In the words of writer and thought leader Dave Frankland, today’s customers are entitled. And since we are all consumers, we are all entitled – which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Frankland’s book The Entitled Customer tells the story of the modern-day consumer. With technology at our fingertips, we are more informed than ever before. And we crave information – hard data, genuine reviews, and so on.

What’s more, our exposure to information is, for the most part, curated. We use ad blockers and spam filters to tune out the noise from the never-ending stream of ads. We choose who we follow – and unfollow.

The Entitled Customer got me thinking: how can we, as business owners, marketers, executives, and employees, meet today’s consumers’ expectations without assaulting their senses? And how can we leverage the social listening power of LinkedIn to achieve just that?

Is less really more?

A few months ago, LinkedIn launched a feature that let you see how often your connections publish posts. It was likely designed to use the time-tested power of peer-to-peer competition to get us to post more often. And besides, who doesn’t love a good snooping tool?

Out of curiosity, I had a look (you can too, here). To my surprise, I discovered that some people were creating 80 pieces of content a week!

While it must be noted that this calculation includes Stories as well as other forms of content, to me, this seems excessive. Publishing content on LinkedIn is about providing value to your network in a way that positions you as an industry authority. Surely, no person has 80-plus interesting, informative, original thoughts to share each week. Certainly, no person has the time to carefully consider and compose high-quality copy that speaks to their target audience’s pain points.

Less is more – and that’s not just a hunch. According to Frankland’s book, during GDPR in the UK, many companies put their marketing on hold and slimmed their mailing lists to comply with the new privacy act. As a result, sales went up.

Here’s how you can put this mantra into practice on LinkedIn:

Quality over quantity – always

Posting content on LinkedIn is key to unlocking the platform’s full potential, but like most things in life, quality trumps quantity every time. As a general rule, aim for three posts per week. If you can only manage one or two, that’s fine, too.

Add value

Your posts should contribute something of value – your take on an industry trend, your top three tips, or a how-to, as examples. Don’t just post for the sake of posting; instead, be generous with your expertise. No one ever loses out by being helpful.

Don’t spam people’s inboxes

Think of LinkedIn as a town square. If you’re going to wave billboards in people’s faces, they will not respond positively. But if you build relationships and engage in meaningful conversation, your time, effort, and kindness will repay dividends. Only message people privately with a podcast link, article or insight you genuinely believe they will find interesting. Unless solicited, don’t go in for the hard sell.

Creating bespoke experiences

If less is more, how can we make what remains impactful enough to nurture relationships, drive new sales, and hold onto loyal customers? The answer could lie in creating bespoke experiences.

Here are three stats to get you thinking:

• Eight in 10 consumers are more likely to purchase from brands that create personalised experiences.
• Seven in 10 consumers say they exclusively engage with personalised messaging.
• Brands that create personalised experiences see revenue increase by 6 to 10%.

How can you create bespoke experiences for your customers here on LinkedIn? How can you win them back day in and day out?

Here’s my advice:

Write for your target audience

In case you weren’t already aware, you are not your customer. What you might find interesting or helpful may not align with what your customers want to read. Imagine you’re face-to-face with a client. What questions do they have? What are they worried about? How do you make them feel heard and understood? Mirror this in your posts, and the authenticity will shine through. Guaranteed.

Reply to comments on your own posts

I recently saw someone on LinkedIn draw a parallel between not responding to comments on your own posts and not working the room at your own party. Engage with the people who take time out of their day to add their two cents – remember, relationships are built one sentence at a time.

Flatten the path to purchase

Bespoke experiences answer customer questions before they can even ask. Consider what you can do to flatten the path to purchase. A big one: include your contact information in the (tricky to find) Contact Info section and your About section. Don’t make it difficult for a profile visitor to reach out – make it so easy it’s almost irresistible.

Relationships matter – a lot

Ever met someone for the second or third time only to be greeted with a blank look? They don’t remember who you are, because the two, three, four conversations you’ve had failed to add value to them.

That’s one extreme. The other is catching up with an old friend. I live in Sydney, but my childhood friends are scattered across the country and world. When we talk, it’s like no time has passed. They know me, and they understand the context of what I’m saying. They can fill in the blanks with ease.

You don’t want to be the me, me, me person on LinkedIn. Greed isn’t good, and you should not be looking to spam or one-up every person you interact with. You want to listen actively and grasp the bigger picture of your target audience’s wants, needs, and challenges. It takes time and effort to truly listen, and shortcuts don’t work.

You can’t and shouldn’t automate relationships on LinkedIn. Not only is it against their user terms, but it’s also a sure-fire way to be ignored. Instead, create meaningful touchpoints that feel personal:

• Comment on people’s posts
• Personalise your invitations to connect
• Share podcast episodes, relevant posts and articles with your contacts
• Use voice messages

Little actions build big reactions. In an era of hybrid events and less face-to-face interaction, authentic digital connection has never mattered more.

Let’s get personal for a minute

My dad died in late 2019. It put things in perspective. People are everything, and relationships are not to be undervalued. In 2020, I vowed to do better, be better for my clients, to keep in touch and personalise my service. But I was in the lucky group that benefited from the shift to online in the wake of the pandemic. Busier than ever, I couldn’t fit one more thing into my schedule.

As we pass the mid-point of 2021, I’m reviewing my new years resolutions and realising that my resolution has slipped a bit. I am back to actively split-testing what I do, managing my time so that I can focus on quality, not quantity.

Because for me, less is more.

The post Why Less On LinkedIn Is So Much More appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Our newly hybrid world and the massive adoption of LinkedIn presents a greater opportunity to cast your net wider and network online. Why? Because that’s where we are all spending the majority of our time.

Without peers sitting behind us, less rushing from here to there for meetings and reduced travel, decision-makers are more accessible and more open to communication. Periods of social isolation has been tough and we are all yearning for connection and collaboration.

How can you improve your online presence to bolster your networking efforts? By giving your LinkedIn profile an overhaul!

Before we start though, click on the edit pencil in whatever section you are working on, scroll to the bottom and ensure that the slide bar is set to ‘Off’.

Check this setting every time you save changes, noting that notifications are very good announcements if you have changed roles, been promoted, recently completed an MBA or some other significant studies.

(1) Headline

Aside from your name and picture, your Professional Headline is the only part of your profile that is instantly visible in LinkedIn search results. It also follows you everywhere on LinkedIn, when people find you in searches, when you comment, in companies and on the top of your posts. This is why you have to use these 220 characters to grab people’s interest, so they’ll want to click on your profile.

Your headline should sum up who you are and the problems you solve, but there’s no need for it to be bland. Most users (approximately 70%) simply have their name and company here, as this is what LinkedIn defaults to. However, you’ll stand out from the crowd by being a bit more creative with your headline.

Firstly, it’s important to think about keywords. Just like Google, LinkedIn uses keywords to determine how highly your profile will rank in search results, so you need to be thinking about the keywords that are most relevant to what you do. Try to put yourself in the mindset of your ideal client or prospective employer – what search terms would they use if they were searching for someone to solve their pain?

Once you’ve established the most relevant keywords to use, you can start thinking of more creative ways to put them together, such as giving yourself a catchy slogan. Think of yourself as a brand and consider how do you want to sell yourself?

As LinkedIn is highly visual with almost everyone having a background banner these days, you should consider making your profile more graphically appealing and memorable by separating your keywords with emojis rather than just writing them as a list.

