by Tim Hughes | @Timothy_Hughes | LinkedIn
As the schools return from the summer holidays the first question we often get, in fact we always get, is “How are we going to make our number this year?.” Then people turn to marketers and sales people to build the pipeline to close in December so we can all make our number and sigh with relief over our Christmas Turkey.
September is usually a flurry of events and cold calling days as a way of beating the drum and hoping something comes in. But hope was never a strategy.
The problem is we all find ourselves in the position that, this doesn’t seem to work anymore.
I ran a cold calling day at my last company and a sales person said to me “that was a waste of time, I spoke to voicemail all day” and with cold calling, that’s a fact, nobody wants to take your call anymore.
With email marketing, with so many companies terrified of external virus they have tightened up what emails they let through from external sources. Plus with the various legal requirements such as GDPR, your ability to send, let alone if anybody will open (or even receive) your email, has pretty much evaporated.
So where do we go from here? Home maybe!
Have you thought about social selling?
You have probably heard it takes ages and you don’t have time for that? Wrong!
Digital Leadership Associates (DLA) has created a framework that accelerates your use of social media for demand generation.
Not a social ninja? Fine we provide one to ones so that you can gain confidence not in a classroom but just you and a social selling expert. And not your not going to be patronised, all DLA people involved in social selling are sales people first, social media experts second. You get to understand how to use social by people have sold and used social to make their number.
No well-meaning webinars from Marketing here.
So How Do we Fill Those Pipeline Gaps?
As part of the Social Selling Program we don’t focus on some case study, but we will use your current live situation. Work on the accounts you want to sell into, work on that event you need supporting. What ever is your chosen area and need for leads and meetings we will work with you and so you how social is now the demand generation weapon of choice.
Still not convinced. If you run an event or get a telesales agency in, then you have one shot, OK you can blame them if it goes wrong, but once you have burned through the budget, that’s it.
With social selling you are creating a legacy. Once the sales team has been through the DLA program, they have the skills for life. So while the demand generation problems of quarter 3 (Q3) and quarter 4 (Q4) have been solved, so have Q1 and Q2 as you will continue social selling and lead generating using the processes and techniques you have learned.
Taking you from lead generation feast and famine to lead generation self-sufficiency.
People who read this article also read these:
http://www.social-experts.net/how-social-selling-killed-the-old-boys-network/
http://www.social-experts.net/dla-launch-new-driving-lessons/
http://www.social-experts.net/can-fitness-instructors-only-be-thin/
