by Tim Hughes | @Timothy_Hughes | LinkedIn
eBay, Amazon, Airbnb, Trip Advisor, and Uber have all built their business models on people giving each other a rating. Third party validation is important to all of us when we buy something.
That book on Amazon, checking out an eBay seller, that apartment on Airbnb, it all makes a difference. We should dismiss the power of this in our B2B Sales efforts, in fact the ability of your network to support and refer you is critical.
So how can you capture this power?
- Make sure you get people to endorse you on LinkedIN. This may seem like a pain, but having a good strong set of endorsements is important.
- Having a network, rather than contacts is critical as this enables you to build your referral network. Why is this important? – As we work through our territory and there are people we need to get in front of, referrals enable us to get to these peoples. Social should allow you to get higher, quicker than with cold calling.
If you are a regular reader, you know I don’t like the term “personal brand” it feels like something unattainable. So why would I bother?
As A-Player salespeople in the B2B Enterprise world, we know that cold calling stopped working some two or three years ago. We know our customer is on-line and on social. As people search we need them to jump to conclusions and the conclusion is that we can help them.
Being a “gun-slinger” a “always hitting quota” person on Linkedin will be ignored. Buyers are looking to be helped, educated, offered insight. If they are going to spend internal political capital taking your products and services to the board, they want to know you are trust worthy.
Makes sense?
Today in sales we are looking for the modern buyer to see us as the solution to their problem. Why? Because this gets you inbound, which takes business directly from under the noses of your competition.
People who read this also article read these:
http://www.social-experts.net/the-inefficiency-of-cold-calling-2/
http://www.social-experts.net/use-psychology-increase/
http://www.social-experts.net/an-uncomfortable-truth/