Pipes are okay – but having been abandoned by LinkedIn and other sites a few years ago, they may look old school…

(2) Background banner

Your background banner has a lot of prominence on your profile so if you have not yet replaced the LinkedIn default blue background, you’re not going to stand out and you will not get noticed.

The image you choose should depend on what you want your LinkedIn profile to achieve. If you want your employees to increase the company’s brand reach, offer each employee the option to upload an image that has a company logo – as all the best companies do.

If your employer has not yet provided a background banner, the image you use should reflect your value proposition. If you’re promoting services or products, it’s a good idea to reduce barriers by including contact details in the image – if this doesn’t make it too cluttered. Tag lines or a description of what the company does is also helpful in converting your audience to buying customers.

Do not have a beach scene or something that infers you wish to be on holiday! LinkedIn is a professional platform and accordingly, your banner needs to further your professional goals.

(3) About section

Your About section really needs to start as strong as possible, as only the first 270 characters are visible on desktop before the person viewing your profile has to click on “See More”. Of course people only click when they are interested, so you must ensure your first 270 characters form a hook, and make a real impact. A great way to do this is to start with a question, or an intriguing statement.

If your initial sentence or two are interesting enough, you should be expecting users to click on “See More”. This is why it’s important to have something extra to offer those who do. You should then explain not just what you do, but why you do it.

With a total of 2600 characters (approx 360 words), it’s vital that your About section contains information about the value you can offer clients or prospective employers, that your competition can’t. State clearly how you can make their lives easier, for example, by explaining how you solve problems using your particular skills and experience.

Employers are always looking to recruit new employees whose values align with those of their business, and similarly clients want to know that you are genuinely committed to solving their problems. It’s important to let readers know your why, what makes you tick, and what made you choose your particular field – because we all connect more easily with people who care about the same things as us.

Crucially, be authentic and reflect who you are in a realistic way, rather than simply aiming to please the people you’re hoping to attract. By being yourself and highlighting your skills and interests to your best advantage – you will attract people you truly want to work with.

Never use third-person perspective (referring to yourself by name), and instead use I and You to give readers the sensation that you are speaking to them directly. It will appear aloof and distant to talk about yourself as if you are not yourself. If you are not convinced that you should use I and you then check out this 1.22 minute video on how our language needs to match current trends in leadership style…

(4) Skills endorsements and recommendations

Your Skills section is all about proving that you have the know-how to do the work you do. It also appears to feed the ranking when someone searches for your skills, so as much as it pains me to say this, more is currently better… Just be careful you don’t dilute your number of endorsements by mentioning similar skills twice (Eg Management and Leadership).

Keeping in mind that only three of your skills are immediately visible on your profile, it’s important to make sure those skills are the ones that best align with your goals and describe strengths that are most relevant to the job/client/industry you are pursing. You can reorder your skills by unpinning, clicking and dragging on the four lines on the right of each skill as pictured and shown in the video here and pictured below.

You must have your skills endorsed by others if you want people to feel they can trust you. Try pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and casually ask for endorsements every time somebody praises your work. You don’t have to be pushy, as people are often grateful to have a way to help – if you approach them in a friendly and low-pressure way.

Similarly, don’t be shy. If you are looking for a new role, and you know your peers are too, consider asking (gently) if you can write each other a recommendation, being specific in what you would like mentioned.

Personally, I find that giving recommendations feels good. If you are a leader in an organisation, consider normalising both recommendations and endorsements by monthly reflecting on the performance of individual team members and endorsing their skills, writing recommendations for specific projects and accomplishments. Why should you do this? Because these days, few people care about acknowledgements unless the whole world sees it… Take comfort that you can always delete recommendations at a later date if the employee does something terrible.

Concerned that your employees will leave if you endorse them? That is like the cartoon below…

Recommendations and skills endorsements demonstrate trust and foster employee loyalty and commitment in a way that few reward and recognition programs can achieve. All at no cost. Plus, a higher number of endorsements and recommendations will lift clients perception of the quality and talents of your team members – growing sales conversions.

(5) Experience section

Don’t ever cut and paste your resume to your LinkedIn profile, instead stop and consider again your LinkedIn objective. If your goal is to attract more clients, it will look weird for your profile to read as a resume – and certainly few clients will want to hear about your successes in sales. Instead clients want to hear that you are skilled in solving their problems.

If you are sprucing up your LinkedIn profile to attract a new employer, or influence how your peers perceive you, cutting and pasting your resume into your LinkedIn profile gives the reader no reason to contact you with questions. Instead keep your statements short, strongly action-orientated and focussed on the difference you deliver.

Keep in mind that you can use symbols instead of bullets in your all-important experience section of your profile, as demonstrated in my friend Robert’s, who in having permitted me to use him as an example years ago of how a profile could be arranged, was subsequently approached about a new role because of his profile on LinkedIn. Robert was not, and most certainly is NOT looking for a job – but he kindly permits me to still use him as an example.

(6) Adding media

A frequently underutilised area of LinkedIn is Media, and Featured. A great profile is far more sophisticated than a résumé on steroids — it is your digital reputation, validating who you are and the expertise you hold.

However we often connect with people who simply don’t know all that we have accomplished, causing the undervaluing of our skills, talents and services.

You can build on how others think of you without constant bragging and hero statements by adding media. Sitting in the Experience section of your profile and relevant to each job, these are evidence of previous successes, awards and presentations in the form of external news articles, photos, website links, videos and SlideShare presentations. 

To ensure these show to those that are just skimming your profile (and who do not scroll down to the experience section), it is crucial that you use the Featured tool to highlight key messages and achievements.

As you can see pictured here you can highlight articles, landing pages or company websites in the Featured section. 

These additions are powerful evidence that you are a specialist and a subject matter expert!

Noting that only a little over two are immediately visible on desktop and only a little over one on mobile, just ensure that you change the order so the most relevant is first.

(7) Customising your URL

Lastly, if you want to make an impact – you will need to be memorable and easy to find. A custom URL makes you look like you take care of the online image you’re presenting – something that is even more critical in this Covid-impacted time.

If it seems like too much effort don’t be fooled – the more memorable you are, the more job offers, clients and opportunities you can expect to get!

Remember, everyone under 30 has grown up digitally literate and millennials don’t even have to think about presenting themselves as tech-savvy – they do it automatically. No matter what age or level, you need to keep up to look relevant.

Don’t worry if someone else on LinkedIn has the same name as you – you can use your URL as an opportunity to stand out even further in your field, by adding your job title or industry sector after your name, for example Joe-Bloggs-Accountant or Joe-Bloggs-Supply-Chain.

While this modification will look especially great on your resume, if you use business cards don’t forget to have your URL printed underneath your phone and email address because we all need to remember that LinkedIn is where your customers are increasingly searching for the services and technical expertise they need!

To point out the obvious: While LinkedIn is a personal branding tool where you control what is said about you, in this new world where we are unable to meet face to face, it is crucially one of the few places where you can generate job and business leads, represent your company, or find and reach out to old contacts to explore new opportunities.

As LinkedIn is a social selling and recruitment tool that works on the basis of relationships, when you craft your LinkedIn profile, it is important to think about who you are and how you want to be perceived.

Be authentic and let your character show through because we need to see who you really are to connect, communicate and collaborate…

The post LinkedIn Hacks – 7 Practical Steps To Overhaul Your Profile appeared first on Head Of Sales.

