Episode 202: Transitioning from Face-to-Face to Online Sales

Bob Woods  00:00

Hi, Welcome Everyone to Making Sales Social Live, Brought to you by Social Sales Link. I’m Bob Woods, looking like the Lex Luthor of Ocean and Social Selling. Today I am joined by, I don’t know, the Lois Lane?

Brynne Tillman  00:18

I’ll take it.

Bob Woods  00:19

I’ll tell you something like that.

Brynne Tillman  00:22

I’m good, Bob or Lex. How are you?

Bob Woods  00:25

I am doing really, really good. So we’re gonna be talking about something just slightly different today, but something that I still think is very applicable and especially in today’s world, and literally today’s world. 

Intro  00:40

Welcome to Making Sales Social Live, as we share LinkedIn and Social Selling Training Strategies and Tips that will have an immediate impact on your business. Join Brynne Tillman, and me, Bob Woods, every week, Making Sales Social Live! This is the recorded version of our weekly Making Sales Social Live Show. 

Bob Woods  01:30

Business-to-business selling used to be primarily face-to-face. Remember those days started to see a shift in our actions happening via digital platforms like LinkedIn? Well, before the pandemic, then during the pandemic zoom type meetings and just more nonface-to-face meetings really became almost the norm. I don’t know if I’d say that they’re truly the norm, but they are certainly much, much more proud than they were. 

And they’re expected to continue to be like that, too. I don’t think we’re ever going to get away from that. So with that, B2B salespeople and managers need to, I think, reassess the role of personal selling in this new just kind of overall digital environment. Now, we are going to get into a couple of details during this.

But Brynne, I think, overall, that even with this ship, and especially in B2B, salespeople are still going to be strongly needed, agree or disagree, and I have a feeling I know which way you’re gonna go with that. 

Brynne Tillman  02:06

Look, people buy from people.

Bob Woods 02:08

Yes. 

Brynne Tillman 02:09

Right? And, networking and building relationships, that is not going away. If anything, we need to leverage it so that we have a strong network of people to help us meet new people to do business with. 

Bob Woods 02:24

I know. 

Brynne Tillman 02:25

Right?

Bob Woods 02:26

I know. 

Brynne Tillman 02:27

So for sure, face-to-face, is not going away. But we can absolutely leverage LinkedIn, and online sales, to support face-to-face or, I see it’s not going away. For a lot of people it is for a lot of people, they have gone, it’s not going away for everyone. 

In fact, I’ve already done some conferences and some things that are out there. But there are a lot of folks who spent their whole careers going to networking events. And now they don’t even have an office to go to, nor know how to do their work. So I think that’s the direction we’re going in. I think Bob.

Bob Woods  03:13

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, with you know, just with the, the new world in air quotes, but it really kind of is a new world, when it when it comes to just the process of selling is just as really trying to get that process in with the new tools that we have nowadays, which I think and we’re gonna, obviously, with us being who we are and what we do, we are going to keep coming back to. 

Especially when it comes to b2b sales, LinkedIn and social selling, because you know, we were cool before. All this stuff was cool, essentially. And cool. We are the OG of cool God, man. I love that. 

Brynne Tillman  04:03

I really wish I could go back and tell my teenage self. That I’m not gonna be a nerd forever. Oh, I am still a nerd. I forgot. I am a LinkedIn nerd, But.

Bob Woods  04:13

We’re cool nerds though. And nerds are cool in general nowadays. 

Brynne Tillman  04:18

Definitely. 

Bob Woods  04:19

Yeah. It’s absolutely let’s definitely talk about not only some of the tools that we use but some of the ways that I really think that salespeople need to be thinking as well as sales managers need to be embracing this so that they can help support their salespeople in this new world.

Brynne Tillman  04:39

Yeah, so there’s really two conversations here, Right? The first conversation is “How do we use digital sales face to face” and “How do we use it on its own” so right?, so let’s, I’m going to start if that’s okay. 

Bob Woods  04:56

Yeah, Please do.

Brynne Tillman  04:57

And you know, it’s something that we as the team have been talking about, and it’s how we leverage digital and in-person, so the first thing is pre-event, what do we do? So, pre-event, we want to know if we have a list of who’s going to the event, and if it’s an online event, often when you’re doing a meet-up, or you might see who’s attending the event.

If they have an event on LinkedIn, and you hit “I’m attending,” you can see who’s attending that event, you can see if there are sponsors, when you know, you get an email about the event, or their sponsors that are going to be there. So we can really do a lot of pre-event planning and who it is that we want to have conversations with. 

