Cold Calling Techniques

Cold calling techniques should continue to be a valued sales skill and be included in any sales training program. Cold calling has evolved from a standalone blunt prospecting activity into a tactic that when combined with social selling and data is a powerful customer recruitment method. Not every business can rely or wait for inbound marketing to produce enough leads to grow revenue, so more outbound sales tactics need to be implemented, to reach out and engage potential customers. It may surprise you but 1000’s of buyer meetings and webinar attendance have come about as a result of "cold calling techniques", in fact the success rate of cold calling is improving not declining.

Cold calling techniques

Cold calling is NOT DEAD but it has evolved.

The reason for the improvement in cold calling success is that it has become more data driven, more targeted and blended to work with social selling and social media. Cold calling techniques now form part of a planned sales prospecting strategy and not just a numbers exercise. Remember that selling is fundamentally about conversations and commitments. Cold calling has a big part to play in starting conversations with prospects.

So, the goal of cold calling is for salespeople to have meaningful conversations with various customer profiles and adapt their value proposition to the unique situation of each prospect.

Cold calling techniques needs to help accelerate the essential learning needed by buyers, so that they can "move" to where they need to be, rather than where they are today. It’s about breaking down the prospects status quo and current thinking.

Cold Calling Techniques – Overview

1. Firstly, when approaching a prospect, it’s about them, their challenges, their interests and information needs.
2. A cold call conversation should help paint a picture of a better future for the customer.
3. A prospecting call is NOT about promotional messages and the salespersons self-interest.
4. Approach each prospect with the idea of helping them to solve a problem or achieve a goal, not of selling a product or service.

It is important to understand that sales prospecting and cold calling is primarily focused on "Create Opportunities". These are the sales opportunities where prospects are not actively looking because they aren’t aware of the problem. Plus, in all likelihood, they will have no plan, no budget and no owner for the problem the product or service solves. Create opportunities are the business problems, challenges or issues that haven’t been flagged to a high enough level where awareness leads to a decision to act. Which means the cold call needs to paint that picture of the better future so after listening they will act.

Create opportunities require both the prospect and seller to identify core causes of the problem that if addressed, will resolve the problem. It’s about the salesperson getting the prospect to understand the magnitude of the impact of the problem on the business so it gets attention. In cold calling, salespeople can only create real opportunities when they help buyers understand their options and agree on a specific solution approach. The salesperson must help define and prioritize capabilities that relate to their unique or high value features for the prospect. You see, unless and until new and compelling insights are introduced, the tendency is for the potential customer to remain in their "status quo" position.

Ultimately, the cold calling techniques deployed needs to help the buyer to understand how to buy, deploy, and get results from the solution the salesperson is proposing.

Cold Calling Techniques – the 3-sale step

The first "sale" (and the most critical) is to get the prospect to listen and talk long enough to ascertain if the problems a business addresses exists within their organization.

The 2nd "sale" is to get the prospect to work internally with stakeholders that may have different objectives, biases and viewpoints to agree on the nature and cost of the problem.

The 3rd "sale" is to gain consensus from the prospect or buying committee for the proposed solution, which maps to the seller’s key features and capabilities.

Cold Calling Techniques – Mindset

A great cold calling technique is to adopt a buyer’s mindset as cold calling is 80% mindset and 20% techniques. The mantra is "I am not trying to sell, but to acquire the information I need to decide if a prospect meets my buying criteria."

Cold Calling Techniques- Talk and Listen

Research shows most successful sales prospecting calls have on average a 46% to 54% talk to listen ratio. To get prospect engagement early in the call, have a list of rapport-related topics that gets the prospect to yield, listen and talk. It is important to practice and measure "the speaker switch rate" – as the salesperson and the prospect take turns discussing issues. Salespeople need to practice Active Listening. This is the ability to really listen to what the prospect is saying, to understand their motivations on a deeper level.

Cold Calling Techniques- Discovery Questions

Successful cold calling avoids spreading the prospects focus too thin. Deep dive targeted questions should be limited to 2-4 prospect issues the salesperson has researched that their solution solves. Then they should use "emotional labelling". After they have asked the prospect an effective discovery question, "call out" an emotion that has been observed from the prospect when they were answering discovery questions. Examples:

"It seems like you are personally frustrated by this challenge"

"It looks like you __________________"

"It sounds like you ________________"

Discovery Questions that are specifically focused on the customer’s business issues, challenges, goals, and areas of relevant concern have a direct correlation to successful next steps in the sales prospecting process.

