Sales Reinvented

According to Walker McKay, a salesperson’s actions, attitude, and approach can lead to digital improvements. What should those actions look like? What characteristics do you need to embrace? What approaches are successful? Walker McKay answers these questions—and more—in this episode of Sales Reinvented. 

Outline of This Episode

• [0:53] The difference between digital and social selling
• [2:07] Improve digital selling with your actions, attitude, and approach
• [3:37] Walker’s ideal digital selling blueprint
• [5:26] The attributes or characteristics of a great digital seller
• [7:27] Tools, techniques, or strategies to improve digital sales
• [8:42] Top 3 digital selling dos and top 3 digital selling don’ts
• [11:04] Digital selling opens up a whole new world

Actions, attitude, and approach = digital improvement

Digital selling is important because it’s nearly impossible to get face-to-face with people anymore. People are working from home and you can’t just show up at their “office.” So you have to find other ways to connect with people and hold conversations. Organizations need to create expected behaviors around digital selling regarding:

1. The actions you take
2. The attitude you have
3. The approach that you take

You have to start with the actions. What is the expected behavior? How many LinkedIn posts should somebody do? How many times should you reach out per week? Companies need to get comfortable that this is the way things are being done. So it’s time to build behaviors around getting appointments via text, phone, social media, and video. 

Walker’s ideal digital selling blueprint

Where should you go to find business? If it’s on LinkedIn, you can download your connections onto a spreadsheet. You can match it with your client list and make sure you’re connected with people you’re already doing business with. 

Secondly, Walker would take that list and look for some low-hanging fruit you hadn’t talked to yet. How will you get in touch with them? You can send LinkedIn messages, DMs, text messages, phone calls, and emails. You need to touch people 6–7 times using different channels to get their attention. The goal is to set an appointment, right? Set a meeting over Zoom or a similar channel. 

The attributes or characteristics of a great digital seller

Old school B2B salespeople might be in their 40s, 50s, or 60s. Even so, an openness to technology is key to their success. Secondly, salespeople need to have a strong why behind their success. You have goals you want to accomplish and achieve in life. Are you disciplined enough to reach out to people, send messages, and keep track of it? It is discipline and a desire to win being put into place.

Are you posting things on different channels? Walker has found posting a video or a how-to on social channels to be effective. If you’re selling insurance, you might post “5 Ways to Make Sure You Get the Right Insurance.” You have to be able to write well and teach people with your posts. If you’re seen as a teacher, people will come to you for help and you’ll become the professional in your space.

Digital selling opens up a whole new world

Walker is always looking for sales experts to be guests on his podcast. He was using LinkedIn to reach out to people but wasn’t getting a great response. He was reaching out to 5 people a day. But he connected with someone named Casey Jones. She didn’t respond. 3 days later, he messaged her again and they started a conversation. Turns out, they had a great connection. She was one of his best podcast guests and they’ve since collaborated on three different business deals. 

There is a network outside of you through the digital world that is much bigger and better than what you could have face-to-face. Work to build your network and ask for what you want. There’s a tremendous world of business out there. 

Connect with Walker McKay

• Connect on LinkedIn
• Follow on Twitter

Connect With Paul Watts 

• LinkedIn
• Twitter 

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A digital sales strategy can include social selling, video communication, and great content as a mechanism to communicate with a prospect. Whether selling digitally or in person, Liz Heiman believes that every successful seller models the 4Cs of selling. What are these characteristics? Listen to this episode of Sales Reinvented to learn more! 

Outline of This Episode

• [0:43] The difference between digital and social selling 
• [1:55] How to improve your digital sales
• [3:42] Liz’s digital selling blueprint
• [5:46] The attributes/characteristics
• [7:22] Tools, techniques, and strategies to improve 
• [8:33] Top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts
• [10:13] Be creative, curious, and compassionate

How to improve your digital sales

Liz emphasizes that good selling is good selling whether it’s digital or in-person. You can’t get away with bad habits anymore because digital noise has become so loud. Just “checking in” isn’t effective. You need to be heard through the noise. If you’re going to be a good seller, you need to understand who you’re selling to and what matters to them. Then you need to have a valid business reason for interacting with them. Be relevant and intentional with your selling in the digital world. That starts with putting in place better basic selling skills. 