If it’s a smaller local type event, it could be anything but if I do this in the smaller events, I’ll reach out to the person that’s hosting the event with a question, “Hey, This is what I do. These are the people I’m looking to have a conversation with, is there anyone coming to the event that I should meet?” and sometimes then they go, “Oh, there are three people that are registered, this would be great for you.” 

And then when I get there, I might say, “Thank you so much for the information here, the three people that I’m hoping to meet, I’ll look to see in the name tags if they’re there already, or if they’re not there yet. And if they’re there already, I might ask the host to make an introduction for me.” So right? 

So that’s during the event, there’s lots of other things to do, make sure you’re connecting with people during the event and sending on LinkedIn, we have the QR code where we can connect with them, and then have a pre-written message about “Great to meet you at this event,” “Looking forward to our continuing our conversation,” “Let’s connect.” 

And then we can follow up on that. And then and then after the event following up, but I think the purpose of Today’s Making Sales Social was to talk about online or digital sales. So bye bye to you to open up.

Bob Woods  07:04

Yeah, so all that was great, especially because networking is coming back. And face-to-face networking, I should say. And, we have talked about that in the past here on the show. But I do think that going over that really quickly was a really important thing to do. So let’s take that kind of three stages that Brynne had mentioned before, you know, pre-event event and then post-event.

And let’s put that into the sales process. Now when it comes to using digital tools, especially like LinkedIn, we’re talking about pre purchase number one. So this is when customers are generally gathering information, comparing products, doing everything that they need to do. And of course, all this is happening before you even know that they are a potential customer, which is where social selling comes in. 

Because if you are out there, You are easy to find you are providing value, you are providing insights into, into how you help people not that you help people, but how you help people and you’re just out there helping people to remember my old phrase, stop talking about helping people and just help people. 

This is the type of thing that you really want to be doing pre-purchase. Because in the minds of the people who are researching you at this point, you are going to become much more of an expert, much more of a thought leader, and also someone who is much more approachable. 

So that if they have questions about what they’re researching, and you are in that if you’re approachable, when you know all this stuff, you’re gonna be much easier in their minds to reach out to and remember, and this is the statistic that I can never remember. Brian knows it. But it’s like 60-77% of buyers who are sick. I forget the…

Brynne Tillman  08:55

67% of the buying process is done before the sales rep even knows they’re in the market. Is that right?

Bob Woods  09:04

So that’s one the other ones that I’m thinking of, though it is the one where the salesperson who brought value first is the one who gets the deal. 

Brynne Tillman  09:17

Oh. 74% of buyers choose the company or sales rep that was first to provide value or insights. 

Bob Woods  09:25

That’s it. 

Brynne Tillman  09:27

So that is, that one is corporate visions. 

Bob Woods  09:30

As corporate.

Brynne Tillman  09:31

Corporate visions. Yeah. The first one is the Challenger Customer. Yeah. 

Bob Woods  09:41

But I think that even with both of those statistics, I think that that just reinforces everything that we’re talking about in terms of being there first, but not just being there first and saying “Hey, how are you doing, Why don’t you buy from me? being there first, with the information that people need and You genuinely helping them and providing value.

Brynne Tillman  10:02

So let’s break it down. Right? So there’s really, when it comes to digital sales, there’s five categories or pillars, Right? The first one is “Social listening.” This is like where we used to go into an office and look around and find things that we can talk about, Right? “Oh, I see, you know, your son is in Boy Scouts.” My boys were in Boy Scouts, Right? 

Whatever those report building moments, make sure we’re doing that make sure that we have really understood our prospect before we reach out what their challenges are, what their priorities are, what challenges they solve with their clients, like, just understand. That’s why when people say the riches are in the niches, it’s because they have a deep understanding. So that’s number one. 

Number two is “Making sure that you shift your profile from a resume to a resource,” This is your landing page. This is ultimately to Bob’s point the things that we the one of the things we talk about is rather than telling them how you can help them simply help them and that should start with your profile, bring value, very early on, and you’ll earn the right to get the conversation.

Number three, “Content and engagement.” And we’re saying 10 Engage 10 times more than you post. So make sure you’re commenting and liking your prospects’ content on your colleagues’ content 10 times more than you post and you will start to see more engagement. And the people that you engage with will start to see more of your content that number, so that’s 123. 