Cold Calling Techniques – Rapport Building

Personalized. Asking highly specific questions shows genuine interest in the answer (and by association, the customer).

Unique. A discovery question should be a little unexpected and intelligent, it will return a more honest answer — and honesty breeds intimacy.

Appropriate. Even though the question should be surprising, it shouldn’t make the prospect feel uncomfortable. Avoid anything that could be seen as out-of-bounds. Make it a positive orientated question.

Example "I was reading your companies blog, your CEO stated that [direct quote], how will this affect your business moving forward?

To wrap up, cold calling techniques should make engaging a prospect should feel like a tennis match. Carefully use of data, insights, news, information and social selling will provide the path to call the prospect, get them to listen and talk. If selling is fundamentally about conversations and commitments, so is cold calling.

Sales Prospecting Definition

Nailing a sales prospecting definition can be difficult depending on your sales process, product and market. So, what is sales prospecting and what sales activity does it entail in winning new customers or business?

To start, lets agree that the stated aims of any business to is acquire, develop and maintain customers at a profit. Sales prospecting is focused on the acquire new customers activity in a business.

A sales prospecting definition is

"The sales activity involved in researching, engaging and nurturing new prospects so they eventually become paying customers for the business."

Sales prospecting is NOT about trying to find buyers in the market now to purchase your particular product or service. It’s not that easy!!

The end goal is to eventually move prospects through the sales funnel until they convert into revenue-generating customers. It is associated with a goal of increasing the customer base of the company and generating new revenue streams. This definition can be customized to a particular business to account for their ideal customer profile, market, products and business model.

Without new customers, a business will have limited potential to grow, while some sales growth will come from existing customers, it is not sustainable due to customer loss, churn and circumstances. This is why sales prospecting is one of the most important sales activities any salesperson can undertake. Prospecting is the first step in the sales process and the key which unlocks future relationships with paying customers. Unfortunately, too many companies still do not have their own sales prospecting definition which can lead to an unstructured approach to acquiring new customers.

Sales prospecting is now a multi-channel activity covering social selling, emails, cold calling and events. Tactics include sharing content, white papers, articles and case studies along with offering demos, free trials or invites to events. It should also be noted that effective prospecting is a process not an event, it begins with researching a potential prospect, their industry, their business, establishing criteria as to why they are a suitable prospect and then putting in place a plan to gradually nurture a relationship with them prior to any sales pitch.

Some people ask "what the difference between a sales lead and a prospect?"

Well, leads are potential customers where you have either profiled them or who have expressed interest in your company or services through behaviors like visiting your website, subscribing to a blog, or downloading an eBook. So, leads are where you have some contact details, a match against a buying profile or an expression of interest via inbound marketing (regardless of how loose) so that you can prospect to them.

Then, leads become prospects if they engage with a salesperson and the interactions mean they could become a potential customer set against some qualifying criteria (size, existing situation, budget etc), meaning that they align with the profile of your target buyer. A prospect may also be classified as a potential customer who has limited or no interaction with your company, but they would not be considered a lead.

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Sales Prospecting Tips from The Digital Sales Institute on Vimeo.

Successful Sales Prospecting

Successful sales prospecting starts with understanding the type of buyer who would most likely be interested in what you have to offer. In order to find this out, it can be helpful to answer questions such as

What type of buyers or customers use your products or services?

If you are an existing business, who are your most loyal customers?

What similarities do they share (revenue, industry, size, business models, age etc)?

Another point to remember when creating a sales prospecting definition is that there are usually three types of prospects.

1. The Cold prospect or lead. These are prospects whom you have identified as worth trying to engage or you are in the process of trying to get them to interact with you. PS. Just because they connected with you on LinkedIn doesn’t make them a warm prospect.
2. The warm prospect. These are the prospects where some level of positive interaction has happened but they remain in their status quo position in relation to your product or service (see no need to change right now). Such prospects will make up a large chunk of your prospect database as at any given time, less than 10% of your market are actively looking to change product or supplier. These prospects have to be nurtured with content, articles, and information that brings value to their roles. They are not looking to be sold to, so focus on the relationship.
3. The Qualified hot prospect. This prospect has started a buyer’s journey and is in consideration mode. Their actions (free trial, meeting etc) demonstrates the potential to purchase your product or service. They also pass your qualifying criteria around budget, needs, authority and timescale.

