Rapport and trust is everything in business. 

From the first impression we make in the first 30 seconds of meeting someone, as humans we look at for small signals, whether we realise or not, about whether we like someone. Human to human interaction significantly influences how we feel about someone and the level of trust gained as we make note of eye gesture, body posture and sometimes mirroring each other. Without those signals our interpretation of others is compromised.

Our world has changed for good.

The last two years saw an acceleration toward digital, some say ten years worth of progress in just six months. When I look at how B2B sales & marketing has evolved in the last ten years, I already noticed the shift from seller to buyer control. The buyer was spending less time with sellers, the information made available to buyers on the internet meant they didn’t need to speak with a seller until almost 60% of the way through the buying process. This is now closer to 90% in some cases, still within a complex B2B purchase. I think the biggest shift though, is that 70% of buyers or people influencing the B2B procurement process are millennials. No sales methodology or approach caters for this. Ok, so some or talking about asynchronous selling, which is essentially creating content, in most cases, video content that can be used to help sell without the sales person being present. But it’s still very corporatey.  

Traditional B2B sales & marketing techniques do not work like they did before. The traditional sales funnel is based on waste, if you’re lucky a 1% conversion, and very lucky 2%. So that’s a 98% failure rate, so what are you left with, put more in the top of the funnel if you want more out the bottom. There are levers that can be pulled to improve conversion at each stage, however this still leaves businesses without the volume needed at the top of the funnel, to achieve their goals.  

Being remote makes the problem worse.

In the absence of human interaction we look for alternative signals, particularly social media presence, it’s this presence that requires more than just having a profile, it’s about building your presence, from a human perspective, with people you want to connect with and make contact with as a human, with a conversation, just like you would in person. When you meet someone for the first time, you might use an ice breaker, you might share a relevant story, learn more about the person you’ve just met. So why do we send brochures or sales messages on social media?

Social media has become a critical part of our personalities, I don’t mean taking pics of your lunch or holiday snaps.

I mean professionally, platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn are windows to our worlds, the story about you, your why and what got you to where you are, and in the absence of in person meetings, it provides a feel of that first impression. 

Why is this important to you and your business.

A large percentage of teams will remain remote.

Yes, companies have saved millions by moving to a remote operating model but what affect does this have on revenue growth, when your people are not building rapport and trust with customers and prospects in person. When, the experience we give our buyers is the differentiator in business today, what steps are you taking to ensure your teams are skilled in the art of building rapport and trust, digitally?

• What’s the commercial impact of not interacting in person? You don’t need me to answer this for you, I think you know the cost. There are a number of articles and white-papers that explore how to measure the value of building rapport and earning trust in person, Google them and you’ll find them. The fact I want you to take from this is, people don’t buy from people they don’t like or trust - so give yourself and your team the competitive edge by having a social media strategy that focuses on enabling your people to build their social presence aligned to creating meaningful conversations and humanising your brand. 
• What is the commercial impact of not having a social media strategy - and I don’t mean run a few posts and paid ads! I mean, a clear idea if your commercial objectives, what you and your teams want to be known for, after all, social is personal, no one wants to buy your company, they want to buy YOU! What do you want to be known for, how does that link to the commercial value you bring to your customers and support you being the technical and digital expert in your field, your company will grow if you do this. 

And if the world doesn’t remain remote and everything ends up back to normal.

Well, it’s the same. If you want to be in control of the number of meaningful conversations your teams create, the amount of pipeline you generate and the revenue growth you achieve, the only way to scale this is to use enable your people and implement a social strategy.  

I have partnered with DLA ignite, the most recognised digital selling training firm, to provide Social Influence & Selling transformation training to companies wanting to control their rate of growth.  DM me on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alex-loves-martech or Twitter: @Alex_Supero - I’d love to meet you and chat about how I can help you help your business accelerate growth.

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