Liz’s digital selling blueprint

Most of Liz’s clients deal with complex B2B sales (with multiple people involved). So her digital strategy starts with an account-based approach. She works with sales and marketing to reach out to the people who influence buying decisions within a company. It takes a targeted approach with clear messaging and predefined actions that each team takes. 

Secondly, Liz recommends checking in on buyers with intention. She has her sales team—the moment they finish the last action—identify what the next action and message will be. That goes into their CRM so when they make the next interaction they remember what they’re supposed to do. 

If you have a CRM, take careful notes and list your next action. Use the tool to help you be effective. When Liz makes a call to a prospect, she looks at their last conversation. Secondly, Liz believes sending a video is imperative. If you can’t pop your head in, sending a quick video is a great way to do it. 

Liz’s Four Cs of selling

Liz believes it’s the same skills that any seller should have: the “Four Cs of selling.” You need to care about and be compassionate for your customers. You also need to be creative and curious. These skills will help you be effective. If you’re curious, you’ll do research, take notes, and look for pain points. You’ll hear what your customers are telling you and acknowledge and engage with what they’re dealing with. 

If you can’t get their attention with one strategy, you’ll get creative and try another. If your solution doesn’t work, how can you find one that does? Those are the things that matter, digital or not. You have to work harder to develop the human connection. 

What tools, techniques, and strategies can you use to improve your communication? What are Liz’s top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts? Listen to learn more!

The 4 C’s of communication in action

Liz tells people to use video but she hates video. But a year and a half ago, she decided to send her follow-up notes as a video. She had a client that hadn’t been responding, so she sent a video. One of the prospects had been in the process of firing someone. She asked if he was able to make a decision. 

He wrote back and said, “You must have the most amazing CRM that you can remember what we talked about last time.” She cared enough to remember what they talked about and reach out to see if they needed her help. When you care about people and listen to them, it works. Reach out to customers in a way that’s easy, convenient, and helpful for them. 

Resources & People Mentioned

• Vidyard
• BombBomb

Connect with Liz Heiman

• Connect on LinkedIn
• Follow on Twitter

Connect With Paul Watts 

• LinkedIn
• Twitter 

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Salespeople are still struggling to adapt to all of the changes that the Covid pandemic has brought about. Virtual selling is still largely at play, with some in-person interaction still sprinkled in. Tom Pisello believes that to adapt, you need to become laser-focused on helping prospects become aware of and solve their problems. To do that, you have to identify your own struggles to become more effective. Tom shares insight into this process in this episode of @SalesReinvented! 

Outline of This Episode

• [0:49] The difference between digital and social selling
• [3:21] How to succeed with virtual selling
• [9:32] Tom’s virtual selling strategies 
• [10:59] Attributes and characteristics of a great seller
• [12:04] Tools, techniques, or strategies to improve virtual sales
• [14:15] Top 3 virtual selling dos and don’ts
• [15:17] Foster engagement in virtual sales presentations

How to succeed with virtual selling: identify your gaps

Sellers are frustrated with how much longer purchasing decisions are taking and how many people are involved in the process. It can be difficult for them to manage. But Tom emphasizes that if you look for what buyers are saying their challenges are, it can be a turning point. When the Rain Group surveyed buyers on what they thought of sellers in the digital environment, four gaps that were recognized:

1. Leading a prospect through a thorough discovery: Don’t just show up and throw up and make discovery as part of the process. Give a presentation with an interactive demo. 
2. Mapping solutions to the problems that were identified: Do your best to address the root cause problems that the buyer is facing. 
3. Listening skills: Many sellers don’t stop talking. There’s a loss of eye contact, talking over the other person, etc. You have to slow your roll in virtual meetings. Don’t be afraid to stop early and leave a cliffhanger and time to talk next steps.
4. Making the ROI clear to the buyer: Tom’s nickname is “The ROI Guy.” Buyers care about the problem they’re solving and the business outcomes you can assure they get. Focus on the outcome you’ll give them—not what you’re selling. What can your product solve? What can it deliver in terms of quantifiable business value? Make it clear. 

How to succeed as a virtual seller

How do you present your sellers with discovery guides and interactive presentations? Can you provide your sellers with an interactive diagnostic assessment or a problem/solution guide to use with customers? You have to provide an interactive value assessment tool so sellers can collect data from the customer and do the number crunching to make a business case. 

Make sure you’re implementing conversational intelligence tools so you don’t have to have your head down to take notes. You need a good video presence and the ability to listen more than they talk. So learn how to maintain eye contact on video calls. 

