Episode 271: Using the “King” For Your Buyers’ Journey

Bob Woods

Welcome to my fellow sales and marketing peeps to Making sales social live. Coming to you from the social sales link virtual studios. I’m Bob Woods, and joining me is the Co-host of Making Sales Social Live. She’s a fellow link social selling and AI strategist, consultant, trainer, and coach. And I just ran out of breath. Brynne Tillman. How are you doing, Brynne?

Brynne Tillman

Good, Bob. If you are with us live, I am coming from our base, from my basement. So welcome to a little more down-to-earth setting today.

Intro   

Welcome to the making sales social podcast featuring the top voices in sales, marketing and business join Brynne Tillman and me Bob Woods. As we each bring you the best tips and strategies. Our guests are teaching their clients so you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. Enjoy the show.

Brynne Tillman

Well, I’m excited to be here, and I’m excited about our conversation today because this is a topic that every social seller needs to know, because content and social selling is almost synonymous.

Bob Woods

Yeah, but like Brynne just said, the role of content and social media and social selling, I should say, is crucial. The same can be said, especially nowadays, just about content and sales in general. You need it. So many companies and entrepreneurs are now using content that if you’re not using it, you’re really doing yourself a disservice. 

It’s important to engage potential buyers with relevant content before they recognize their need for your product or service. But then you’ve got to keep them informed throughout the sales process. So we’re going to address first, the three overall stages of the funnel, top, mid, and end of the sales cycle, and even beyond that. And then we’re going to get into the types.

So, first of all, let’s talk about top of the funnel, Brynne, and what type of content should be in for people who are either in the top of the funnel or are even prior to the top of the funnel, before the salesperson even knows that these people are circling around a particular product or service.

Brynne Tillman

Yeah. So I think that from a social selling and prospecting perspective, this is something that most people get wrong. And the reason I say this is because we often will talk about what we want them to know, whether it’s our products and services or success stories, when most of our prospects are not even actively looking for our solution. And so that’s a big deal. We need to take a look at what is happening in the environment of our buyer before they ever know they need us, before they’re looking for our products or services. 

So what’s happening in their environment for us. There are a few things. One might be they had a lot of new hires for sales. Another one could be, there’s turnover, or they just had sales training and they know the next step is going to be LinkedIn or they’re looking for sales training, and we will kind of piggyback on that. Because right now, social selling and digital is such a huge piece of sales generally, but most sales trainers don’t cover it. 

So we look at what are the activities and the content that our buyers are consuming the stage before they’d even start to look for us. Now, the other piece of this, and I know we’ll kind of jump into more detail. So, you know me, I always go ahead, so I’ll try not to. But the other piece of this is that the content that we’re putting out needs to lead to our solution, not with our solution. 

When the content is leading with our solution. No matter how much value you believe there is there, the perception is still that it’s a pitch. When we lead to our solution, we’re adding value and insights. And it’s like little breadcrumbs that get them having these aha. Moments that lead them to say, boy, that’s interesting. I want more, I want more, I want more.

Bob Woods

Yeah. So the content should pique curiosity, encourage prospects to think differently about their current situation. Because when they start thinking differently about their current situation, in my mind at least, because it’s happened to me before, my horizons expand and I’m more willing to potentially learn about things, I definitely feel that I move. 

And your goal is to move the people who are consuming the content at this stage, from passive observers to more active participants in the conversation. And that’s a big goal, with top-of-the-funnel and even before top-of-the-funnel types, of content just in general that you want to do.

Brynne Tillman

Yeah, and I’m just going to kind of full circle what you’re talking about, because social selling content, this isn’t for all content, but social selling content needs to do five things. The first one is it needs to resonate with your buyer because people are scrolling in the very first sentence, they need to see their title, they need to see that, or their industry, they need to know it’s for them. 

Number two, it needs to create curiosity. So that whether the curiosity is in the title of the content or it’s in the first line of the content, there has to be a moment where they lean in and say, yeah, I want a little more of that. Then we need to teach them something new. Bob, you’re talking a little bit about what we are teaching them that they didn’t know before? 