Sales prospecting does require sales training but regardless of whatever sales prospecting definition you settle on, the really positive effect is that effective prospecting not only increases the productivity of the sales teams but also their selling skills.

Sales Skills Training

Sales skills training should empower the salesperson to reach a higher level of sales performance when selling to customers and prospects. We know that the role of a salesperson is evolving at a faster pace since sales skills were codified over 100 years ago.

The main catalyst for the changing role of salespeople has been the amount of information buyers can access on the Internet and social media. In fact, reports now show that the B2B buying process is not too dis-similar to the way consumers purchase, hence the growth in the SaaS and Freemium models. This has had the knock-on effect of the traditional sales process being no longer valid placing an onus on sales skills training to accurately reflect todays buyers journey.

The challenge for both the business and the individual is to invest more time in sales skills training to learn and understanding the core selling skills for today’s digitally driven buying environment.

Sales Skills Training List

Empathy; This is the sales skill to take the time to really understand a prospect’s needs, challenges and the market they operate in. Put aside the sales pitch and the features list, it’s about taking the time to ask meaning questions that learn about the person (buyers are people!!), their business, their role and then see the answers from their viewpoint. Empathy is the use of emotional intelligence and is the key to nurturing successful customer relationships.

Research; A new module to sales skills training for salespeople is research skills. From understanding market trends to honing in on news and information relating to a customer’s business can unlock deeper conversations. It’s about conducting research via the Internet and social media to identify insights, trends and influencing factors that could trigger a buyer’s journey if presented effectively. Research skills are also used to identify the right target profile of customers and how to engage them in a multi-channel sales world.

Acumen; Business acumen is knowing that the show up and throw up sales strategy no longer works. Successful salespeople have a genuine interest in how a business works and also display a characteristic of business curiosity. They use business knowledge to engage customers in intelligent conversations and then create opportunities where they may not seem to exist. They use empathy and research to plan out the right questions to ask plus they seek out the right people to ask those questions to, along with finding the answers.

Content; Modern buyers demand more than sales words, they value relevant content and expert insights that helps to bring clarity to challenges. Salespeople need to be skilled at sourcing and selecting content to engage customers to move the sales conversations along. However, this needs to be really useful content that supports them to move out of the status quo and convince others that taking action is necessary. Also, sales people need to use content to engage prospects plus content being shared needs to be of high quality to have social reach, be liked and valued by the target prospects. This likeability of any content type can be increased by including content sales skills training so salespeople can select content matched to a buyer persona or ideal customer profile. The sales skill is to have the right content for the right customer profile at the right time in their sales interactions.

Multi-channel Engagement; B2B buyers are also self-educating similar to consumers and spend as much as 27% of the purchasing time conducting research online. Being skilled in multi-channel customer engagement (social media with content, social selling, phone calls, webinars etc) is about maximizing every interaction with a prospect or customer. This parallel sales pursuit is where a wide range of sales touch points are built to support buying activity along the entire purchase journey.

Value; Bringing value and being seen as valuable to a buyer is about understanding their perspective and then tailoring the sales process according. Smart buyers understand the value of a supplier that can contribute to the success of his or her business. This is about salespeople getting sales training so they know their overarching value proposition, – helping to lower the customers’ costs, – improving their productivity, – speeding up their process, – helping them identify new opportunities etc. At an even deeper level, does the customer rely on the business for advice or direction? In other words, does the customer consider(value) the salesperson as a supplier or as a trusted partner.

Vision; This skill is the ability of a salesperson to craft and tell stories that reverses a buyer’s perception that leaving their status quo is high risk. It is sales skills training where salespeople learn to show a prospect that doing nothing puts them at greater risk and that the option to change is the safer, better route forward. Can they create stories that inspires a buying vision so their solution is the best option to solve a prospects challenge?

Credible; It’s about selling like an expert and not like a salesperson. Train the sales team to think like their clients when they set out to solve a problem. Selling remains a people-oriented business requiring a customer-focused approach. Credibility selling is based on the philosophy that customers buy when they are convinced they are making a good decision based on what they feel is valuable to them and their business.

Mindset; A winning mindset in sales "is not a question of do you know it, but rather of one ‘Do you want to do it?". Because "If any salesperson wants to do it, they will acquire the necessary knowledge and skills." In the sales process, a salespersons most valuable asset is not their sales patter, nor their value proposition, nor their customer base. Their most valuable asset is their mindset.