When you do talk, you need to ask good in-depth discovery questions that help buyers be introspective. A good seller is armed with good content and tools. They’re leveraging dynamic presentations and assessment tools to add value, insight, and guidance. 

Tools, techniques, and strategies to improve virtual sales

Tom recommends that content enablement groups work to examine PDFs, videos, guides, etc, that are being provided to their salespeople and think about retooling them. Can you make them interactive? Can you click on elements? Customers don’t have the patience to sit through a deck. You have to be able to pivot the conversation to what the customer wants to talk about and have content to support it. 

Tom loves doing diagnostic assessments to assess a company’s maturity and where they are in the journey. You can map out improvements that they’d like to make and give intelligent recommendations. You can benchmark them against peers. 

What about business value assessments? What challenges are they facing? What is it costing them? What’s the value potential of implementing a solution? What evidence can you share that you can deliver on this? The right tools can make a difference. 

What are Tom’s virtual selling dos and don’ts? Listen to learn more!

Foster engagement in virtual sales presentations

Tom once had 16 people in a company’s buying committee in a virtual meeting. With a crowd that large, you want to be mindful of who is paying attention. What does everyone care about? The customer was early in their decision-making process. So instead of talking about the solution, Tom mapped a day in the life of their customer’s customer and how they helped to overcome their problems. They went into how they could help address the friction this prospect was dealing with in their selling process. 

As they walked through the pieces of their sales process with the customer, he got almost everyone on the call to participate. Tom made sure he got input from everyone to make sure everyone was engaged. They took notes on what was important. When they went into the solutions part of the call, they tied back to specific people and pain points. 

Tom notes that people can be afraid to speak up in front of their CEO and other executives, so you have to be conscious of the political dynamics within the environment. You can overcome that by calling on specific people to contribute to the conversation and be heard. Above all, spend time walking through discovery with the group and make sure everyone is engaged in the pain-point portion. Be aware of the dynamics that occur and be ready with strategies to engage everyone. 

Resources & People Mentioned

• Huge Gaps in What Buyers Want and Virtual Seller Skills

Connect with Tom Pisello

• Connect on LinkedIn
• Follow on Twitter

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• LinkedIn
• Twitter 

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Digital selling encompasses a variety of different communication channels. Whether it’s via social media, texting, email, or video, a great digital seller has to be agile and willing to use whatever medium their prospects and customers prefer. Why is that so important? Lori Richardson shares her thoughts in this episode of Sales Reinvented! 

Outline of This Episode

• [0:40] The difference between digital and social selling
• [1:56] How to improve digital selling
• [2:40] Lori’s digital selling mindset
• [3:46] Attributes of a great digital seller
• [5:01] Tools, techniques, and strategies 
• [6:35] Top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts
• [9:42] Communicate how your prospect prefers

Attributes of a great digital seller

You have to be able to prospect digitally. You need to do value proposition work. You need to be able to connect well with people. Then you need to build your communication skills and tools to have ongoing conversations to build trust with your buyer. You must help them with services you offer—or don’t. You want to help them in any way you can, even if it means referring a prospect to someone else. 

Lori believes there are some key sales competencies that aren’t based on personality that must be mastered. These traits help people sell more:

• A desire and commitment to sell: Do you take responsibility? Do you have a good outlook? How motivated are you?
• Consultative selling skills, selling value, and learning to avoid discounting.
• Are you coachable and trainable? 

These things are critical to successful selling.

Tools, techniques, and strategies to improve digital sales

Do you have a solid methodology and process in place? Are you engaging in tasks that lead to closing sales opportunities? There are thousands of tools available for marketing and sales success. Lori emphasizes you must master social selling and video, know how to follow prospects and clients on social media, and learn how to use fundamental tools like Sales Navigator. 

Lori’s top tips for digital selling

What are Lori’s digital selling tips?

• Be genuine and authentic—it’s more important now than ever.
• Build your brand and gain visibility on different platforms.
• Be consistent and follow-up with prospects with a clear process in place.
• Don’t do the spray and pray on social media. When you meet someone at an event, you don’t sell to them immediately. Why do it with digital interaction?
• You’re in it for the long haul. You don’t have to get a deal today, so don’t push yourself on people. Sell products and services that you trust and believe in that add value for your buyers. 
• Always add value in every interaction with a prospect or current customer. If you do this every time, people will want to talk with you. 