And then here’s the key that you said that I think is so important is what they just learned needs to get them thinking differently about the way that they’re doing things today. And that’s how we’re leading to our solution rather than with our solution. And then number five is, it needs to create a compelling moment. We have to move them from lurker to engager. Or, I’m forgetting our new word that Yvonne used today, which was, yeah.

Bob Woods

 I just saw it too.

Brynne Tillman

From spectator to engager.

Bob Woods

Yeah, spectator to engager.

Brynne Tillman

I still like lurker to engager. Guys, for those of you that are alive right now, we’ve got lots and lots of people. We have about 16 people live on LinkedIn right now. Tell me what you like better. Put one in chat if you like lurker to engage her, or two in chat if you like a spectator to engager.

Bob Woods

Oh. We’re doing a live poll as we are live. I love that. I love that a lot. So the second thing that we’re going to talk about is mid-funnel content, which focuses on reinforcing the message through social proof like case stories, addressing common objections with targeted content. 

This stage also involves providing content that gives you not only a competitive edge, but it also helps buyers, or champions within a company to actually promote you within the company without you having to be there by having this content available to other people. 

Because as we all know, there are at least 6.8 people involved in B2B decisions. Nowadays at companies, your content actually needs to be in a form so that people can pass it on, so that other people within the company who are involved in the decision process can also be up to speed with what’s going on.

Brynne Tillman

So I love that. I guess, in that regard, let’s go into what kind of content does that.

Bob Woods

What kind of content?

Brynne Tillman

You know what, I’m in chat, and I missed what you said, honestly.

Bob Woods

Oh, that’s okay. So let’s just go from that. Let’s just talk about end content, and then we’re going to go into the types really quick. So as you’re wrapping up the sale and as you’re looking for future sales, as well as maybe referrals and things like that, hopefully referrals and things like that, the content should facilitate cross selling and addressing additional problems your product or service can solve, because that way.

Especially if you’re in an account executive type of position, getting those, additional sales is always important. And as well as having that person be able to refer you to other people and actually have content there that they can pass along so that the person within, the initial sale that you’ve made can go, “Oh, I know this person at X and Y company.” They may be able to use your products, too, because hopefully, at this point, they are stark raving fans of.

Brynne Tillman

Ok, wait. Let me, I just want to make sure, because, are we talking about middle of the?

Bob Woods

No. we’ve, we’ve now gone to end of the funnel of the is. Brynne is so active in chat right now, and that’s okay.

Brynne Tillman

I comment to middle of the funnel because I have lots to say.

Bob Woods

Oh, okay. Well, I’ll tell you what. Let’s go into the content types of. Because a lot of the content types do hit, middle of the funnel.

Brynne Tillman

In fact, I will follow what you said, and I have to say in the green room, Bob and I are talking. He’s like, we’re going to do it this way. I’m like, I’ll just follow your lead. Apparently, I’m not doing a very good job. So now I mean it. I’m going to follow your lead. You go.

Bob Woods

Yeah. so a really good example of mid-funnel content is, content that offers social proof or case stories. So this isn’t case studies as much, although you can obviously use case studies if you want to do that. This is more about social proof or case stories. So people telling their own stories, either through a case story or social proof, because you use, rather, real life success stories to demonstrate the value of your product or service. 

And that could be, top of funnel stuff, too. But that really resonates, I think, more when, after you’ve already had that initial conversation and you have, hopefully, this library of some really good stories, depending on what your product does, maybe you’ve got, like, a story for one aspect of your product, a story for another aspect of your product. And obviously, everybody does different things, so it’s hard to get specific with that. But, that’s one really good example of mid funnel content.

Brynne Tillman

Okay. And I’m bringing this around from my brain. So the goal of top of the funnel content is to get to the conversation.

Bob Woods

 Yes.

