profile" or "going viral". Here at DLA Ignite, engagement is important but we are about driving revenue, EBITDA, for your business using social media. This is about you winning business from the competition and having a competitive advantage.

Social is about having a strategy and there are two key drivers

With anything you do on social there are two questions you need to ask

1. How many leads / meetings / conversations will I get from this post / blog / activity?

2. How much revenue / EBITDA am I getting as a business?

Posting and hoping or posting random stuff is not a strategy, in fact I doubt it's driving anything for your business.

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, and DLA Ignite customer, 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.

What happened? They buyer was on social media looking for a solution to their problem, spotted one of the Namos salespeople, who had a buyer-centric profile and asked if the salesperson could help them. That turned into a $2.6 million deal.

Contact any of the DLA Ignite team, Eric, Adam, Nick, Vanessa, Lorena, Priscilla, Lenwood, Alex and they will be more than happy to help.

Go and look at their LinkedIn profiles .... look how they can have digital conversations, create insightful content. This could be your company!

We are the only social selling and influence company in the world to offer a certificate in social selling 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