Communicate how your prospect prefers

Lori helped a company that had found her virtually and reached out through texting. By returning their texts, Lori answered enough questions that they felt comfortable having a phone conversation. The phone conversation led to Lori offering them some services. That turned into a solid six-figure deal. It all started with texting. They turned out to be a great client that Lori still works with today.

If someone emails or calls, Lori responds immediately. If you get back to people quicker, you have the highest chance of closing business. Even if you just schedule a time to talk further, people are blown away. Likewise, if texting is your client's preferred mode of communication, by all means, text them. 

Resources & People Mentioned

• LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Connect with Lori Richardson

• Connect on LinkedIn
• Follow on Twitter

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• LinkedIn
• Twitter 

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Gartner’s research has shown that buyers complete 57–80% of their buying journey digitally well before they even talk to a salesperson. That’s why—according to Subhanjan Sarkar—you have to find a way to engage with your buyers before they become a lead. How do you accomplish that? Subhanjan shares some thoughts in this episode of Sales Reinvented! 

Outline of This Episode

• [0:55] The difference between digital and social selling
• [2:35] How can you influence the customer in their buyer journey?
• [4:51] Subhanjan’s ideal digital selling strategy
• [7:04] 5 attributes of a great digital seller
• [8:29] Tools + techniques + strategies to improve
• [11:33] Top 3 digital selling dos and digital selling don’ts
• [13:48] A genuine interest in the customer’s benefit is key

How can you influence the customer in their buyer journey?

Gartner’s research shows that about 17% of a buyer’s journey is spent between multiple vendors. You may only have 2–3% of their entire journey dedicated to you. So you need to find a way into the 57–80% of the journey that the buyer experiences independently. That’s why digital selling is critical. 

You must build your position as a thought leader to do that. Buyers don’t want to buy from vendors who only compete on price. Pricing cannot be a tool that everyone uses. To differentiate yourself, you have to understand your buyer. You can learn what a buyer is doing long before you meet them. 

Subhanjan’s ideal digital selling strategy

Subhanjan recommends mapping a buyer’s universe and start interacting early using technology and adding in a physical meeting when necessary. He recommends that you start gathering and learning about your industry verticals and create a thought leadership position in the industry. 

If you aren’t a good fit for a client, send them toward a competitor—don’t create a dissatisfied customer. If you direct them to a better fit they’ll remember you and become a fan because you cared more about solving their problem than getting a sale. Next time they have a problem, they’ll come to you first. 

What are the five attributes of a great digital seller? Listen to hear Subhanjan’s thoughts!

Tools + techniques + strategies to improve digital sales

Subhanjan believes that one of the most critical strategies a salesperson needs to embrace is early engagement. You can’t just start with a lead. By the time you get a lead, 80% of their journey is over, right? But what if you've already engaged with this lead somewhere online because you’re a thought leader in the industry? 

He also emphasizes that you need to be able to start a conversation and continue it without friction. You can share information and bounce ideas off of each other. That will prove extremely valuable. 

Lastly, you must master the specific tech tools that your company uses. He points out that everyone uses spreadsheets yet everyone is awful at them, even after 40 years. Salesforce, Hubspot, etc. are complex things you have to invest time in to master. Do this with whatever tools are necessary for your trade. 

A genuine interest in the customer’s benefit is key

A very large company in India wanted to build a vendor relationship management system (VRM). They had multiple vendors engaged. One particular vendor started the conversation by saying, “You don’t have to buy from me—have you thought of applying design thinking to the process?” The company didn’t know what design thinking was, so he offered to run a design thinking workshop for the leadership team. 

He put on a one-day virtual workshop with an expert from MIT. They learned about digital thinking and applied it to the software they were creating for managing vendors. At the end of the day, the buyers got a better spec sheet for their VRM. They came back and took consultative input from this rep and ended up buying from him. The other vendors had no clue what was going on. This is living proof that a genuine interest in the customer’s benefit is key. 

Resources & People Mentioned

• Why B2B Sales Needs a Digital-First Approach
• Marketo
• Hubspot
• Salesforce

Connect with Subhanjan Sarkar

• Connect on LinkedIn

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• LinkedIn
• Twitter 

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Kendra believes the way we sell has changed forever. Now, we have a whole new way we can work with people that we can layer onto traditional selling. You don’t have to get on a plane or drive to meet a prospective customer—you can still connect with people digitally. Digital selling allows you to meet with more people and connect with them in bite-size pieces. 