Brynne Tillman

Right? So now the mid funnel is, we’ve had the conversation. We’ve done a little discovery. We know a little bit about their needs and their situation. Now it’s time for a little social proof and those case stories that you’re talking about are phenomenal for social proof, right? You talked to me. You really liked what we had to say. Maybe we’ve even scheduled the next session. So the case studies or the case stories are, boy, not only was that really good advice or really good insights, but they’ve done this with other people like me

So I love that. Mid-funnel content is content that helps buyers solve their problem. The other piece of mid funnel content is content that helps you. And I think you started to say this. I heard it kind of when I should have been listening deeper. you said about having content that helps them to tell the story of how you can solve their problem. Right. So what we know, and there’s a new study on deep sales from, LinkedIn sales solutions that came out and we learned a whole ton of stuff. 

One of the things that we learned that in an enterprise sale, there are seven decision makers or seven influencers inside of that organization. It’s not much higher than the 6.7 that we had, probably for the last decade. So we’re still kind of playing in that seven arena. Now, we’re not all selling into enterprise sales, but let’s say you’re selling a SaaS product. Let’s say it’s a sales SaaS product or a marketing SaaS product. Right. So you’re selling into marketing or sales.

Who are the ultimate users? But you all also need to talk with the IT department. And you probably need to talk to the finance department at one point. With finance, it might be what’s the ROI on this? With it, it might be what are your security and privacy policies and what are your this and that around compliance. Right. So making sure this middle of the funnel content talks to each of those buyers is a big deal. Because if your buyer is the head of a department that has to get buy-in from other departments, our goal with content is to help them sell internally.

Bob Woods

Yep, absolutely.

Brynne Tillman

 I’m glad I’m back on track now, Bob.

Bob Woods

Yeah, we’re back on track. So now let’s start getting into the, so we’ve already done one type. Another type is, and this is top of the funnel content before their needs. So this is aimed at engaging potential buyers before they recognize a need for your product or service. So that type of content is obviously really important. 

That can also be, well, it’s mainly used in your posts and things like that. So you’re going pretty broad. You could be telling a story here or something like that, but this is the type of content that moves them from.

Brynne Tillman

Lurker to engage. Except we got more twos than ones.

Bob Woods

Yeah.

Brynne Tillman

Oh, it is a spectator.

Bob Woods

Yeah, two were spectators. So we have a winner on that one, too.

Brynne Tillman

I don’t think it’s big enough.

Bob Woods

Sample size.

Brynne Tillman

Yeah. All right, we’re kind of out of order, and I take full responsibility on this. So now we’re back at the top of the funnel. So, top of the funnel. The job of top of the funnel is to get the first conversation. So what do we need to get a first conversation? There are a few things. The first thing is awareness that there could be a need. So this often shows up in challenges. Five challenges, five issues, five mistakes. Not five. It could be eleven, it could be three. Right. 

But often that’s the content that will pull someone in that doesn’t know they need you yet. It could be, polls are a great one, right, because you can ask a question and they have three answers and another sharing content, and that can get you beginning in on a conversation that can really have an impact on, moving them, leading them to your solution. Little short videos are great on this. Right? 

So, ebooks, also fabulous. But the topic really needs to be, in my opinion, around, what challenges, because they need to resonate, they need to go, we have that challenge. Remember, you fix a challenge, that’s 90% of what we do in any business is we fix a challenge. And I would even say almost 100%, because even if you are a travel agent, the challenge is, I need a week off in a wonderful place. Right? 

That’s a challenge. So we’re solving as salespeople a challenge. They don’t always know that the answer or the solve to that challenge even exists. Sometimes they’re not even aware of the pains of the challenge they have, because the status quo is really easy to stick with. So that’s the goal. The top of the funnel content truly needs to resonate, I guess, in these things.

Bob Woods

Right?

Brynne Tillman

 Like, I have this challenge. “Boy, this is interesting.” I haven’t thought of things that way. I’d really love to see that in my company. And so, yes, I think having a conversation with them is worth my time.

Bob Woods

 Yep.

Brynne Tillman

So that’s the top of the funnel. So keep going.

