We all have a sales wish list. Mine is to stop time for about two weeks, get our “To Do” list cleared up, and turn the engine back on. It seems no matter how many tasks I accomplish on our “To Do” list, 5 more tasks get added on. Unfortunately, this is not possible, so I need to make time whenever possible. You have a wish list for next year as well (other than making your numbers). Wish lists often look like a “Keys to Success” plan. If you had these items accomplished, you’ll have a banner year.
As we talk to 100’s of sales leaders & 1000’s of sales reps in 2012, here are top priorities for 2013. Feel free to add a few of these items to your list for next year.
For Sales Reps
- Pay for my Premium LinkedIn account – Sales Reps are buying into Social Selling faster than their Managers. Whether it’s from diminishing returns from cold calling efforts, or successful social messaging – Sales Reps want more. Companies are paying for CRM’s, phone, email, database lists, etc – why not the 800 lb. marketing machine called LinkedIn?
- Get me a tool that shares our/industry news to our prospects – even though we teach sales reps to use Google Reader and/or Feedly to curate data, sales reps want more. Sales reps want a tool like www.dlvr.it to take great articles and automatically send via their LinkedIn & Twitter (no work needed).
- Help me learn how to make my social tools more useful – The most powerful selling tools in the world (LinkedIn & Twitter) are just sitting idle or under-utilized. There are 1,000’s of articles, case studies and stories of Social Selling success. Sales reps want training and best practices now, so they can crush 2013.
For Sales Leaders
- Empirical evidence – get me proof that my sales reps LinkedIn & Twitter accounts are driving ROI. Sales leaders want to believe; sales leaders want to be innovators. Yet, not all sales leaders are innovators. Social Selling is so new, what are the best practices? What can management expect from this investment?
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator – for sales leaders that have already seen ROI from LinkedIn, how can the entire sales team benefit? Sales Navigator is the best Social Selling tool on the market. Pool your sales team’s 1st degree connections and InMails to open more doors, faster.
- My sales team will stop being dependent on Marketing for leads – sales reps are now able to start a conversation with virtually any decision-maker they want. Forget lists, forget email addresses, forget phone numbers – you have LinkedIn & Twitter. Start a conversation – send your prospect a compelling story. Sales reps can now become Micro-Marketers, where they send highly valuable/relevant content to a very specific prospect, at the exact moment their buying process calls for that marketing asset.
If you don’t want to be left behind the 8 ball – you need to start to take action. The following dozen blog posts on utilizing Social Selling strategies using LinkedIn can help you start. If you are really looking for some hidden gems on how you can attract a very specific prospect, I recommend you check out – 42 LinkedIn Tips
Find the topic of Social Selling interesting? Click Here to book a time in my calendar to explore further!