Number four, “Take inventory of your existing connections and identify who in your network,” Our clients prospects, referral partners that we should be having conversations with, and simply take out your phone and send them a video message. Right? We’re talking about face-to-face to online sales, we can at least create face, if not face-to-face. Right? We can have a one-way face. So we’re out there reminding people of who we are and starting conversations. And Bob, I think it’s over. When you send a video message, it’s over a 90% response rate.

Bob Woods  12:25

Yeah, video not only in just posting and things like that, because that’s like it’s kind of face-to-face, but not really face-to-face. But that one that’s almost face-to-face, it’s like getting that close, except there’s just not two-way communication there. But just you just sitting there talking to an individual in the camera, they can know, it goes way beyond text.

Which can be misinterpreted and everything else, you’re not going to misinterpret anything when you send a message via video. And it’s just that it’s much more powerful, powerful, especially because even nowadays, people don’t do it, you will stand out just because you did it. 

Brynne Tillman  13:08

I love that. And then number five is really leveraging your social proximity to getting in front of your ideal, your ideal prospects. So identifying who your clients know, who your networking partners know, and leveraging those relationships to get in front of your buyers. And honestly, if you can nail those five pieces, you will now have online sales digitally.

Bob Woods  13:37

Absolutely, So I want to wrap up with this idea of support and how management and sales organizations can support their people in doing this. Because obviously, if you’re an entrepreneur, a solopreneur, or you work for a very small company that is like, do what you want to do, you’re basically set except for hopefully, it’s a marketing sport and things like that.

But in sales organizations, they have to train and empower, especially empower their salespeople, and their teams to use these tools effectively, efficiently. And obviously, because it’s in the name of the company for lack of a better phrase, you know, at least do all the branding and things like that as well. So this involves providing them with skills, knowledge support, and yes, and we were talking about this today, incentives to leverage the tools and platforms. 

We were talking a little bit and a little bit of a different context earlier today in our meeting, but incentives and gamification, if you can do it, really not only supports salespeople, but because most salespeople are competitive. That’s one of the reasons why they’re in sales. 

They will actually get more out of it and then the process they’ll learn about what they can do and how they can do it and net will just incentivize them further because it will ultimately show up in their paychecks. With that Brynne did Can you think of maybe a way or two that a sales organization can specifically help their teams and their salespeople in this regard, I have a feeling you can’t, but I’m just asking just to make sure.

Brynne Tillman  15:20

Yeah, I mean, other than me being salesy and saying, “Have a conversation with us, because we might be able to help,” I will throw in more more of a resource in our brand. But the first thing you need to do is get the mindset right with your team and get them to understand that there’s a person on the other side of every one of these messages not to look at this as a big lead gen machine, but look at it as a big networking opportunity. 

If you were in real person, so treat the person on the other side of the message the same way you would if they were on the other side of the table, it is absolutely vital that we don’t churn and burn, we don’t connect and pitch that we slow this down, right like that we slow this down and treat digital sales the same way we would in a face to face environment.

Bob Woods  16:11

100% Yeah, so if that attitude doesn’t flow down from the top to the salespeople, it’s just why do it otherwise, you’ll just look like one of those many, many people, unfortunately, on LinkedIn right now, who are doing the connected pitch, who are just out there, just ramming down sales, messaging, and things like that constantly to their people, rather than teaching and engaging and starting relationships and having conversations. 

That’s what sales, B2B sales in the future, in my opinion, is truly gonna be all about. And I think it’s starting to take off, but there’s still plenty of other people who are still doing it the old-fashioned way. And that’s not really great, in my opinion.

Brynne Tillman  16:58

Yeah. So, you know, there’s a lot here, but, you know, just pick something and get started, Right? Just if you’re in that sales leadership role, listen to some of the things that Bob said, write them down, maybe create a checklist, but 100% salespeople unless it’s transactional, need to be leveraging LinkedIn to start sales conversations without being salesy.

Bob Woods  17:23

Exactly, exactly. And of course, if you have any questions, reach out to me or Brynne, we are available on LinkedIn and imagine that so thank you so much for joining us on Making Sales Social Live This Week. If you’re with us live on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, right now, we do this every week, so keep an eye out for those live sessions. 

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We do two shows weekly, this one and the Making Sales Social, interview series where we talk with leaders and experts in sales, marketing, business, many, many more areas that we promise you will find genuinely interesting. So when you are out and about this week, and every week, be sure to make your sales.

Brynne Tillman  18:20

Social! Bye Guys. 

Bob Woods  18:22

Bye bye. 

Outro  18:22

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