As someone who believes there is definitely such a thing as too much social media, I want to discuss why you need to ration and structure your time on LinkedIn and how to prioritise quality over quantity to get the most out of the experience.

Why too much LinkedIn is not a good thing

I’m an independent LinkedIn trainer. I know exactly how important this platform is for individuals and businesses wanting to grow their online presence and achieve greater successes. But because LinkedIn is aimed at business professionals, it can be easy to forget that it is still a social media platform.

We’re hearing more and more about how too much social media is dangerous for us, and I agree. This year in particular, when we have been confined to our homes for long periods of time, there has been a huge temptation to spend large portions of every day connecting and conversing online.

However, this is exactly what social media is designed to do – clever algorithms, driven by artificial intelligence, are continuously refining and improving our experience online to meet three core objectives.

These are objectives all social media platforms have:

1. Engagement goal, keep us plugged in for longer
2. Growth goal – gain more subscribers (for LinkedIn the goal here is to transition free subscribers to paid accounts such as LinkedIn Premium or Sales Navigator)
3. Sell us advertising (largely Facebooks goal, however we have seen elements of this appearing on LinkedIn in recent years with sponsored posts)

Many people also don’t realise that the user experience design of social media platforms is actually based on ideas that originally came from the gambling industry. Scrolling through the newsfeed triggers similar responses to slot machines, and “likes” give us a rush far more addictive than a “win” could ever be, making us feel validated and successful, all while tapping into that caveman desire for belonging, acceptance and social connection.

So it isn’t surprising that social media addiction has become a growing concern. These sites are actually designed to create addiction and compulsion. It is in their interests that we never sign out.

And, just like in the movie, if we don’t realise we’re plugged into The Matrix, how are we supposed to wake up?

This is why I always outline a number of steps people can take to make sure they don’t spend too much time on LinkedIn and that the time they do spend here is productive.

How to make your time on LinkedIn productive

Because LinkedIn is a business networking platform, just spending time on the site each day can make us feel productive. But you’re only productive if you’re actually achieving something. Scrolling mindlessly through the feed for an hour is not doing anything to further your business goals.

It’s essential to keep a number of things in mind when using LinkedIn:

1. What are your objectives?

The whole point of being on LinkedIn is to help you achieve your goals. You need to write these objectives down if you want to make the LinkedIn experience productive and positive. For example, do you want to:

• Attract new clients?
• Bring in investment?
• Find a new employee?
• Secure a better job?

Or you could simply be on LinkedIn to keep yourself memorable to your peers and stakeholders as this is much harder to do in these times when we can’t meet face to face.

Whatever your objectives are, your time on LinkedIn has to be concentrated on helping you achieve them!

2. What is your ROI?

Just like in any business campaign, you need to keep track of your return on investment when you are spending time on LinkedIn. These days, attention is our most important commodity, and we need to be careful where we spend it. Are we actually getting anything out of the time we put into LinkedIn? If not, you need to look at where you are putting your time and change your activities.

LinkedIn should be seen as a tool. Are you using it, or is it using you?

Ways to ration your time on LinkedIn

If you want to get maximum results from your time on LinkedIn, it is important to ration the time you spend on the platform and make every minute count. I always advise setting yourself definite tasks at specific times, so you can actually start to measure the results you’re getting from the time you’re putting in.

Daily:

• Check your notifications
• Scroll through your newsfeed (set an egg timer if you need to)
• Like and comment on anything you find interesting or useful, particularly if it is from someone who you would like to see more of in your newsfeed
• Unfollow those people who produce content you find annoying – you will still stay connected and they will not be alerted that you have unfollowed them

Weekly:

• Check who has looked at your profile and send them invitations to connect
• Check your diary and send connection invitations based on who you have met, or simply spoken to
• Post content

Fortnightly:

• Look up the people you are targeting
• Like and comment on their posts
• Look at whose posts they are commenting on, or the “people also viewed” sectionof their profile and consider if connecting with these people would further your goals

Monthly:

• Craft content for the month
• Download contacts and send direct messages to people you have recently connected with or who you want to stay top of mind with. DO NOT SPAM. Aim instead to give. Forward articles of interest; facilitate helpful introductions. Aim to serve.

Having a regular schedule like this will automatically help you cut down the amount of time you spend on LinkedIn.

How to prioritise quality over quantity

Connections

The number of connections you have on LinkedIn is not important. However, your connections need to be high-quality – you need to think about the people you are trying to reach, or people who might know these people. Every connection should lead to a potential opportunity. The opportunity might not be from the connection themselves – but from the people they know. I always advocate for being selective but open-minded.

2. Posts

LinkedIn now enables you to see how often the people you follow are posting. I discovered that some of my connections are posting 80 times a week! In my opinion, this is ridiculous.

Your posts need to show thought leadership and add value to your communities on LinkedIn. This does not mean endlessly sharing other people’s posts or posting content that is meaningless – the whole point is to start and contribute to conversations so you can demonstrate your knowledge and expertise in your industry.

It can take time to gain traction, and once a week doesn’t seem like very often to post. But if your content is thought-provoking and encourages comments, you will find you’re showing up much more prominently in people’s newsfeeds.

3. Comments

It is important to comment on the posts of the people you want to reach. Not only does this make you memorable and pull attention to your profile, but it also because comments are like smiles, you have to give them to get them back.

Conclusion

LinkedIn can be a tremendous force for good if you make the best use of your time on the platform. 

The post How Much Online Networking Is Too Much? appeared first on Head Of Sales.

It’s funny then that, according to research by Lee Resource and IBM, 80% of companies surveyed claimed that they offer superior customer service, but only 8% of their customers agreed with them. Ouch!

80% of companies surveyed claimed that they offer superior customer service, but only 8% of their customers agreed with them. Ouch!

It is undisputed that negative customer experiences cost your bottom line. Have a look at these CX statistics:

For every customer complaint, there are 26 other customers who have remained silent. (source: Lee Resource Inc)

A dissatisfied consumer will tell between 9 and 15 people about their experience, while about 13% of dissatisfied customers tell more than 20 people. (source: Lee Resource Inc)

Attracting a new customer costs 5-times as much as keeping an existing one. (source: White House Office of Consumer Affairs, Washington, DC)

Happy customers who get their issue resolved tell about 4 to 6 people about their positive experience. (source: White House Office of Consumer Affairs, Washington, DC)

86% of consumers quit doing business with a company because of a bad customer experience. (source: Harris Interactive, Customer Experience Impact Report)

It’s no wonder then that customer-centricity and customer experience (CX) are hot topics in business right now. But just saying so is not enough. What about your business? Just how customer-centric is it?

Just how Customer-Centric is Your Business?

Before I go on I’d like to clear up a question I get asked a lot: What is the difference between customer-centricity and customer experience?

It’s simple, really.

Customer-Centricity creates positive Customer Experiences. In other words, for customers to perceive a business as being customer-focused it needs to be structured and managed like Jeff Bezos says, i.e. with the customer in mind. So, to be customer-centric, at every touch point in the organization you need to ask: “What does that look like from the customer’s point of view?” and then adjust your processes, KPIs and culture to do the right thing to create that positive customer experience.

So, how Customer-Centric is Your Business?

I propose that there are 10 Critical Customer Touch Points in the customer’s buying journey that can make or break your business.

These ten Touch Points are:

1. A Brand that Differentiates Your Business

I don’t mean that you have to be a household name or that your logo needs to be a certain color. The main thing is that you have a distinct brand that customers can recognize and identify you by. Most businesses should have this under control.

