Selling in the New Millennium

Sales is one of the oldest professions.  While much of sales remains the same, Social Media has definitely had an impact on the way we communicate with our sales prospects, as well as giving us new tools to track sales activity and improve the close rate with data driven decisions.

There is a significant shift in the way people are buying, which means we have to shift in kind with the way we are selling. The Internet has changed everything. Sales were driven in an old school model based on ‘Cold Calls” and Prospect interruptions. Now, we all use Google. Prospects identify all the competition, research and come up with pros and cons lists and begin to form an opinion. An opinion either you can shape or your competition can. Studies have proven over and over again that a buying decision is made before a salesperson is even in the conversation.

Sales Professionals need to position themselves as the thought leader and industry expert. They need to be the ones influencing their prospects buying decisions and participating in their choice even before they are engaged.

Sales professionals need identify who the decision makers are, what is important to them and what they actually need in order to position the right solution.

People buy from people they Know, Like, and Trust. It is incumbent in this new era to ABC “Always be connecting”. The message is driven by an individual’s personal brand that is equal to or greater value than the name on the building outside.

Topic: Social Selling

• Clarity about why and how to develop your individual Social Selling approach.
• How to find and use resources from elsewhere to increase your value add to clients and prospects.
• Clarity about how to develop Social Selling as a team to increase sales.
• The pillars of social selling success
• Listening: Identifying what your prospect cares about and needs
• Educating: Brand yourself and your company as thought leaders through a variety of content driven solutions that will bill you as a subject matter expert.
• Prospecting: Leveraging social media for networking and client warm referrals and introductions.
• Positioning: Researching and gathering intelligence that can be used to influence the sale, then relating offline.

Topic: Rules of Engagement

• Have you ever wondered what separates a top performing sales person from the rest of the pack?
• Top sales professionals know that the difference between good and great performance requires a set of disciplines and best practices that will drive you to new levels of success.
• In most cases, it’s because they apply a number of these best practices in their daily routine.

These rules and/or actions are called the Rules of Engagement, and are Standard Operating Procedures that that have been cultivated from over 40 years of sales experience and relationships with top performers all over the world.

Topic: LinkedIn

• Key Concepts and settings on LinkedIn to get the most out of it
• Creating a Profile which will market, attract and sell for you
• Targeting prospects using the Advanced Search
• How to best connect with people (and how not to)
• Use LinkedIn to market and promote you, your products / services & your business
• Using Groups effectively as an interaction and targeting tool
• Using rich/relevant content to help make you stand out more
• Best practices