The Customer Collective has released a new eBook with contributions from some truly insightful sales leaders to help us understand just what "social selling" means in today's marketplace.
Although we all know that our buyers have changed, business is moving so swiftly these days that its hard to know just how we need to adapt to keep pace...and keep selling. This eBook shares some great perspectives on what's required...and what's working.
As a preview, I decided to pick some of my favorite insights from a few of the featured experts - but this is just a taste. You really should go download the eBook. It's good stuff!
Paul Greenberg, President of The 56 Group and author of CRM at the Speed of Light has been one of my favorite people to follow for a long time. His turns of phrase often spark light bulb moments for me.
"...it’s no longer good enough for a sales person to have a great relationship with an individual. The customer or prospect is expecting the entire company to be a 'person like me.'"
"And this must be the case throughout not just the transactions, but all interactions, regardless of whether it’s an in-person visit, a website visit, an email marketing campaign, or a mobile text message. Doesn’t matter. The “company like me” is what makes or breaks the successful sale."
Anneke Seley, CEO of PhoneWorks and author of Sales 2.0, is someone I've gotten to know personally this year. She's doing some revealing work into how the execution of selling is shifting to address our buyers' growing social appetites. She showcases two case studies in her article. Take a look at one outcome:
Dan, the Regional Director of Sales at a sales productivity technology company "claims 80% of his qualified leads now come from referrals, social networking and social media, which he considers technologies that enable communication with his personal referral network."
Jay Dunn, VP of Marketing for Lane Bryant, discusses how to build market value through social networks. He offers up an interesting take on how to apply value to the followers of your followers. He calls this Dunn's Equation:
"Annual Value X Network = Network Value"
The example he uses is if there's an annual purchase value [$50] and your customer has 5 followers that share similar interests in your products, then the network value is $300. It's an interesting premise and one I'm mulling around for B2B demand generation - maybe related to cost per qualified lead. Hmm.
Jouko Ahvenainen, a co-founder of Xtract, the world first social network analytics company, and Grow VC, the first global peer-to-peer micro-funding service for startups. Among other things, he talks about Social Intelligence and targeting Alpha users.
Social Intelligence: better understanding consumer preferences and peer-to-peer networks and influence so companies can help people find offers that are relevant to them.
Alpha Users: the most influential customers within a social network - the ones who can spread the word and market/sell for you.
The articles written by these experts (and others) go into a lot more detail about successful sales strategies in today's social world. Go download the eBook: The Art of Social Sales, today. [registration is required - but worth it]
Ardath,
I really value your take on this. Great summary of (and reaction to) key points. Thanks for mentioning me and the e-book in your blog post. This is an exciting time for us all in sales and marketing, as we experiment with new approaches, including using social media and networking in the selling/buying process.
I look forward to hearing/reading about your continued thoughts and experiences on social media ROI as well as your readers'!
Posted by: Anneke | December 02, 2009 at 09:01 AM
With the lanch of the new apple reading pad i think ebooks will become even more popular.
There might even be a cross over between ebooks and newspapers one day (mostly for the futurists)
Ebooks have become a fast source of information for problem solving so they are fulfilling a need.
Posted by: books | January 29, 2010 at 03:05 PM