2. A well-defined Product and/or Service to Sell

How well can you articulate your product or service? How clearly can you explain to your prospects and customers the benefits of your product or service? Will your customers understand what it does for them, i.e. what’s in it for them? Or do you mostly talk about how it works?

3. A Unique Selling Proposition (USP) And A Killer Introduction That Engages Your Ideal Buyers And Makes Them Want To Know More About You

This is critical: It can’t be a motherhood statement such as “We really care for our customers.” It needs to be credible and you need to be able to back it up. What is your unique value proposition? I.e. can you clearly state what makes your business and its offerings unique and why a prospect should be interested in you? What makes you different from any other business out there?

And then, how do you convey that difference at the first point of contact with a new prospect? How can you intrigue and engage them right from your opening introduction? How do you get them to lean forward and say: “Tell me more.”?

4. A Clear Understanding Of Who Your Ideal Customers And Prospects Are

You would agree with me that there is little point in engaging with the wrong kind of prospects. You are better off dealing with the right kind instead, right? So, how clear are you on what your ideal customers look like?

5. The knowledge Of Where To Find Them

Once you know who your ideal Buyers are you need to know where they hang out. Do you know where to find your ideal prospects and customers?

6. The Understanding To Access And Engage Them Effectively

It’s not enough to know where to find your ideal Buyers. You need to know how to get to them and get them interested in your goods or services. How effective and scalable is your sales process? How well does it leverage your unique value proposition (see Point 3 above)?

7. The Know-How To Eliminate Your Competitors

Rarely will you be the only one in the race to a deal. Instead, you will most likely have to beat off any number of competitors. So, how do you fend them off and becomes your Buyer’s final and only choice?

8. The Skills To Create Effective Sales Proposals That Close Deals

In most B2B sales situations you are likely to be asked to submit a sales proposal to your Buyer. Do you get excited by the fact that the Buyer asked for a proposal and send it off to them asap? Or is there a better, smarter way? Further, how can you ensure that a) your proposal covers exactly what the Buyer needs, and b) that you have maximized your chances of your proposal being the last one standing, the one that gets accepted?

9. A Superior Pre, During and Post-Purchase Customer Experience

If you reflect on the customer experience statistics at the beginning of this article you will understand just how mission-critical your customers’ perceptions and experiences are to the success of your business at every step of the way. So, how successfully are you managing your Buyer’s interactions with your business?

10. The Ability To Keep Your Customers Loyal And To Win Their Repeat Business

Your customers’ experience does not end with a transaction. In fact, their post-sale experience is so critical that it will determine whether they will choose to come to do more business with you, or not. So, how do your prospects and customers perceive their interactions with your business at every touch point? Is their experience a pleasant one that will make them rave to their friends and colleagues about your business, or is it one that will more likely make them warn people off you?

There you have it. The 10 critical customer touch points that make or break your business.

The post 10 Touch Points That Make Or Break Sales appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Many sales organizations these days are struggling to achieve organic sales revenue and profit growth.

According to the TAS Group, 67 per cent of salespeople do not achieve their sales targets.

Thanks to the internet, buyers now have more information available to them than ever before. This easy access to knowledge is putting sales reps into a weak position, as it empowers buyers to take charge of the sales process. Buyers now carry out extensive online research before feel ready to contact a vendor. Thus, now the Buyers decide WHICH VENDOR they will contact, and WHEN they will do so. If your organization is not among the chosen ones your reps may never know that the buyer even existed. Yes, we are in the era of the buyers journey.

Now the Buyers decide WHICH VENDOR they will contact, and WHEN they will do so. If your organization is not among the chosen ones your reps may never know that the Buyer even existed.

As illustrated below, there are three distinct windows of opportunity in the buyers journey to influence the buyer towards our brand and our goods/services:

1. Opportunity To Create Desire

In the early stage of their buyers journey sellers have the opportunity to create desire in the buyers’ mind to consider our offerings, whether it be a new car, a new pair of shoes, or a complex IT system.

2. Opportunity To Influence The Buyer

Later, we have the opportunity to influence their decision-making and lure them away from competitors and towards our brand and offerings.

3. Too Late To Influence The Buyer

But, unfortunately, once they have made up their mind about what they want to buy and which vendor they want to buy it from, there is little opportunity left for vendors to change the buyers’ mind. They simply have come too far down the track towards making their buying decision to change tack now. Unless, that is, you have a very compelling argument or information that they had not considered (see the section on Challenger / Disruptive / Provocative Selling below).

Obviously, waiting to be contacted by a buyer is not a great sales strategy. We need something more pro-active, and we need to focus on the first two windows of opportunity that I mentioned above.

Obviously, waiting to be contacted by a Buyer is not a great sales strategy.

Over time, several options have become available to restock the sales and marketing arsenal that has been depleted by the buying journey and by the modern buyers. They can be used in any combination to help you reach your sales targets. Here are some of the more commonly used ones:

1. Cold Calling / Warm Calling
2. Content Marketing
3. Social Selling
4. Storytelling
5. Account Based Marketing (ABM)
6. Challenger / Disruptive / Provocative Selling

Let’s now look at the above options in more detail:

1. Cold Calling / Warm Calling

A lot of articles have been written about the pros and cons of cold calling. Tony J. Hughes, has written extensively on the subject, largely promoting cold calling as an effective sales technique. Personally, I am not a huge fan of calling somebody out of the blue, interrupting whatever they are doing and expecting them to drop everything to listen to your sales pitch. The only time this has half a chance of working is if you really have something significant up your sleeve that is of vital importance to them and to their business. If you have something like this then please feel free to go straight on to the section below on Challenger / Disruptive / Provocative Selling.

Otherwise, my recommendation is to stay away from cold calling. Instead, warm up your prospect with Content Marketing or Social Selling (both described below) before making direct contact. In this way, at least they know who you are and that you have something that is worthy of their time, or not.

2. Content Marketing

This strategy requires marketing to issue content that entices and compels buyers to our business. This content is usually published to the website and online generally, and complementary material is issued to the sales team. Content may comprise white papers, thought leadership articles, client success stories and lead generation campaigns. The key to success is that marketing continuously monitors the performance of its content and actively seeks feedback from the sales team about how prospects and customers react to it. Equally, sales reps must actively provide their front line intelligence to marketing so that the performance of marketing content can continuously be improved.

Success depends largely on a highly collaborative feedback loop between sales at the customer-facing front and marketing at the online front.

3. Social Selling

This is a specialist version of content marketing which is practiced by individual sales reps. The idea is that we want to attract buyers not only to our brand but also to individual reps who have built a reputation of being subject matter experts.

The way it works in many organisations is that marketing provides the right content to the sales force for them to promote their personal subject matter expertise on social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter. In other words, individual sales reps attract the buyer through their personal brand, as well as their employer’s brand.

Again, the success of this initiative largely depends on close collaboration between marketing and sales, if the content is to match the individual, and vice versa.

4. Storytelling

Storytelling is very powerful. Ever since humans were living in caves we sat around the campfire and told stories. Before the written word was invented stories were the way that we acquired information and learned new skills, such as how to hunt, gather and grow food. Even today, us humans remember stories much better than mere facts or figures.

When salespeople engage with a prospect or client they will have much deeper impact when they convey their information through a story. Storytelling also has the advantage that it doesn’t feel like selling. Just telling a story or an anecdote feels less intrusive to both the buyer and the rep. So, go ahead and tell the story of how a past client found themselves in a similar situation to your current prospect and how your solution helped them to overcome their challenges and to succeed.

