Sales Trend 7 – The Normalising of Social Media in Sales

By / / Sales Trends, Social Media, Social Sales

The seventh Sales Trend for 2014 is ‘The Normalising of Social Media in Sales’.

This sales trend is seeing businesses really ramping up their use of social media and in very sophisticated ways. Rather than seeing social media as a tack on to the marketing budget, smart businesses are now creating their own social media departments which are actively working in concert with sales, marketing, and other departments to create real-time content that is engaging, relevant and interactive.

Prospects and customers have never been closer to our businesses – they are just a click away. They can scrutinise us as much …

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Going mobile – the rise of Smartphones in Sales

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, CRM, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Meetings, Social Media, Social Sales

In December 2012, we published the 12 Sales Trends Report for 2013 and released a brief summary of each trend. This month we are focusing on the Sales Trend “Going mobile – the rise of smartphones in sales”. As Australia deals with the challenge of becoming more globally competitive, organisations are making greater use of both increased mobility as well as tele-conferencing using smartphone technology.   Anecdotal research is showing that smartphones are giving salespeople an edge in a number of ways. This sales …

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Customer Experience Management (CX) will replace CRMs

By / / CRM, Social Media

More products and services are becoming commoditised. Price differentiation is less of a sustainable advantage. Smarter buyers demand a faster response and expect greater value. In this kind of market it’s no longer good enough to simply satisfy customers. Successful organisations are those that delight their customers. That means that companies are going to migrate from merely managing relationships to understanding their customers’ entire experience with the organisation. In December 2012, we published the 12 Sales Trends Report for 2013 and released a brief summary of each trend. This month we are …

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Why LinkedIn Invitations Need To Be Purposeful

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Social Media

LinkedIn is about creating and nurturing relationships. It’s a marvelous tool for researching and connecting with people and helps you forge genuine relationships based on substance and value. I’ve been on LinkedIn for many years now and have been steadily growing my network. I only connect with people I know personally or have connected with via an event or activity. As much as I am for prospecting and building new networks and business I draw the line at sending out impersonal LinekdIn requests, random or otherwise to people that I don’t know.

So why do so many …

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Age Old Lawn Bowls Turns New With Social Media

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Culture, Social Media, Strategy, Success

Lawn Bowls clubs are innovating to attract new members, even running bare-foot bowls and speed dating bowls for new and existing members. If the sport of Lawn Bowls can embrace the internet and social media to reinvigorate its brand, increase participation, grow its members and lift revenues, then so can we all.

Lawn Bowls has been around for hundreds of years with its origins supposedly dating back to Ancient Egyptian times along with its cousins, Bocce and Pétanque. It’s often been seen as a traditional sport for older people with rigid rules and recognisable but rather unattractive white uniforms. I can …

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The New Age Customer

By / / Customer Service, Procurement, Sales Leadership, Social Media

In a world still recovering from the GFC and grappling with the buzz of social media, we are now in the midst of a war between retail and online shopping facing daily decisions about purchasing locally or overseas, and B2B sales teams challenged with moving from selling product transactions to being business people who can sell value and ideas. It’s no wonder that businesses are grappling with the new age customer who has emerged looking somewhat different in this new climate.

Sales leaders often struggle with the changing dynamics of the customer relationship. The Sales …

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Are you letting online leads go cold?

By / / CRM, Social Media

Middle of last year I wrote about sales training and social media and in particular the impact on car dealerships and their sales teams. In particular, their tardiness in responding to online leads. Well it seems this is still a problem – only the other week one of my coaching clients told me about his dealings with a prestigious car brand where he contacted a dealership to arrange a test drive only to have someone get back to him 7 weeks later, well and truly after …

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Exceptional Prospecting and Social Media

By / / Call Reluctance, Communication, Prospecting, Sales Tips, Self Promotion, Social Media, Social Sales

With social networking sites and the plethora of online data available, 2011 presents us with better quality prospecting and more qualified prospects. ‘Prospecting and Social Media’ was voted as the Number 4 Sales Trends for 2011. Business networking sites such as LinkedIn and Plaxo, and the emergence of Facebook and Twitter as business destinations, give the discerning business or sales person access to quality data where they can research key contacts with an organisation, as well as business activity. Then, when appropriate, they can use this data to make professional connections.

Smart business leaders and sales people are using social networking …

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Having a sales monologue instead of sales dialogue with your customers?

By / / Communication, Prospecting, Sales Relationships, Social Media, Social Sales
  • Have you ever noticed your customers getting that glazed look when you tell them how fabulous you and your company are?
  • Have you ever had your customers seem very agreeable in your sales meeting but never seem to follow through with an order?
  • Have you ever found yourself doing all of the talking whether in a client meeting or over the phone?

If so, chances are you are having a sales monologue and not a sales dialogue with your customers – you are nothing more than a ‘talking’ brochure and are wasting yours and your client’s time.

We all know what it is like …

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