Plus, if you’re going to be successful with selling, you need to try new things. Kendra points out that you should have been selling digitally before the pandemic hit. The pandemic should have just accelerated your current strategy. 

Outline of This Episode

• [1:03] The difference between digital and social selling
• [1:41] How to improve digital selling capabilities
• [3:11] The perfect digital selling strategy
• [5:02] Attributes and characteristics of a great digital seller
• [6:33] Continued communication is key
• [8:05] Kendra’s top 3 digital selling dos and don'ts
• [11:13] Be on the leading edge of technology

Attributes and characteristics of a great digital seller

They can be trained on a CRM, how to use LinkedIn, etc. but people most often get tripped up on video. Why? Because you are front and center. You can’t look down and take notes and it’s difficult to look someone in the eyes. Salespeople have to master connecting and engaging through video.

Kendra also emphasizes that writing has never been a more critical skill than it is now. You have to be able to write emails, text messages, and social media posts. Emotional intelligence is also critical. Can you sense another person’s feelings when you’re limited with body language? 

Continued communication is key

Kendra believes that continued communication is important from a strategy perspective. Whether it’s recapping a conversation via email, video, or text—you need to stay in touch frequently. In the past, salespeople didn’t always do this and could get away with it. But things are more competitive now than ever before. If you’re going to differentiate yourself, frequent communication via a variety of tools is important. 

Kendra’s top 3 digital selling dos and don'ts

Kendra’s digital selling dos and don’ts are stellar: 

• Don’t shy away from using your camera, even if your client doesn’t turn there’s on.
• Communicate more frequently using different mediums—including text messages. 
• Pay close attention to what your prospects and clients are saying so you can tailor your discussion. 
• Don’t use the same canned email for every sales situation. Sequences can help you streamline the process but the sequence needs to be tailored so your prospects and clients feel heard.
• Don’t use the same communication method. Kendra had a prospect that wouldn’t respond to email or voicemail. So she sent a LinkedIn message to mix it up. If you have their cell phone number—and they use it in their email signature—it’s perfectly acceptable to send them a text. 
• Don’t shy away from using the phone. It was the “first” digital strategy. 

Be on the leading edge of technology

When Kendra first started in sales, she had too many clients to cover on her own. Kendra had 300 installed accounts. She didn’t have time for everything she had to do and still hit her quota. She couldn’t go out and meet with every single client and collect orders, which felt like the most important part of the process. You need that face-to-face interaction and connection. 

But why couldn’t she get some of the information from a fax (which at the time was new technology)? She’d simply start to accept orders from clients via fax. Ever since, she consistently looks at her process and asks, “What can I do that’s different from everyone else? How can I be the leading edge and stand out?” 

Kendra got an award for taking orders over a fax machine because no one had done it before. All because she took initiative and focused on being on the leading edge of technology. 

Connect with Kendra Lee

• Connect on LinkedIn
• Follow on Twitter

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• LinkedIn
• Twitter 

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Darryl admits that digital selling is hard because there’s a lot of noise out there. The sales industry has a propensity toward reusing what’s been done before—the same emails, same LinkedIn sequences, the same ad layout, etc. and it becomes noise. So what do you need to do to improve? Hear Darryl’s thoughts in this episode of Sales Reinvented!

Outline of This Episode

• [0:53] The difference between social selling and digital selling
• [2:41] Understand your customer profile
• [5:15] Darryl’s evolving digital selling strategy
• [8:50] The attributes/characteristics of a great digital seller
• [12:07] Tools, techniques, and strategies to improve digital selling
• [16:17] Top 3 digital selling dos and digital selling and don’ts
• [19:19] Build thought leadership on social media

Understand your ideal customer profile and personas

Who are you targeting? It can’t just be “anyone in high tech.” You have to be granular. Having 10+ granular customer profiles is fine. Then you develop your personas within those profiles. Darryl is the CRO of VanillaSoft and they target people who are the head of sales, head of marketing, head of operations, head of finance, and the head of IT. If you don’t know their world, you can’t create hyper-personalized messaging or content that resonates with them. Salespeople drop the ball by being too generic. You need to be specific to catch more fish.