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Effective Sales Techniques Tips Video from The Digital Sales Institute on Vimeo.

MOST sales skills training

M = Mapping out the buyer’s journey and key contacts in an account.

O = Objectives for sales conversations and multi-channel interactions.

S = Strategy to engage customers based on facts, trends, understanding and reasoning.

T = Tactics to be used from social selling, phone calls (scripts), content, information and insights.

Sales skills training should equip salespeople to have the habits of successful sales professionals to confidently address this reply from over 1000 B2B buyers when asked "what they expect from a salesperson?"

"Come to me with industry knowledge, put something in my mind that I have not thought off plus give me options I have not considered before"

Sales Training Courses

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Sales training courses are designed to improve the sales skills of the sales team, from social selling to sales prospecting, cold calling, business development and sales presentation skills to name but a few. Sales training courses and sales coaching are essential for a salespersons success. The stark reality is that ineffective sales training seriously effects […]

via Sales Training Courses — Sales Training Company – The Bitter Business

Sales Training Exercises

Here are a few sales training exercises to liven up your sales training. The goal of sales training is to give salespeople a set of skills and tools that radically improves their sales performance. The use of sales training courses is an essential part of the whole sales industry, but we need to continually ask what value it adds to sales growth. In fact, up to 85% of sales training fails to deliver a positive ROI. The reason for this is that sales training sessions can vary from being brilliant to being absolutely boring. So hopefully the below sales training exercises can help positively impact on a salespersons experience when it comes to sales training.

Sales Training Exercises: 1. Expectations.

What will sales training have done for you?

Get the sales course participants to imagine it is 1 year from now, they have been using what they learned during the sales training course continuously as part of their sales activity. Get them to write down, in as much detail as possible, exactly what sales training will have done to make them more successful, their customers more engaged and helped them win more deals.

Sales Training Exercises: 2. Creating Value

This sales training exercise is based on the adage "If a customer can’t see the difference between 2 products, they will decide based on price".

The object of this exercise is to assist salespeople to create and demonstrate value to a customer who is either comparing your offering to a lower priced competitor or has become too price focused.

Select two participants, 1 is the customer, the other is the sales person. Give the salesperson 2 household batteries. One is priced at $1, the other battery is priced at $10, ask him/her to prepare a list of differences in 3 minutes. The customer asks the salesperson for a cheap battery for their kids toy. The salesperson presents the 2 batteries and points out the price for each and asks which one would the customer like. (The customer can either pick the cheaper one or ask what’s the difference)

So now the salesperson should explain a list of differences that can create real value difference and reasons to purchase the $10 battery.

Examples:

Guaranteed to last 100 times longer than the cheaper one.

5 times more powerful so can power larger toys.

Child safe, will not leak.

1-year warranty v 3 months warranty

The $10 battery has a limited special offer of buying another within a year for $5.

The point is that, depending on the customers own situation, people will opt for the $10 battery, proving that it is value, not price that drives decision-making. Done well, building customer value positions salespeople with a great chance to win more sales, and grow longer term customer relationships.

Sales Training Notes: Creating value not only transforms sales effectiveness, it also provides a cushion against price pressure.

Did the salesperson get to know the customer and develop a good understanding of what they value?

Explain clearly why the $10 battery will help the customer and communicate why it is the better option?

Sales Training Exercises: 3. Hit the Target

This exercise is based on consistency with sales techniques and in the sales process.

Roll up 50 or 60 pieces of paper into balls. Ask 3 course participants to volunteer to throw the paper balls into a waste paper basket. Give each person 10 balls.

Inform them the goal is to throw as many paper balls into the basket in thirty seconds. They can only retrieve any balls that have landed in the basket during the time to increase their score.

Now begin the countdown and count louder as they get to the last 10 seconds. Watch how their pace of throwing picks up (and they try to be more accurate).

Selling is about consistency and habits. Why did they throw more or try to be more accurate as the deadline approached? Was their plan to focus on speed or accuracy (or both or none!!)

As you had 50 or 60 balls, did any of the volunteers ask for more balls (you never mentioned they couldn’t ask for more balls). Ask them why didn’t they ask for more balls? You could link this back to parts in the sales process such as "initiative" "thinking outside the box for solutions" "asking for more resources" "determination to hit their targets" etc. Also, the more balls they threw, the higher the score which is all about sales consistency.

The nice thing about this exercise is you can expand more examples that link back to your own sales challenges.

