Five years ago, which is eons in technology time, sales expert John Golden predicted that successful sales professionals would rely heavily on social networks and tools built specifically for sourcing, collating, and analyzing social data. In his article, Sales Professionals Must Embrace Social CRM — or Risk Extinction, John highlights a very important change in the customer journey and acknowledges that buyers will most definitely source opinions from their social networks before continuing conversations with a seller.
In essence, the seller must respect that the buyer to a large degree owns the conversation and will dictate where and when it happens and, indeed, when the seller is a part of it and, just as important, when they are not. In other words, there may be parts of the sales process that the seller is completely shut out of, such as when a buyer, unknown to the seller, uses their LinkedIn professional network to perform some due diligence.
This significant shift in buyer behavior has had many repercussions for sales professionals. And, sadly many are failing to see the need to adapt to this new buying cycle. Today’s self-educated buyer is better suited to a cyclical sales approach versus the more structured funnel of the past. Similar to select your own ending books from childhood, buyers like to choose their own path and engage with sales representative via the communication channel of their choice and at any time they have the need.
The modern buyer is more likely to be engaged and stay engaged by a marketing-enabled sales process. Sales and marketing must firmly align strategies to achieve a consistent customer experience. And, sales professionals must understand that even though their role has changed, it is no less important. This change in process does not diminish the relevance of sales professionals in an organization — in fact, it plays to their strengths. Salespeople naturally forge relationships — and leveraging social will allow them to scale their networking efforts exponentially.
Social is not going away and what we currently refer to as social selling techniques will eventually become business standards. In much the way email has grown to be an integral part of business communication, so will Twitter, LinkedIn, and all the “who can guess” future networks. It is incredibly important for businesses and employees to embrace social as a communication channel. Because, as John so wisely states in his post, “…there is a need to identify that which has had an enduring impact and will continue to do so…”
What do you predict will endure in the future of business?
Guest blog by Rachel Miller Chief Listener at PipelinerCRM
Originally Posted on Millennial CEO: http://millennialceo.com/social-media/future-social-business/
Brian Fanzo is a partner and Chief Digital Strategist at Broadsuite Media Group (BMG). His focus is on helping companies utilize new technology like mobile, analytics, and cloud computing to be more productive. He is also an expert at working with audiences and brands who want to learn more about using social media and content marketing (including rich media content), to more effectively reach, inform, educate, and connect with their audiences and prospect bases. Brian is also an expert on the topic of Millennials. He speaks on this topic and works with organizations helping them understand the Millennial mindset, what motivates them, how to prepare your organization for the future workforce, and a myriad of other topics related to a new generation of leaders.
Brian is passionate about teaching change and he focuses on doing this in his work with brands as both an influencer and advisor, and he’s also a sought-after speaker and multi-media creator. In addition to contributing regularly to MillennialCEO, Brian co-hosts two weekly Twitter chats, #SbizHour and #CloudTalk, as well as co-hosting a a weekly podcast called SMACtalk. You can find Brian on Twitter@isocialfanz, or on LinkedIn or Google+.
