This might sound strange but the mistake B2B organisations are making today is that they hire a sales team to sell their product or service. 

Bear with me a moment. Hiring a sales team or team of inside sales (sales or business development reps) sounds like the logical solution.  

And it is if you have a strong approach (and big budgets) for sales enablement and ongoing coaching. 

But if you haven’t, then what are you doing to turn your existing team into micro-influencers that amplify themselves to build relationships with your prospective customers. 

Either way, sales team or not, if you don’t have a ‘relationship first’ approach as part of your sales go-to-market strategy, don’t be disappointed when you miss your quota this year and next. 

• It’s common knowledge that between 70-90% of the buying process has concluded before a buyer speaks with a seller, why? There’s so much insight online and from peers, buyers don’t feel they need to. 
• Buyers don’t like sellers. The moment sales-speak is heard the buyer retreats into the zone of resistance. 
• The buying influencers are getting younger, they don’t like to speak on the phone or read long emails. Buyers are more comfortable using social media as trusted platforms, as trusted sources of information. 
• It's reported that only 17% of the buying process includes sellers. So with such little exposure to the buying process if you haven’t already built a relationship, how likely are you to win the deal following your sales path. At this point, disrupt or stay at home, you’ve nothing to lose!

Somewhere between 90-95% of your territory is not in market for your product nor are they considering a problem that you might be able to solve.  ‘Selling’ to this group is a huge waste of time and money. Relationship building on the other hand is your ticket to being in the right place and knowing the right person at the right time.  But confidently walking social media corridors requires a completely different set of skills, skills that most sellers today, simply don't have. It also requires a new strategy, one that is not traditional.  

Social media is your enabler to scaling commercial relationships and growing your business - bringing you closer to your customers, partners, prospects and employees.

Just like you would in a live networking environment, you might walk up to an individual and introduce yourself on social media. ‘How’ you do this has a significant impact on the outcome. 

What if there were a room full of individuals, all from companies within your territory, would you stand in the middle of the room and throw brochures (sales messages) at everyone, no, of course you wouldn’t. You will have done your homework, learnt a little about each individual you want to chat to, you may have even organised for an introduction from a mutual connection.  

It’s exactly the same on social media. And you can do this with exactly who you want and at scale, without leaving your home office or holiday home. Imagine that, creating as many new relationships or rekindling old, as you like and all you need is your own time. Nothing else. No marketing team, copywriters or content production team. Just you!

Now, the most common objection at this point is, I don’t have the time, I’m too busy. If you’re too busy to take ownership of your business growth or empower your team to, then carry on doing what you’re doing, we can chat when pipeline is a priority. 

If you’re willing to learn how you can solve the following problems, I would be more than happy spending 45 minutes chatting about how you can:

• solve your pipeline growth problem - by creating at least one new commercial meeting per week, per head.
• solve your revenue growth problem - by enabling one new proposal per month and one incremental deal per quarter, per head (sales/CSM).  
• solve your talent growth problem - by ensuring you are seen as the employer of choice by the talent you want to attract

You actually have the resources to solve the above yourself, all you need as a little support.  

As always, please DM me on LinkedIn or Twitter: @Alex_Supero  to learn more.