Your marketing team should arm your sales force with stories to regale your prospects and customers.

5. Account Based Marketing (ABM)

ABM is nothing new, but modern sales and marketing technology has elevated it to the latest “must-have”. The reason is that it can be very powerful, if executed well. Imagine you want to win a new key account or retain a major client that is at risk of moving on to a competitor. Wouldn’t you want to give them the attention they need to help secure or retain their business ? So, you create a specialist team, let’s call them a “hit squad”, to identify the key stakeholders in your account, i.e. the decision makers, influencers and gate keepers, and you identify what makes each of them tick, their likes and dislikes, challenges and opportunities. Then you provide each of them individually, through whatever means necessary, with the information that they need to make an informed decision on why they should buy from your organization. This is so that when they all meet to decide which vendor to go with, they will discover that they all miraculously agree that they should go with your business.

This “hit squad” must consist of a multi-disciplinary team, comprised of marketing, sales, product management and communications experts. So, once again, close collaboration between marketing and sales is the key to success here, too.

6. Challenger / Disruptive / Provocative Selling

I have previously written about this type of selling and why it is not suitable for every rep. However, if your sales force has people with the stature to challenge your prospects’ or clients’ thinking then it can be very effective. The idea is that you disrupt their thinking with some new information that they either did not previously possess, or that they had not yet considered. Something that stops them in their tracks. The neat thing is that, because this particular insight was brought to them by you and only you, it gives you instant credibility over and above your competitors and turns you into a trusted adviser. It should be easy from there on to close the deal.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are a myriad of options to engage your prospects and clients, but waiting to be contacted by a Buyer is not a great sales strategy. And, given the myriad of alternatives, there is also no need for cold calling.

Regardless of which of the above sales techniques you choose to go with, much of your sales performance and success will depend on how well your marketing and sales teams work together to engage the Buyer and to differentiate your business from that of your competitors.

Ideally, your teams will collaborate across the entire 360 degrees, as illustrated here.

You are invited to talk to us about your business challenges and we’ll do our best to help, if we can. Go ahead, what have you got to lose ?

The post Six Sales Prospecting Methods, Including Cold Calling. appeared first on Head Of Sales.

While I consider you my sisters and brothers, we need to talk. Every day, you fill my inbox and my LinkedIn inbox with notes straight pitching me what you sell. No one wants you to succeed in sales as much as I do, including you, and whomever it was that taught you that pitching over email is your best choice for acquiring new clients or customers.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with pitching under the right circumstances pitching strangers without any context or conversation is extremely poor form. An approach that starts with pitching is what one does when they either don’t know better or when they hold weak beliefs, specifically the idea that everyone is a prospect (everyone is not a prospect).

As far as one can tell, the negative feedback and poor results do nothing to persuade you to change your approach. Please accept my advice in the spirit in which I deliver it, as one who wants you to succeed in sales if that is indeed the path you have chosen.

Selling Is Other-Oriented. You Are Self-Oriented.

When you pitch your product or service by describing what you sell in the first paragraph of your email, you project that your email is about nothing more than you gaining a sale. Your approach has a significant problem that causes most people to tune you out. Your first problem is that you repel people because you appear to be self-oriented.

When the sale you make is about you, it’s about the result that you want for you. You would improve your approach by focusing your conversation about what your client wants and needs, their challenges, their opportunities, and their goals. Acquiring what you want is only possible when you help someone else get what they want, as Zig never tired of reminding us.

You will improve your approach by becoming other-oriented. Instead of focusing on straight pitching people, you might spend the time to understand their world, develop a theory about what they might be struggling with, and develop an approach that speaks to what they might want. You’ll also want to slow down.

Don’t Sell Too Soon.

If what you sell is something people buy all the time, and if there is no serious consequence for making a mistake, by all means, pitch away. Maybe you sell batteries in a convenient store, the example Rackham provided in SPIN Selling. There is no reason not to ask for a sale if there can be no adverse consequences.

When the opposite is true, when your prospect doesn’t make the purchase decision you are going to ask them to make frequently, and when bad choices come with significant consequences, pitching means you are selling too soon.

When you pitch in email or Linkedin, requesting a meeting at the end of the note does nothing to mitigate the fact that your approach is transactional, as are all “spray and pray” approaches to sales. To sell a prospective client, you first have to create an opportunity by prospecting.

If you want a better, modern approach to prospecting, please see Mike Weinberg’s New Sales Simplified, Jeb Blount’s Fanatical Prospecting, Mark Hunter’s High-Profit Prospecting, Tony Hughes’s Combo Prospecting. Also, please read the first three chapters of Eat Their Lunch for a consultative approach for complex B2B sales, especially one that requires you to displace a competitor to win new business. Win customers away from your competition. Check out Eat Their Lunch

And then, there is the question about the value you create.

No Value Creation

B2B selling has changed quite a bit over the last decade. You may have heard advice about “social selling” or “the digital transformation of sales,” or some other overhyped fad that captured salespeople’s attention by promising that the new toolkit would make selling easier.

For all of my criticism of social, no one who believed in “social selling” would recommend you pitch people directly. The first rule of social selling is to do no selling. No one would train or teach you to do what you are doing now.

One of the most substantial changes in sales has been the b2b buyer’s expectations about the value they expect salespeople to create through the process. Your email does nothing to create value for the contacts you spam each day. There are several prerequisites to creating value.

First, you have to possess the business acumen to be able to understand your business, your contact’s business, and the intersection that is how you create value for them. These things are necessary to consultative sales. Second, you need to trade something of value for the time you are asking your contact to give you.

The only thing you need to sell at the start of your relationship with a connection is a meeting. Please watch this video about trading value about the time you are asking your contact to give you.

It is poor form to sell over email in your first communication with a contact. A contact is not a prospect, and you will not create an opportunity before you acquire a meeting. It will be helpful for you to think about this as “sell the meeting,” “sell the process,” and then “sell your solution.” Reversing the order here also reverses the outcome.

Stop Taking Bad Advice About Lead Generation

Almost daily, I receive an email pitch from someone who wants to mine LinkedIn for qualified leads. The people sending these notes mistakenly believe that anyone upright, breathing, with a body temperature in the neighborhood of 98.6 degrees, is a prospect. Why they think people want to spam other people as a way to acquire the new relationships that might result in a new opportunity is baffling. Please stop taking bad advice about lead generation.

B2B salespeople, please do your homework. Read books, take courses, get the training and development you need to succeed in sales. Become someone people want to buy from, not someone that repels people by spamming them over email and LinkedIn.

The post What You Need to Know About Pitching Over Email appeared first on Head Of Sales.

As somebody that has, over the last 3 years, seen in excess of 4000 applicants for the circa 350 jobs I’ve been assigned to recruit for though, I have to tell you, most salespeople seem to subscribe to taking the path of least resistance – the easy, or lazy, way out. And it speaks volumes as to their likely work ethic. They’re not very competitive in their efforts.

In exactly the same way as the business you currently, or, used to work for needs to cut through the noise and stand out in a market where buyers are increasingly more informed, as a candidate you need to do the same thing. Especially as a sales candidate! If you can’t or won’t go to the effort of distinguishing yourself to a future employer… well it kinda suggests that you can’t/won’t in the job either.

