There has been a massive change in the way companies market and sell today.  It's been starting for a number of years, but the pandemic has accelerated this.

There has been a clear divergence between analogue and digital companies.

In November 2019, 12 months ago, BMW in the UK got 28 pieces of inbound on Linkedin, they converted 14 of these.  Let's assume that the average price of a BMW is $50,000, that means they sold $700,000 of BMWs, for zero marketing cost.  So what?

And Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) their competition?  They shut down their plant because of the lack of sales last November.  They blamed it on Brexit, the UK General Election and market conditions.  But they are the same market conditions that BMW found themselves under, but they increased sales.

BMW are digital, JLR are analogue, back 12 months ago a gap started to show in business. 

Now this all happened before the pandemic.

Traditional Marketing - Thought Leadership

In the past what you did was pay for advertising, or sponsor posts, either way you paid for media and you drove people to your website where there was some gated "thought leadership" and the person traded their email address for the report.

There are a number of problems with this:-

1.  The empowered buyer isn't interested in trading their email for a white paper

2. We all know if you are presented with a 2,000 word white paper we put in the file on our desktop called "to read sometime" and of course we never do.  But if we were presented with a 300 word blog from somebody who we know, like and trust, we would read it straight away.

3. Everybody markets today with the message "buy my product because we are great" which means the go-to-market and branding of B2B companies are the same.

4. You are already been outsold by digital companies ......

We Don't Need Thought Leadership

This statement "we don't need thought leadership" isn't actually true.  There are people who need it, your marketing agency and content writers.  They need it because it, they make money from it, not that it builds you pipeline.  Now buying something because there is a vested interest isn't good business sense. 

The World Is Digital

Who's saying this?  Mckinsey say so, Gartner say so, Hootsuite and We Are Social say so, Hubspot say so, and Google say so .....

What's different is that we are able to shortcut the current marketing practice and engage with prospects and customers direct.  What do we mean?   

This is Eric, he's one of the team at DLA Ignite and he got 6 C-Level meetings from this post. The post took him 10 minutes too create.  He does have posts that have got a better response, the one about Led Zeppelin for example.

This usually shocks people. 

How can a post about Eric's 16 year old son get 18,000 views and 165 likes?

But better still, how can a post like this get 6 - C-Level meetings?

Because, all of Eric's post are strategic.  He knows exactly why he is posting it and knows how to monetise it.

A Quick Look at Our Content Pyramid

Based on our research, we have created this pyramid of content.  Advertising is of course at the bottom, with humanised content at the top.  This does not mean that you always post humainsed content, the point of this content is it drives people to your Linkedin profile, where they can see what you "stand for".  Let's break that down.

How As a Sales Person Do I get 6 C-Level Meetings From Post a Piece Of Content?

1. First you need a great profile.  Think about the needs of your audience and work back from there.  Your prospects and clients do not need the world's best salesperson they need somebody to help them.  Your Linkedin profile is your shop window and should show case you 24 hours a day.  The days that Linkedin was a CV have long gone.

2. You need a network (not contacts).  The average person on Linkedin has 903 contacts and they will be x colleagues and recruitment consultants.  You need to be connected to the people you want to influence.  Your prospects, your target accounts, your customers, the people influential in your markets.  Remember that in B2B the trick is to be memorable.

3. Finally you need content.  When somebody comes to your Linkedin profile, you need content to show people what you stand for.  That does not mean you need humanised content all the time.  You need to have content that educates that provides insight, tell me something I don't know!

That said, humanised content will get you the most engagement and it is that engagement that having a methodology will enable you to monetize that engagement.

This is how Eric got 6 x C-Level meetings from that post ..... that only took him 10 minutes to create. 

Any cold calling sales guru will tell you "social selling is posting and hoping" if you hear somebody say that, just remember they don't know what they are talking about.

We Do This Already Tim, Our Sales VP Posts a Piece of Content and Their Directs Like The Post

This is where you are going wrong. 

Posting and hoping, isn't going to work, it is just a "random act of social" you have to understand strategically, why you are posting and have a methodology to follow up the engagement, to turn it into meetings.

As I mentioned above, the average person on Linkedin has 903 contacts and they will be x colleagues and recruitment consultants.  You need to be connected to the people you want to influence.  Your prospects, your target accounts, your customers, the people influential in your markets.

You Need a Strategic Approach to Social

Everything you do on social, needs a strategic approach.  

Your profile, is a shop window to the world.  When you approach people or get approached do you look the person that has an affinity with your clients?  Your Linkedin profile needs to work hard for you.

You need to be connected to the people and accounts you want to influence.

You need to be able to create content that is relevant and resonants with your clients.  But Tim, this all sounds very scary, surely if we just make one more call and send more emails it will work out?  I'm sorry to say, it won't. 

This is Scary!

For many people this means change and nobody likes change.  It's comfortable doing what we have always done.  We understand that and we know when we get up in the morning, what we are going to do.  A Sales Leader recently said to me "I still do what I did 20 years ago, it worked then and it works now."  But does it?

20 years ago I had a Sony Walkman, a VCR and a fax machine, but times have changed.

But not understanding social media is fine, in fact you are the same as everybody else. 

Also not understanding the business opportunity and not understanding what you need to do is also totally understandable and similar to everybody else in business.

This is what's it's like to be in business in a Covid world in 2020.

The Barrier To Change

But being scared of the unknown is your barrier to change.

This venn diagram often does the rounds on social media and it is very true.  Our fears are the thing that often holds us back.

I'm in the process of getting fit and losing weight.  This is a simple task, I have to go running three times a week.  You know that, I know that.  But it isn't the running that is the issue, it's the getting up and going, is the problem.  The same with selling virtually in the new world.  It's not what you know, it's what you do! 

How many times in life have you thought "if only I had done x".

You Are Not Alone

All companies are going through this right now, it's scary times, CEO after CEO are saying to us right now "I know that we need to change, but I don't know what to, or how we do it".  I totally get that, CEOs are also saying to us "we came into this Pandemic analogue and we have to come out digital".

But how?

We Are Here To Work With You

First thing that surprises most people is that we have been doing this for 4 years.

There's been no pivot, we haven't just started doing this.  This helps you, not just the fact that we have "been there and done it" but we have data to back up our methodology. 

Which comes to our methodology, that takes the thinking out of being social.  

(Steve Job used to where the same outfit every day as it meant he didn't have to think about what he had to wear and he could focus his thoughts on other things). 

You do "this", you do "this" and you will get results.  Nothing to be scared about.  We also run coaching one to ones during the program, which means that everybody learns at their own pace.  Learning in a safe environment, with people that have done this many times.

Think of it as us working with you.

The Payoff

Everytime we run this program, we get 30% increase in revenue and a 40% reduction in the sales cycle.

There are also some softer benefits, you and your team get a new life skill and as a leader you are providing the business with a digital legacy.  Supporting the transformation to digital for the business.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Just give me, or one of the DLA Ignite team and hour of your time and we can walk you through what we are doing for other companies.  No hard sell, just take you through what other companies are doing to transform.

Please contact me here or one of the DLA Ignite team here, so please pick one of our industry experts or one of our experts in your geographical locality.  Our website is here.