The Razors Edge with Barbara Giamanco|Sales|Social Selling|Marketing|Customer Experience|Technology|Business

In this episode, Barb Giamanco and Doug Lehman break it down for you in Lehman's terms. There is no easy button called social selling. Like all aspects of being good in sales, how you utilize social channels as part of your sales process takes work.  

Patience, planning, the right mindset and sales and technology skills all factor into the success equation too. In response to a different kind of buyer, salespeople and their leaders need to change their mindset and selling behavior.  

With 2016 right around the corner, now is the perfect time to put your strategy in place, or to adjust the one you already have. 

Remember, you cannot slap new technology - social channels - onto outdated sales approaches and expect to win. Cheesy selling, or is that sleazy selling, is still cheesy and buyers hate it. Adopting a new type of selling mindset means change. It means doing things differently, regardless of what worked back in the day. 

It all starts with a sound strategy, backed up with great sales skills and consistent execution of your strategy.

In my recent Razor’s Edge podcast, I talked with Robin Saitz, CMO at Brainshark. The focus of our conversation was sales productivity and specifically, we talked about what is behind the sales productivity gap and what companies can do about it. 

Though we’ve heard through the years from CSO Insights that roughly 52% of salespeople do not achieve quota each year (and that’s in a good economy!), Robin told me that the TAS Group reported that the number is as much as 67%. If that doesn’t keep a sales leader up at night, I don’t know what does! 

As with all my guests, I learned a lot in talking with Robin.

Sales Productivity Defined

She defined sales productivity as the yield per sales rep. In other words, hitting quota in the most efficient way possible. As I came to learn and as the TAS Group numbers suggest, productivity in sales is way off the mark.

What Causes the Gap

In particular, I was struck with Robin’s point of view regarding why we have such a problem with sales productivity at all. She told me that it comes down to several things, like: 

Lack of an onboarding process and specifically, a lack of focus on training selling skills. Some 38% of companies lack any kind of formal process or program for preparing new reps. 

Salespeople cannot find the content/information they need when they need it. Up to 40% of their time is spent searching or trying to create the content that they need. Breaking it down that equates to 2 out of 5 sales days each week. 

Sales conversations are not effective enough and there is a lack of visibility – on management’s part – in terms of understanding the behavior and knowledge of their salespeople.

What Companies Can Do

During the interview, Robin shared her suggestions for what companies need to do to close the productivity gap, who needs to be involved in addressing the issues and what to measure to ensure that you are closing the gap. 

With C-Suite and corporate Board members extremely concerned about sales productivity, this interview is certainly worth 35 minutes of your time.

Learn more about how Brainshark can help your organization close the sales productivity gap.

Follow Robin on Twitter.

 

According to Gallup, 71% of American workers today are disengaged or actively checked out of their jobs, which creates a serious problem for organizations.

Why? 70% of customers' brand perception is determined by the EXPERIENCE with people. I'm not surprised. I see this a lot in sales. From the first interaction or touch point with a prospect what perception are you creating in their minds? 

  In my conversation with Jane, we talked about:

 

 

• How inspired leadership makes a big impact on the bottom line.

• Employee engagement and advocacy.

• Most inspiring companies.

• Characteristics of inspirational leaders and what that means for their teams.

  When there are higher levels of employee engagement, companies see an increase in sales, customer loyalty, above-average productivity and higher profits.

 

  Connect with Jane on LinkedIn or visit her website at www.janegentry.com 

 

  Follow her on Twitter.

Recently, I had a conversation with Jill Rowley about selling in today's digitally disrupted world. She has some great insights into buyer behavior and the data that shows that when sales and marketing departments are working in alignment, the sales funnel is impacted at pretty much every stage of the sales cycle. While Jill told me that not enough research has been conducted to clearly shows how that inter-departmental alignment also affects customer advocacy, Jill feels strongly that there is a positive correlation there as well.

  As Jill likes to say, today's buyer has choice and voice. If you don't stand out, you are locked out.     In this podcast, you hear about why alignment is so critical and why the "customer" should be at the heart of it all.

 

  Follow Jill on Twitter.

Today's savvy salespeople are incorporating social media into their sales process. The understand that we are both sellers and marketers in a digitally disrupted world where buyers can block access via the phone and email.

In my conversation with Julio, you'll learn:

• What social selling is all about and the role that content plays in B2B selling.
• Why the announcement of rFactr's partnership is a game changer.
• The importance of aligning sales and marketing to drive revenue results.
• Characteristics of today's modern seller.

It was a great conversation that I hope you enjoy.

Follow Julio on Twitter.

Learn more about rFactr and their social selling platform.

Sales and marketing have had a love/hate relationship for years, but the truth is that a focus on revenue is a joint goal. With sales and marketing working together, all aspects of the sales funnel are impacted in a positive way.   In my Razor's Edge conversation with Tracy, we talked about:   

• What's changed in the world of sales and marketing and how digital has disrupted it all.
• How to start the process of aligning both camps.
• Who is ultimately responsible for ensuring alignment happens. 

  After listening to the podcast, check at a recent blog post from Tracy that followed up a webinar InsideView hosted on June 3rd with Forrester Research vice president and principal analyst, Laura Ramos.     You'll also learn about how InsideView can help sellers and marketers leverage social listening and insights to drive the bottom line. 

 

Follow Tracy on Twitter.

Playing off a presentation I did last year, Doug Lehman and I rant about the things about sales and social selling that bug us.    If you want to check out all the rants, you can view the slide presentation here.    By the way, if you don't know Doug, he is a master at helping people leverage video as part of the sales process. Visit him at www.douglehman.com 

Recently, I sat down with Carter Hostelley and Karri Carlson from Leadtail to talk about how Leadtail social insights helps marketing and sales leaders develop the right social, content and engagement strategy to reach their targeted buyers. I first learned about Leadtail when Carter reached out to me on Twitter and asked if I'd be interested in their How Sales Leaders Engage on Twitter insights report. Of course, I was immediately interested. The report, which was a collaboration with Hoover's, provides fresh insight into how sales professionals are embracing social media to better perform on the job, share what interests them and engage in conversations with customers, prospects, and influencers.I found the report to be extremely insightful. And, of course, I was pleasantly surprised to see my name on the list of people that sales leaders mentioned most often on Twitter. Nice! Get your copy here. I'll know you'll find it worth the read. 

  During the interview, Carter, Kari and I talked about:  

• Why the right kind of content is so important to your social engagement strategy.
• Why they decided to publish these insights reports and whom they are meant to benefit.
• The methodology behind the reports.
• What influencer marketing really means.
• How social insights reports benefit salespeople.

  Leadtail is an innovative company with ideas about content marketing - what works and what doesn't. Enjoy the interview!