80% of roles get filled by organisations without needing to use a recruiter or advertise

When you’re in job-search mode, you need to think and act like a marketer – in order to get in front of your ‘prospect’ – and then act like a sales professional. (And here’s a hint… 80% of roles get filled by organisations without needing to use a recruiter or advertise their role. It’s called the ‘hidden job market’ and it’s one of those ‘somebody who knows somebody, who knows somebody’ kind of things. Which means having a good looking resume will only work for 20% of the opportunities out there).

So, what does marketing yourself look like?

Well, there’s this platform. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Called LinkedIn?

Let me digress. I’m sure you’ll be quite familiar with the Coca-Cola sign which sits in place of pride at the top of William Street, in Sydney. Right at the gateway to the equally as renowned Kings Cross? That sign has been there since the 1970s. It has seen various iterations from its original clapperboard version, to neon lighting, to LCD and now LED. Coca-Cola Amatil reportedly pay a six-figure sum to the City of Sydney to be able to display the sign.

So what?

The fact is, your LinkedIn profile has the capacity, if managed properly to act just like that famous Coca-Cola sign. This iconic billboard has tens of thousands of vehicles – and occupants, more importantly – driving past it every day. And hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. They are treated to a dose of ‘top of mind’ advertising as they drive or walk by. Your LinkedIn profile has the same, if not greater, potential. What do people – possible hiring decision-makers – see when they come across your ‘Coca-Cola’ sign? Something minimalist or fading like the 1970’s version of the sign? Or something compelling, that stands out and causes them to put the brakes on and investigate further?

Here are five practical tips you can do to both stand out and grab attention – and better market the value proposition you represent to potential employers.

1. Practical Tip #1– use a descriptive headline that positions what you are professionally, rather than your current job title. Eg.
   
   “I drive revenue growth in Cloud-Enabled Technology Solutions. Challenger sales black belt.”
   
   or
   
   “Prospector | Lead Generator | Opportunity Creator | Revenue Maximiser | In B2B Services”
   
   
2. Practical Tip #2 – the next place a hiring manager is most likely to look is at your ‘Experience’ section. What I see here, time and time again is the job title (which is OK) followed by either a beautiful promotion piece on the company you work/worked for, or, a list of your routine duties. Don’t do that…
   
   Instead, write about your accomplishments! Tell us what you’ve achieved! Things like % revenue growth; %market share gained; % of annual target achieved; sales awards; Consider describing your core attributes…
   
   ► High-energy and fearless — I do whatever it takes to deliver value to clients and partners
   ► Self-starter — I have a bias towards action, appreciate cut-through, and prefer a fast-paced, constantly changing work environment
   ► Natural leader — I pride myself on the ability to lead and motivate teams
   ► Self-motivated — I work with minimal supervision while achieving daily, weekly, and monthly goals
   ► Problem solver — I independently translate high-level goals into actionable plans
   ► 10+ years — business development experience (B2B), plus some enterprise sales experience
   
   
3. Practical Tip #3 – get to work on getting endorsed.
   
   If you have 500+ connections on LinkedIn and for your top 3 Skills you’ve only been endorsed by 15, or 27, or 44 people… that doesn’t really say what you want it to say about your skills, right? However, if I see “99+” against the top 3 then you continue to be of interest and worth potentially exploring/meeting.
   
   
4. Practical Tip #4 – if you can add to all of that a consistent level of posting of thought-provoking content; content which is insightful and valuable which clearly positions you as somebody who knows what they’re talking about in their field, that’s gold. Now I’m really interested to meet you. And if you don’t have time to do all that posting yourself, then at least be commenting on others’ content with consistency. As a hiring manager I can see that stuff on your profile. It sets you apart, believe me.
   
   
5. Practical Tip #5 – whether you’ve already applied via the usual channels (responding to an ad), or, whether you’re wanting to get yourself noticed by an employer that hasn’t advertised a role but you’d love to work there… connect with them on LinkedIn – but don’t just hit the ‘Connect’ button and pray. Hit ‘Connect’, add a note… and a link to a video you’ve shot, introducing yourself! (It doesn’t have to be up on YouTube – you can use a link from your personal Google Drive). In particular, add some insights on their business in your video. What are some trends you are seeing in their market right now that you can help them capitalise on?
   
   We use this to connect with potential candidates for jobs we are looking to fill and acceptance rates are as high as 66%, with individuals routinely commenting on how much they enjoyed the 3-minute video intro.

So, these are the fundamental things that you can manage and refine which will see you more effectively marketing yourself as somebody who is worthwhile considering. Remember, marketing don’t make the sale. But they do create the interest and that’s what you need to do first and foremost if you want to land that next ideal sales role.

If you need any advice as a candidate or as a hiring manager, please connect with me via LinkedIn.

The post 5 Ways Sales Candidates Can Stand Out From The Crowd appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Why is this important to know? 

Suppose you’re posting content or using LinkedIn to help you with any part of your business, such as business development, marketing or personal branding. In that case, a large amount of your strategy is going to be reliant on your potential customers being able to see your activity or your profile easily.

Changes to the LinkedIn algorithm impact how, when and why your content or your profile is displayed to others. 

This is why, if you use LinkedIn regularly, it is in your best interest, to know what to do and, just as importantly, what not to do, to help you reach those eye-balls.

Why now?

With both a new algorithm now released and most of us now having access to the new user interface, this is a perfect opportunity to share some of the fundamental changes. Here are some things you might want to think about when you’re posting or interacting on the platform.

Key Changes. 

1) New Easy Wins

All-Star Profile / SSI Score impacts.

Your LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI) is a score of 100 which measures how effective you are with the four pillars: Create a Professional Brand, Find the Right People, Engage with Insights and Build Strong Relationships. The maximum score for each pillar is 25.

HOW DO I FIND MY SSI SCORE? RIGHT HERE. 

LinkedIn awards those who complete their profile to the ‘All-Star’ level by increasing the number of people who will see their content (increased reach). Likewise, the higher your SSI score the higher your reach.

Reach relates to the number of people who will see your initial post, so it is fundamental to your LinkedIn success.

An ‘All-Star’ profile has a reach of X 1.5 above an ‘Intermediate profile’ and ‘the lesser ‘Beginner’ profile suffers a minus reach penalty of X 0.5

An SSI score greater than 60 has a positive effect on your reach; anything below has a negative impact on your reach.

Users with an SSI score greater than 90 have an X 1.5 increase on their reach.

What should you do?

Ensure your profile is complete to reach that all-star. Manage your LinkedIn activity to make sure your SSI is not negatively impacting your reach.

2) Key Changes for content posting.

DWELL Time 

LinkedIn now awards posts that make people DWELL on their content. Such as multi-page PDFs or other rich media.

This change is an attempt to increase the quality of the posts and move away from those short, text-based click-bait style of posts. You know the ones where you click ‘see more’ only to be seriously let down.

Timings of posts 

The Golden hour is dead! The life of posts in our feeds has been extended and will now show into your connections feed for a longer time than before. (up to 5 days). 

This means we won’t need to post every day or to react immediately to our connections posts or to comments on our posts (Just within the first 24hrs) to increase virality. It also means we can spend more time building quality content (see DWELL time, above).

It also means LinkedIn pods, groups of people organised to interact with each other’s content to boost engagement, are now less effective. 

If you have a piece of content that is gathering good levels of engagement, refrain from posting again until the engagement levels have dropped. Instead, reinvigorate your original post, through comments, to see another +15% engagement on that post.