Darryl’s evolving digital selling strategy

Darryl’s digital strategy starts with account-based marketing and selling. You identify your ICPs and personas and build lists. This can give you 50 unique lists with a specific message. Then you need to advertise where they live (Google, LinkedIn, industry forums, etc.). When they come to your website, you want to be able to track their IP to see where they’re coming from. You present content on the website related to that persona. It’s about building a collection of signals. 

Then, you put programs in place to nurture and grow the leads. It takes 9–12 touches before someone responds. So you want to use a combination of social, email, SMS, and even a phone call to get them to engage. Make sure you have a sales enablement platform in place so you can see when they’ve opened the content, if they’ve shared it, if they’ve watched a video. All of these things are signals that help you have a hyper-personalized engagement attempt to get someone to a conversation. 

The attributes/characteristics of a great digital seller

A great salesperson logs into their CRM and looks for signs of engagement or conversion. If there is a signal, they use their digital tools to identify their top targets and get them in cadences to engage with them. 

Secondly, they must schedule time to go to forums, discussion groups, or wherever conversations are taking place and engage without pitching. It’s about establishing your own brand and thought leadership. Darryl emphasizes that you must also plan engagement so that everything is hyper-personalized to a prospect’s personas and signals. 

You can’t send people a generic template email or social touch. You can’t look for shortcuts and means to spam people because it’s a “numbers game.” If you aren’t converting, it doesn’t matter what your numbers are. People buy from people and if you don’t make it relational and relevant to them, they won’t trust you or find you credible. The buyer will walk away. You’ll have spent a boatload of money with no ROI because you tried to scale and take shortcuts.

Engage in your community and contribute to conversations without the expectation of receiving anything in return. It’s a long game to build your reputation and street cred. But Darryl emphasizes that it’s amazing the volume of deals that come to you when people like and trust you. It’s the lowest acquisition cost and highest conversion rate. 

Build thought leadership on social media

When Darryl started at VanillaSoft in 2017 he had zero social media presence. LinkedIn was simply a vehicle for his resume. He recognized that he didn’t have a lot of budget, so he couldn’t compete on a digital spend strategy. So he took the route of LinkedIn. He saw traction within 6 months when he had a crowd around a trade show booth. 

One year later, after continuously sharing content on LinkedIn, that same trade show booth was packed. People knew his name. This was happening around the world. Everyone came to the booth looking for him. That’s when he learned branded content and contribution to conversations was a powerful driver. 

VanillaSoft got a ton of business they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. Nothing else had changed at the company. The only change was a personal brand presence geared toward building a network.

Resources & People Mentioned

• Seismic
• Highspot
• Vidyard
• BombBomb
• Loom
• 6sense
• Terminus
• Ahrefs
• Semrush
• VanillaSoft

Connect with Darryl Praill

• Darryl’s Website
• Connect on LinkedIn
• Follow on Twitter

Connect With Paul Watts 

• LinkedIn
• Twitter 

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Audio Production and Show notes by PODCAST FAST TRACK https://www.podcastfasttrack.com

Digital sales are about leveraging yourself, your service, your products, and the available digital platforms to build relationships. Social selling is where you get to socialize, connect, and have conversations. Liz Wendling emphasizes that social channels are connected to real people in the real world having real conversations. You have to humanize the connection so they feel you’re there to help. One of the ways Liz connects with potential clients is through her “Verbal 2x4.” Listen to this episode of Sales Reinvented to learn more about her social selling strategy!

Outline of This Episode

• [1:21] The difference between digital and social selling
• [2:27] How to improve your social selling skills
• [3:36] How to use Liz’s “verbal 2x4”
• [4:48] The characteristics of a great digital seller
• [5:55] Stop apologizing and stop being self-serving
• [7:41] Top three digital selling dos and don’ts
• [10:11] Liz’s verbal 2X4 put into practice

How to improve your social selling skills

Liz sees room for improvement in both empathy and understanding as well as flexibility and advocacy. Selling isn’t about pushing your products but listening to your potential customers to understand what they need. Only then can you solve their problems. You also have to be flexible with the changing marketplace. Potential clients want to work hand-in-hand with someone who wants to help and believes they can do so. 

Liz’s strategy is perfect because it works for her. She makes sure her message hits someone with a “verbal 2x4.” She wants to get their attention to move them toward a conversation. What can you do to get someone’s attention? What can you do that lands with an impact?