Sales Training Notes: By having a consistent approach coupled with focus, speed and accuracy of actions will give any salesperson the blueprint to sales success.

Sales Training Exercises: 4. Hold or Fold

This sales training exercise to focused on a salespersons ability to clarify where the prospect is in the sales process and in doing so cleans up the sales pipeline.

Using 5 or 6 sheets of paper, write down real reasons a prospect stalls a deal – budget slashed or gone, boss or member of the buying committee not convinced, preference for another vendor, not convinced solution meets their needs, not a priority, perceived risk with product or company etc.

Ask for 2 or 3 sets of volunteers, one will play the stalling prospect, the other the salesperson. Give each prospect player 1 real reason sheet why they are stalling.

Scenario: The prospect has agreed after weeks of chasing by the salesperson to a catch-up meeting. The salesperson must ask a series of questions to see if they can get the prospect to reveal their true reason for stalling. At the end of the exercise, the salesperson must state why they think the prospect is stalling and whether to hold onto the prospect or move on. The prospect then reveals his/her sheet to see if there is a match.

Sales Training Notes: Have each salesperson ask the prospect questions to understand whether to hold or fold. Questions such as, "I noticed you haven’t taken advantage of your demo account, usually when this happens it’s because it is not a business priority right now, is this the case here?" can help your prospects confront whether they do or do not want to move forward.

Once the salesperson has asked their series of questions and does/does not understand why the prospect is stalling, and have either moved the deal forward or folded and walked away, have an open discussion on what went well, what made the prospects feel uncomfortable, and suggestions on what to do next time around.

Sales Training Exercises: 5. Walk the Buyers Journey

The goal of this exercise is for salespeople to understand their own market and how they could influence the buying process using social selling as more buyers use social media to conduct research.

For this exercise, the seller (all the sales course participants) becomes the buyer of your own product/service. Using their industry knowledge and a typical customer profile, how far can they go in the sales process doing web searches/LinkedIn/social media in selecting your own product/service without having to interact with a sales person? (In some markets, you can get pricing, free trial, video demos etc without having to talk to a salesperson)

Awareness (window of unhappiness) – "I may have a problem"

Example buyer question: What features should I expect in a CRM system?

Consideration (window of alternatives) – "I can see a definite solution"

Example buyer question: What CRM systems would the group recommend?

That is a quick list of 5 sales training exercises any salesperson or sales trainer can conduct to liven your sales training courses.

Free Social Selling Video

Free Social Selling Training Video from The Digital Sales Institute on Vimeo.

Online social selling training is now a vital part of any sales training program as traditional sales methods have diminishing returns. Also sales tactics such as cold calling have become an unwelcome intrusion in the buyer’s journey. To sustain business success, sales professionals need to adopt digital selling techniques as part of any efficient sales strategy. Social selling skills are transforming sales, prospecting and lead generation.
The Digital Sales Institute online social selling course is ideal for a variety of sales professionals, from inbound and outbound consultants and reps, to business development executives, account managers and sales team leaders. If you want to enrich your selling techniques, develop new sales skills and maximize your career potential, this course is ideal for you.

What is Social Selling

What is social selling and what part does it play in the social media influenced sales process are fundamental questions now being asked by sales leaders across the globe. They want to know if social selling can help to build relationships, extend a business’s social reach and connect to a network of contacts, influencers and customers.

What is social selling

Engagement has never mattered more to B2B buyers, but the old sales models to engage buyers is becoming obsolete. A hard pill to swallow by many in sales management is that today’s informed and connected buyer is usually in control. When we talk about "buyer engagement," using social media and social selling it can be hard to nail down. Research shows that buyers do want to interact with us in new ways, but on their own terms. This means that when engaging buyers, we need to be credible, be useful, be valuable and be relevant to get their attention in a content fuelled sales world.

In the traditional sales and marketing model it ran along the lines of building awareness, driving interest, try to create some desire which eventually leads to action. This has been the traditional approach to buyer engagement (marketing, cold calling, events, prospecting etc) for a long, long time, since the 1920’s to be precise.

The wakeup call and the reality that we have to acknowledge is that’s not what is going on over at the buyer’s journey. How could it be? Look at our own buyer’s journey and how the availability of information via social media, the web and online has changed our own purchasing decisions. What we see today is a buying and decision-making process that has become much more fluid plus there is a degree of complexity in the buying journey. Modern B2B buyers don’t compartmentalize nearly as much as their predecessors. While they are becoming aware or exploring, they could also be evaluating and considering options. They are looking for help, insights and support way earlier in the buying process without the sales pitch. They will engage with influencers, peer groups and vendors with the primary objective of learning new ways to do things without entering a formal sales process. They see this engagement as streams that ebb and flow throughout their buyer’s journey.