#Hashtags

Hashtags are considered a bit of a mystery on LinkedIn. We should use hashtags to help others find our content and to ‘file’ our content into the right search buckets for others on LinkedIn whom we are not connected too. 

For best results ONLY use hashtags that have more than 100,000 followers. 

It’s not as straight forward as you might think.

#Sales = 5.85Million followers

#SalesDevelopment = 22k followers

#Prospectiing = 9k followers

To determine the strength of a hashtag simply search the hashtag within LinkedIn’s search window. 

Whilst using a maximum of only 3 hashtags was the advice in 2019 now it seems the sweet spot is 3 – 9 Hashtags in a post, but no more. 

What should you do?

Write content that has more detail and can hold your audiences’ attention. Try writing long-form posts and repurpose them into PDFs or other rich media and post them that way.

Be prepared to leave the post to run for at least 24 – 48hrs. 

Interact with your post using comments, as they are the most effective, with all of those who interact with the post. Do this inside the first 24hrs.

Finally, use a mixture of well followed hashtags, between 3 and 9, that are likely to drag people from outside of your network into the post.

3) Reengaging lost connections.

There is no doubt adding many useless connections has become a daily sport for many on LinkedIn. People connect with us, and we never hear from them again. This means many have a focus on building their network via quantity, rather than building relationships. This is the wrong strategy, IMO.

The chances are, you are already connected to a bunch of people who can help you achieve your goals. You just need to reengage them. Good news.

The algorithm is looking for ways to supply you with content interesting enough to hold you inside the LinkedIn platform. It doesn’t want you to leave and go elsewhere. It’s always looking for clues so it can better understand what it is that you want to see so it can give it to you. 

So, if you would like to see more of someone’s posts or activity, let the algorithm know by being very deliberate in reengaging them. 

Comment on their posts, endorse them for skill, give them kudos, send a message or two. Should you carry out two or three of these activities inside a 7day period, LinkedIn will register that and start to place your content and activity at the top of each other’s feed.

This is gold for managing both new business opportunities and for maintaining strong relationships with your existing clients.

What should you do?

Create a list (use ‘leads’ in SalesNAV if you have it) of people you need to ‘stay in touch with’ and then deliberately create those two or three interactions across that first week. Once they reconnect and your interacting again you can slow the activity down to stay truly ‘connected’.

These 3 hacks will help you pick up the easy wins on LinkedIn as you prepare your social and digital selling strategy for 2021. You’ll be much more effective with just these few tweaks to your playbook.

Other new things you might want to check out.

• Tagging lots of people in your posts will negatively impact your post.
  • Posting links in the first comment is no longer useful (if it ever was).
  • Pressing the SHARE button is not a worthwhile activity. LinkedIn knows it’s a duplicate post and won’t spread it further.
  • LinkedIn live has low levels of engagement.
  • Video should be less than 1min, never more than 3mins long and posted natively.
  • Followers see much less of your content than connections do.

All these findings are either from my own research, observations and the analytics I’ve generated from using tools like shieldapp.ai or from speaking with other LinkedIn experts and trainers either in some of our chat communities or directly in my BOSS podcast.  

However, there is one person who is considered the real ‘source of truth’ for all of these conversations. Richard Van Der Blom’s research is both smart and methodical and the base for many of these suggestions. Richards’ study measured over 4500 posts at 15min intervals to determine what works, what happens and what doesn’t. 

I suggest you access a more in-depth review of all the changes here directly from Richard. 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/newsletter-4-linkedin-algorithm-research-2020-you-van-der-blom/

The post LinkedIn Algorithm HACKS appeared first on Head Of Sales.

According to CEB research, 95% of buyers expect insight from the seller. Yet Forrester Research highlights that 85% of sellers fail to meet buyer expectations while CEB research found that 86% of sellers fail to differentiate in the mind of the buyer. We clearly have a problem but it can be solved when sales people embrace imperative to write within the guidelines of their company and with management and marketing serving as editors.

If you want to transform the way you sell, commit to reading and then writing. Don’t just read about how to sell, also read about the issues that impact your clients. Researching and writing is the best possible sales training a person can have because it forces the individual to go deep and test assertions while creating their own authentic narrative. Here is why sales people need to write but…

Should sales people write or ‘curate’ content during office hours or selling time? … No!

Sales people should instead invest 30 minutes a day in their own time, before or after work, for career development. They should also work closely with their marketing department and manager to ensure quality, leverage tools, and be aligned with corporate messaging and policies. There are two types of content publishing:

1. Content curation. This is where you work with other people’s content and publish Updates via LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or other social platforms in which your clients and target market monitor and engage.
2. Content Authoring. This is where you create your own blog posts or articles that demonstrates insight and value for your target market. It is also how you evidence your credentials and set the agenda with those whom you seek to engage.

Content publishing is important because 75% of buyers use social media to research sellers before engaging (Source: IDC) and 74% of buyers choose the seller who first provides insight and value (Source: Corporate Visions). It begs the question: What do people see when they find you online? Do they see a sales person’s CV or do they see a warm professional person offering insight and value?

Go beyond the basics of personal branding to also attract and engage with content

Content Curation

‘Content curation’ is the process of working with other people’s content where you add brief commentary and then share with your network. Your goal is follow those who are relevant for your target market and then become the ‘forager for the tribe’ as David Meerman-Scott says. Everyone is busy and you can provide value by being a content aggregator where your market can simply follow you to see content from dozens of sources they don’t have time to research individually themselves.

Who are the journalists, bloggers, analysts and industry leaders that your market audience follows and respects? By attaching yourself to these personal brands you elevate your own, and by sharing their content with short additional insights and commentary you can create value for those who follow you. From this list, highlight the individuals with substantial following within your target market whose followers you would like to become your own. Who has substantial following within your target market?

The above format is my simple way of recording the details of those who can provide you with valuable content to then share with your network. Hootsuite or Buffer are excellent technologies for easily creating a scheduling content to be automatically published at the best times. 

5 Topics to Inspire Content Creation

We need to publish content write about what interests our audience instead of projecting our ‘value proposition’ or factoids about our company, product or service. Importantly, we must be clear about who we are targeting with our content and here are content categories that sales people and marketers can use to create blog articles to write that attract and engage clients.

1. Your customer’s fears and concerns (competition, disruption, etc.). Without writing from a negative perspective: What are the risks that your customers face? What competitive risks that worry them? How are they being ‘disrupted’ by technology, changes in the economy or legislation, agile competitors, off-shoring, etc. These topics and more can be the subject of posts you write
2. Insights from research data that impacts your customer’s world. Search and subscribe to analysts that comment of your customer’s industry or the trends that impact them.
3. Blind Case studies evidencing how things can be improved. Every sales person needs to be masterful at telling powerful true stories of how their customers solved problems, created business cases, managed change and delivered transformation. Even if the client won’t do an official case study or testimonial, it can be written by the sales person and attributed along the lines of: One of my clients shared some insights with me recently concerning how they ….
4. Objection neutralizers that positively position and set the agenda. As an example, I work with a client in the recruiting industry and a common objection is: ‘I’m too busy meet but if you have a candidate then send me their CV’. I’ve coach recruitment sales people to write posts along the lines of: How 20 minutes saves 12 hours and dramatically reduces hiring risk. Skills, experience and qualifications are easy to screen but cultural fit is where the greatest risk resides in a hiring decision. List all of your common objections such as ‘I’m too busy’, ‘We have an incumbent supplier’, ‘You’re too expensive’, etc and write about why that is the very reason they should meet you.
5. Newsjacking topical events to create interest. When Harrison Ford crash-landed his plan on a Californian golf course, I had this post up within 90 minutes.