The characteristics of a great social seller

Authenticity, flexibility, and dedication are necessary attributes for any seller. Liz emphasizes you must be flexible in your process, authentic in your approach, and dedicated to follow-up and follow-through. You have to be able to have conversations (and resurrect the dead ones). Many people give up on themselves far too early in the process and blame it on the customer because “they don’t know what they want.” Be flexible and shift the message or conversation to re-engage potential clients. 

Stop apologizing, stop being self-serving, and start serving

Liz implores salespeople to stop apologizing and being self-serving with messages. What does that mean? Liz gets far too many messages saying, “I’m so sorry to bother you…” or “I know you’re busy, so I’ll be brief.” It not only puts the salesperson in the less-than position but does nothing to build confidence in the person you’re reaching out to. Get rid of apology language.

Secondly, don’t make it all about you. Make it all about your customer. Don’t say things like, “I’d love to get on your calendar” or “I’d love 30 minutes of your time.” You’re telling someone what YOU want instead of inviting them into a conversation that they want to be a part of. 

What are Liz’s top three digital selling dos and don’ts? Listen to learn more!

Liz’s verbal 2X4 put into practice

Liz teaches her clients to prospect on LinkedIn with a “verbal 2x4.” Liz focuses on the pain, problem, challenge, issue, or dilemma that her target market is muddling through. One area she focuses on with her consulting practice is family law attorneys. They’re spending a fortune to get leads. But they often fall short in sales conversations and conversions—so they’re losing a lot of money. 

Liz’s message hits home: “Many of the firms I work with are struggling with this, they’re spending a fortune on that, but here’s what the end result is.” Then she’ll ask for a conversation. They often respond with, “Are you a fly on the wall? How do you know this?” 

They think their attorneys are bad at closing, not fully realizing that they’re actually bad at opening. Instead of her pushing for a conversation, they’re the ones asking to get on her calendar. The outcome is always a great conversation. If you have a message that lessens the noise, you can have real honest conversations from an authentic place. 

Connect with Liz Wendling

• Connect on LinkedIn
• Follow on Twitter

Connect With Paul Watts 

• LinkedIn
• Twitter 

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Audio Production and Show notes by PODCAST FAST TRACK https://www.podcastfasttrack.com

According to Fred Copestake, social selling is using the platforms and technology available to you to create a personal brand and start conversations. Digital selling is using technology to continue conversations. The use of video (synchronous or asynchronous) is a piece of the puzzle that’s often neglected. Hear why Fred thinks that’s a huge mistake in this episode of Sales Reinvented!

Outline of This Episode

• [1:08] The difference between digital and social sales
• [1:49] How to improve digital and social selling
• [2:36] Fred’s perfect digital selling strategy
• [3:50] The attributes of a great digital seller
• [4:51] Tools, techniques, and strategies to improve
• [7:55] Top three digital selling dos and don’ts
• [9:58] What not to do when recording a video

Fred’s perfect digital selling strategy

Fred’s digital selling blueprint is built around video. What do you need to do on video? What’s the purpose? To communicate or achieve a goal, right? Salespeople need to be equipped with the time and skills to utilize video with their prospects and customers. The use of video in digital sales is what will keep them engaged and move the sales process forward. 

Tools, techniques, and strategies to improve

Fred recommends Vidyard all the time as an asynchronous video option. It’s free and easy to use. If you’re talking synchronous video, you’ll need Zoom, Teams, etc. Then you need to figure out where and how to apply it. Where can it be used in the process? With prospecting? After-meeting follow-ups? To send a proposal? 

What is the video trying to achieve? Fred emphasizes that you must be succinct and punchy. You can get a lot across if your video is well-constructed. Another expert tip? Fred recommends investing in a great microphone to make sure you’re recording great audio. If people can’t hear you, they check out and lose concentration. The perceived credibility of the speaker also lowers if they can’t hear you. 

Top three digital selling dos and don’ts

Fred shares some great dos and don’ts: 

• Get a good microphone.
• Don’t mess about with childish backgrounds in your videos.
• Use a natural background that is tidy.
• Avoid moving off-screen or out of the shot. You are on the video all the time—act like it. 
• Encourage your customer to have their video on. People will feel more engaged and it’s closer to the real-life environment. 
• Don’t miss out on the opportunity to do things that some salespeople are holding back on. It’s still in its infancy and you need to take advantage of video.

What NOT to do when recording a video

Fred decided to embrace sending video emails, especially because it’s something that he preaches. He was trying to get a guest on his podcast to talk about virtual selling. In fact, he was sending a video to Tyler Lessard, one of THE experts on digital selling. So he recorded a video using Vidyard. 

