We lost a piece of business just before Christmas, it wasn't a great piece of news in which to start the Christmas holidays.
Our salesperson, who is highly competent, had got the CMO and the CRO to agree that our social selling transformation (backed by the Institute of sales professionals (ISP)) was what the company needed if it was going to make it's growth targets.
Some context as to this companies business position
Like many companies, they are not creating enough pipeline by current activities, such as cold calling, email marketing and advertising. They had even implemented what is deemed to be "best practice" which is to throw as many SDRs and "deal cadences" at the problem and spam their way out of the issue.
When I mean spam their way out of the issue, I mean, for the SDRs to send as many inmails, send as many emails and make as many calls as physical possible. Unsurprisingly this still wasn't making any impact. And there are a number of reasons for this.
- We have all become immune to this spam onslaught. As buyers, we know that salespeople will have deal cadences, so we just block them everywhere, on email, social. It saves us buyers, time and agro.
- Throwing as much mud at the wall and hoping it will stick, it isn't selling it's playing the numbers. It's like placing a bet on every square on the roulette table, because we know that's a sure way of winning. But at what cost?
- It's pointless having an analog / physical sales force when the buyers have moved to digital.
It's time to take the business digital
The CMO and CRO knew this couldn't go on and they would probably lose their jobs if they maintained the status quo. They also knew from the CFO that if they carried on as they are there would be layoffs in 2023.
Having talked with one of our partners here at DLA Ignite, who walked through our social selling and influence methodology, and case studies they could see light at the end of the tunnel. (And it wasn't a train coming the other way). Afterall, a business that is getting a 10,000:1 ROI and are willing to tell prospects about it is very compelling.
A 10,000:1 ROI is literally, you give me a $1 and I give you $10,000, what's not there to like?
Back to our CMO and CRO
Anyway the CMO and CRO went to the CEO to get this signed off and what happened?
The CEO cut the budget of the CMO and CRO, afterall he too had seen the report from the CFO showing they are going to need to make layoffs in 2023 based on the current business, pipeline and revenue trajectory.
To summarise, the business wasn't making enough pipeline and wasn't making it's revenue number, sales and marketing in its current format isn't working, so the CEO cut the budget.
Which gets us back to the title of this blog, which is something my business partner Adam Gray said.
"If you have been unable to hit your growth targets with the existing strategy, how by reducing what you’re doing in those areas AND facing a more challenging economic environment how do you hope to get back on track?
Surely the only reasonable solution when you have used tried and tested solutions which have failed to deliver is to do something different?"
Want to know more about social selling, check out my new book
"social selling techniques to influence buyers and changemakers - 2nd edition".
In this brand new edition, I have updated all the text, I have also got 15 practitioners, so people who are doing this already to explain how they are get (practical) business benefit. From the CEO that has been running a digital business for over 18 months to sales leaders who use social selling every day.
Articles on how these business have and are implementing digital, from Mercer, Telstra Purple, Ring Central, Cyberhawk, Namos, Ericsson, Crux Consulting, DLA Ignite and more.
It's available on Amazon worldwide. Link to Amazon.com here and Amazon.co.uk here.
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