Trigger events are excellent opportunities for both content creation and initiating contact with potential buyers. What events provide potential opportunities to improve your own customer service, intercept competitor customers, or engage potential clients early in their buying process? In the mind of the buyer, trigger events create awareness of opportunity or need and can amplify perceptions of pain. These events can motivate people to take action to change the status quo? Trigger events can include changes in personnel, a major scandal, legislative changes, new compliance obligations, products going ‘end of support’, suppliers being acquired or dropping the ball, competitor staff leaving or retiring, new leaders coming into the organization. My worksheet below is ideal for identifying trigger events and establishing the best way to monitor.

Sales people should work with their marketing team to formulate strategy, select the right tools and secure the right levels of training and support to build their individual sales pipelines. Here are my tips for going beyond content curation (working with other people’s content) and writing your own material that sets you apart as a sales person:

1. Identify your audience and then write for the one person or role you are seeking to influence. This makes it targeted, personal and on point.
2. Be clear in your own mind about why your message is important and what you want them to do about. But avoid any call to action that overtly seeks to sell or paints you as a salesperson.
3. Create a catchy headline (think like a newspaper editor).
4. Use an eye-catching picture that has an abstract relationship to your topic. Honor copyright by using ‘common use license’ images and attribute source, or use your own photos.
5. Have an opening that hooks, a body that informs and a close that motivates or inspires. Deliver insight rather than mere information.
6. Aim for 700 words and don’t ramble. Longer is okay and some of my best posts with more than 220,000 reads have well over 1500 words.
7. Create back-links to other content but never use click-bate to take people to another site where they have to complete forms or register to view content.

If you don’t read, then you’re not a professional. If you can’t write, then you can’t sell because you are incapable of building a strong personal brand online that shows insight and attracts clients.

The post 5 Topics That Sellers Should Write About appeared first on Head Of Sales.

In his bestselling book Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcom Gladwell wrote about the average number of hours an individual needs to become an expert in their chosen field. The 10,000-hour rule of “achievement [equals] talent plus preparation” has entered popular culture as the key to success in a field. Does this apply with sales? Yes. As sales leaders, we spend time coaching, mentoring, and developing our teams to ensure we give them the best possible opportunity for success.

I was never in the military. The closest I came to be was attending the Air Cadets with some friends from high school a few times. It wasn’t the most inspirational experience, as far as I could see it involved static drill and marching in formation for hours on end. Sometime later, one of those friends graduated from the Royal Military College in our nation’s capital. I distinctly remember that cold Canberra morning as the passing out parade occurred. My memory is of a dignified ceremony, a grand spectacle, an excellent brass band and the cadets all resplendent and beautifully drilled.

How many hours of rehearsal did it take to perfect those marches? Numerous.

The lesson for salespeople is simple, to be the best, practice is critical. Each step in a sales process has multiple intricacies and ensuring your team performs to their best level at every step along the way is critical. Like military cadets learning a quick step, we need to assess our processes and examine the skills and capabilities of each individual team member to home in on development opportunities.

In Learning and Development, we use various methods of practice, rehearsal, role-playing, and discussion to effect skills and competency development, and reinforce a sales training program. Educational theory gives us significant insights into the importance of practice to excel in skills, Psychologist Anders Ericsson famously studied violin students at the Music Academy of West Berlin. By the age of 20, the top performers had practiced an average of 10,000 hours; the good violinists an average of 8,000 hours and the least able only 4,000 hours. Gladwell took this research further. And though some have claimed flaws in his methodology, the key premise is the importance of practice. Is 10,000 hours a magical number? No, but it emphasises the fact that for most of us, natural skills and abilities are developed and improved upon through hard work, practice and skilful coaching and mentoring.

Is there a nature vs nurture debate in the world of sales development and enablement? Do some people just have the “it” factor? What does a successful salesperson look like? These are all important and powerful questions. Businesses I have been part of have attempted to analyse and theorise the ideal salesperson. In reality, it is near impossible to visualise and find the so-called “perfect” salesperson. Rather, an investment in an individual’s development to enhance certain skills is a far better strategy.

Let’s review three skills that can be taught, practiced and measured; questioning skills, social selling and product knowledge.

Learning how to ask relevant and salient questions is a skill that can be taught. The ability to learn when to ask an open-ended question or to seek clarification through a closed question is one such example.

Social selling, whilst it may cause fear and trepidation for some, is a skill that a sales professional can learn. Appropriate posting, commenting and engaging is a proven method for prospecting, rapport building and client engagement.

Finally, product knowledge. Learning the features, functionality and competitive benefits of the product or service you sell is of vital importance and builds credibility and confidence when dealing with a client.  An individual salesperson can practice all these skills again and again, and they all can be assessed and measured.

Though a salesperson may never achieve the 10,000 hours of practice on anyone of these, they can develop a degree of proficiency, expertise and fluency in that skill.

As sales leaders, how do we enforce practice and make it part of an ongoing professional development program?

Here are three practical scenarios you can implement immediately:

1. Understand the term, deliberate practice.

That is, when a sales professional is guided by an expert, skilled coach, or mentor, “someone with an expert eye,” as bestselling author Daniel Goleman would be inclined to say. Poor practice results in poor results. When coaching an individual in a prospecting scenario, for example, begin by asking three questions – Who are you calling? Why are you calling them? How are you going to open the conversation? Then ask the rep to practice their opening line, if it is not to an acceptable standard, have them practice again. By the time they make the call they are informed, confident and prepared. Is that a significant investment in time a for a leader? Yes. But once the mindset changes to follow this method the rep will instinctively follow these steps prior to picking up the phone.

2. Role Playing after micro-learning session.

Learn a new skill, competency or method and then rehearse. Enable your team to implement a skill immediately after it has been championed. Run the training, have the salesperson reflect on it and then immediately put it into practice. The power of practicing immediately after a new skill is learned is critical in slowing the forgetfulness curve. It also helps in the accumulation of a skillset. Proficiency is achieved in one area and then another is piled on until a full customer engagement scenario is explained, practiced and internalised.

3. Build a cohesive “we-are-all-sales” organisation.

Use real customers, other leaders within the business or members from non-sales teams to accentuate reality and to ensure that salespeople can communicate and practice with a wide variety of personality types and business roles. There is an additional benefit for other leaders within a business (think finance, ops and marketing), as this method provides greater insight into the daily experience of a salesperson’s life and builds a more cohesive “we-are-all-sales” organisation.

The motivational sales guru Grant Cardone, frequently espouses the mantra to Practice, Drill, and Rehearse. Practice cannot be simply repetition or rehearsing with obvious errors. It needs to be deliberate, guided by a coach or mentor, corrected where necessary. As we know from education if a fundamental step has not been grasped, go back to the basics and build up to that higher level of proficiency. If a member of the military learned a quick step march incorrectly, then on that Canberra morning there would have been an obvious flaw that would have stood out to the assembled crowd. We don’t want our sales people to be robotic, but we do want to give them the best possible chance to succeed in a competitive environment and to provide clients with the best possible engagement experience.

“It’s not necessarily the amount of time you spend at practice that counts; it’s what you put into the practice.” … Eric Lindros (professional ice hockey player)

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