Fred tried to be clever in his video and hid behind his chair, saying, “People are scared, please come on, share all of these great tips…” He sent the video without reviewing it. Turns out, he sent the video without sound. He sent a silent video of him cowering behind a chair. He prepped for the video, reflected best practices—making it relevant and personal—but forgot to double-check before he sent it. Tyler did end up on his podcast, Fred jokingly saying it was likely out of pity more than anything else. 

It’s all about preparation and follow-through. He thought about what he was going to say, how he was going to say it, and the purpose behind it (what he wanted to achieve). It was punchy and short and interesting. Give yourself a moment to prepare—and execute—well. 

Resources & People Mentioned

• Vidyard
• Selling Through Partnering Skills
• Tyler Lessard

Connect with Fred Copestake

• Brindis
• Connect on LinkedIn
• Follow on Twitter

Connect With Paul Watts 

• LinkedIn
• Twitter 

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The world is virtual—that’s not going to change. So Joanne Black emphasizes that we must learn to sell in this virtual world. That means organizations need to give their salespeople the right tools to sell virtually. How do you look into the camera? How do you have a conversation and build relationships? These are the things salespeople can do in person but struggle with digitally. If that’s you, listen to this episode of Sales Reinvented for some tips and tricks from Joanne Black.

Outline of This Episode

• [1:13] The difference between digital and social selling
• [1:45] Provide the right tools and training
• [2:46] Joanne’s digital selling blueprint
• [4:37] The attributes of a great digital seller
• [5:41] Tools, techniques, and strategies 
• [7:25] Top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts
• [10:19] Share, comment, interact, and invite

Joanne’s digital selling blueprint

Joanne believes you need to have a written strategy that is clearly communicated. How does it apply to each person in your organization? How can you give them the skills to carry out the process? Joanne believes KPIs need to be attached to a social strategy and outreach. Managers tend to shoot from the hip and it leaves salespeople confused. Joanne has been virtual for years and has taken courses on how to sell virtually. She believes you must train and coach your salespeople, allow them to practice, and help them get results. 

The attributes of a great digital seller

Joanne notes that the attributes are very similar to in-person selling. You need to build relationships and play the long game. Some people believe that it’s tough to develop relationships with digital selling but Joanne disagrees. If you are well-trained and know how to look into the camera and have a conversation, you will build those relationships. Most people sell complex solutions which means you likely won’t close in one or two calls. You have to think about how to meet the buyers that are essential to closing the deal.

Digital selling dos and don’ts on LinkedIn

You have to learn how to use digital and social selling tools such as LinkedIn. People go on LinkedIn and pitch, send automated requests, and spew garbage. The best practice is to look at shared connections and read people’s recommendations. You can refer to people’s education, work history, and things they’ve written to reference in a conversation. People forget to be just as social as they would be in person. What are the rules of engagement?

• Don’t stalk people and send automated messages: Joanne gets LinkedIn invitations and decides who to connect with and who she thinks will pitch her. Joanne connected with someone who pitched her when she responded to her acceptance. Joanne immediately removed her as a connection. This woman messaged her and asked why she removed her...Don’t pitch people in your invitation! 
• Engage in conversation on LinkedIn. It’s so easy to “like” something. But look at the conversation and share your point of view. Comment and interact with what other people have said to build relationships. 
• Invite people to connect who engaged with your comments with a personalized invitation. Never send a standard invitation. 

Share, comment, interact and invite

Joanne saw a post on LinkedIn from a head of sales all about referrals. People were commenting all over it and there was a lot of interaction (15–20 were chatting). Joanne added her voice to the conversation and it continued to develop. She decided to write to the head of sales and asked if he wanted to do a webinar about referrals and invite the people who had commented. 

He didn’t respond to that question. Instead, he asked her to come in and chat with his group. She had made an offer with no strings attached and it turned into business for her. If someone posts something within your area of expertise, don’t be afraid to share a best practice. It’s about being open and sharing as much as you can.

Resources & People Mentioned

• LinkedIn

Connect with Joanne Black

• Connect on LinkedIn
• Follow on Twitter

Connect With Paul Watts 

• LinkedIn
• Twitter 

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Audio Production and Show notes by PODCAST FAST TRACK https://www.podcastfasttrack.com