by Tim Hughes | @Timothy_Hughes | LinkedIn
As you know the outbound model is broken, technology, legislation and people’s own buying habits has started hammering the nails into the outbound coffin.
Cold calling isn’t dead. It’s great for selling low cost products and services at a low level in the organisation. I was cold called the other day for Rugby corporate entertainment, £800 ($1,000). It’s simple, do you want the tickets or not Tim? Make the decision now, give me your credit card details. But selling $1 Million deals is a bit different.
First and foremost we need kill this lie put out by the cold calling gurus that social selling is writing content and hoping that somebody will call you. Far from it, Social Selling is the only way now that a company can get an “always on” prospecting methodology. The other great thing about social is the fact that you can prospect in the evening, weekends and on holiday. As I say, it’s “always on”.
We’ve written before about Social Selling efficiency and effectiveness over legacy sales methods and thankfully this is now universally excepted. With cold calling, you have to trawl through name after name, basically throwing mud at the way and hoping it will stick. With social selling, you can be laser focused.
With cold calling there are 4 responses:-
- Sod off.
- You should have called me 3 months ago.
- Call me in six months.
- Wow have you just called me at the right time.
The problem is that 4. Does not happen very often. (With options 2. and 3. being enabled through social selling.)
So you how do you prospect using social?
Simple, you use social instead of the phone. Not in a spammy way that those SEO companies use, but by:-
Creating a personal brand so when people look at your profile you look like the solution to their problem. By having a strong network you will also get referrals which will save you the time of prospecting. We as a business spend nothing on marketing but get inbound every day.
We think the social selling is 10 times more efficient that cold calling but we are biased. Cold Calling Guru, Tony Hughes (no relation), blogged that social selling was twice as efficient as cold calling, so we will take that.
There are also the efficiency and effectiveness gains to be had from freeing yourself from legacy sales methods. As well, of course, from the obvious incremental revenue gains.
People who red this article also read these:
https://dlaignite.com/is-your-social-selling-training-company-focused-on-inbound-2/
https://dlaignite.com/is-linkedin-really-working-for-youor-not/
https://dlaignite.com/what-can-the-beatles-teach-us-about-social-selling/