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new."
–Socrates

What is social selling

Social selling revolves around three simple words: transformation, acceleration and collaboration.

It works on the premise that a whole new generation of B2B buyers will purchase software, technology, products and solutions in pretty much the same way as they purchase music, clothes and gadgets.

So, social selling is the sum of connected actions (content, information, news, articles, research, insights) shared online (think social reach/social business). When these connected actions are experienced by customers/potential customers, they will influence the awareness and consideration of your business. Social selling is also about building a bridge between social media marketing activity, buyer connectivity and sales outreach to maximize buyer engagement and minimize wasted resources.

Social Selling Ideas

Why Social Selling is Important in Sales 3.0

So, let’s start with some background information on Sales 3.0 and the buyers journey. Around 67% of the B2B buyers journey is now digitally influenced. They read at a minimum of 5 pieces of content regarding solutions available. Today’s buyers are self-educating, informed and hyper-connected. Social selling unlocks the opportunity for a business or salesperson to get involved in the purchasing journey by being useful and valuable to a buyer as they ebb and flow throughout their buyer’s journey.

Buyers aren’t always in the market, but they are always in the market to learn. At any time, only 5-10% of your target market is actively looking to buy and another 20-30% open to considering a change. This means a business must constantly work to build credibility and trust with the potential 90% of buyers in the consideration/status quo cycle.

However, buyers are always learning throughout these cycles, continuously self-educating, making connections with peers and influencers, and consuming relevant content. This has two implications for the sales organization:

When buyers are ready to leave the status quo, the 1^st vendors they turn to are the ones who have built trust. They can even collaborate with a trusted adviser (salesperson) on solution prior to conducting their own research. Leaving it to inbound marketing or a Google search is not enough anyone. Businesses need to use connected actions and social reach to influence buyers so they can get on their short list of potential suppliers. A buyer may ask an influencer or thought leader to suggest a short list to them. Social selling works to bridge these connections so they have come to understand, trust and have a positive impression of your business capabilities. The use of planned "connected actions" on the social networks and constantly reviewed social reach can positively impact the ability to gather more interest, from more buyers, more often.

It means all salespeople (and maybe your entire organization) needs to become proficient in a different sales skill. As part of sales transformation and to accelerate buyer engagement on the social networks, social selling training will be required to allow the sales team to be able to share content, to connect, to engage and to nurture relationships. It also places an onus on sales management to ensure they have time to do the activity and help them become "thought leaders" who can communicate value without the sales pitch.

What is social selling in relation to Customer Acquisition

If you acknowledge that buyers not just use but are heavily influenced by social media on their purchasing decisions, then you should be thinking more about how can the sales organization engage your "buyer’s community" or "buyer’s network" using social selling.

• How do you engage and reach buyers online? (It can’t be limited to just inbound marketing or your web site)
• How does your business (social reach) become part of these networks or communities, where your connection actions will be judged by the relevancy of what is shared, your insights, your ideas and your expertize and not your branded sales pitches?
• How will your business create content for your social sellers to share that is highly relevant to these networks, knowing that branded sales orientated content is ignored?
• How will you set goals that track buyer engagement, not just to help determine the right ways to reach out and connect, but also to measure leads and revenue from your social selling strategy.

The Value of Social Selling to your Business

To answer what is social selling, you must remember that without a clear social selling strategy is just random acts of social marketing. To deliver results it must be comprised of many different social activities that work in unison to extend social reach and engage more buyers.

What is social selling going to mean in your business?, it should focus on crossing the chasm between the use of old sales techniques to social tactics that implies competitive advantage for your business. In the digital era,the shift in value has moved from the product or service you’re selling to the value YOU provide to buyers.

Sales Transformation. Leading companies use social selling as a different way to link customers, content, conversations, products, and solutions.

Sales Acceleration. How faster growing companies do a better job of differentiating, showing return, and handling the customer’s perceived risks to change using the Social Channels.

Customer collaboration. Forward thinking companies educate buyers via Social Networks, sharing ideas and perspectives, investing in customer success, and create a customer perception of working as partners.

We hope this article has gone some way to answering, what is social selling and what it means for your business.