Bob Woods

Yeah, we actually nailed a couple of other content types within that conversation. So, content that resonates with the buyer, and content that teaches something new. Now, obviously, that you can develop separate pieces for each of those, or the pieces that you develop can actually hit a couple of these things, or three or four things all at once at the same time.

But again, with that top of funnel or pre-top of funnel, you’re looking to create curiosity, resonate with the buyer, and especially teach them something new, because like I said before, when they’re learning, they are expanding their horizons. So why not just keep on teaching them things that are new so that you’re leading to your solution and not with your solution.

Brynne Tillman

Perfect.

Bob Woods

So we’ve actually done several there. There are two other types that are more middle to end of the funnel. Content that overcomes objections and content that gives a competitive edge. So, overcoming objections, that’s actually pretty easy to develop. You can do that either just through remembering, conversations or recording conversations, with your prospects to hear their objections.

Because as most salespeople know, you generally have like about six to eight common objections that come across. You’ll get outliers every once in a while and everybody’s different, so that’s expected. But, you can either draw from your own, and this is a place where generative AI can really come in too, because you can analyze feedback and objections from those past sales interactions.

And the generative AI can actually help you create the content that preempts and addresses those concerns effectively. So, I mean, with all these, you can use AI, but there are a couple of really good ways to use, Chat GPT, or whatever it is that you use to really get this stuff nailed down. And I think especially when it comes to objections, you can do that very well.

Brynne Tillman

It’s funny that you said that, because we were on a call with a bank that was very interested in working with us, but they have a merger that’s coming up. And as we were talking, I put in, so that there was like, do we wait, what are the benefits? And I put into Chat GPT.

Bob Woods

Only.

Brynne Tillman

Sales objection is that there’s a merger. And literally Chat GPT said, “Gave me amazing advice on the spot in there that I said,”  Well, when is the merger? Here’s the date. Look, we’ll include them in the package. It’s a bonus that you’re bringing to the table. And they went, “Oh, right.” And so that was like in the moment, and so it was interesting. 

Now, could I have come up with that? Maybe, but it literally told me what to say. So, overcoming objections. Now, how do you do this in content? So some of that might be the five reasons people think they don’t need to, right. That could be something. I’m going to kind of give away my shallowness for a moment, but I follow this woman on YouTube who is like an Amazon expert, Right? 

And so she comes in and she makes a commission. She’s an influencer. So she’s in there and she’s recommending things all the time. And I know she’s going to make a commission on it. And most of the time it’s her ten favorite things or the five worst things. Well, the ones that seem to do the best at least. Like if I go on live and she’s got a couple of thousand people listening, are all the negatives the five trends? 

Right, the five trends. Five things you should not buy on Amazon. Now she gives alternatives and she’s making money on the alternatives. Her name is Shay Whitney. If anyone wants to follow her, she’s awesome. Anyway, but those tend to do really well. So my point is for you guys, as you’re doing this, or for us.

The content to overcome objections is literally to say, “Here are the misnomers, five misnomers about.” And before they even object, you’ve given them content to overcome that objection. So I love that. I do want to talk, I’ll let you open it up, but I do want to talk about the content that gives you a competitive edge.

Bob Woods

Yeah. So that’s our final one and that’s what we’re going to now, obviously that highlights your unique features or benefits of your offering that set you apart from competitors. The one thing I would strongly caution you against is actually trashing your competitors. 

I would not do that. Instead, just talk about yourself, and your company and your products or services and again, highlight those unique features or benefits without even mentioning them. Because hopefully if you do it right, the competitors won’t even come up in their minds.

Brynne Tillman

Yeah. So the way that I tend to do this, we had a company, it was a managed service provider that I worked with quite a few years ago. And although you pick a managed service provider based on a lot of different criteria, there are many out there to choose from so often, even though it shouldn’t be, it’s a commodity choice. Right. 

So they were not the cheapest by far. They had some of the best customer service and they’ve been acquired. So obviously they did a very good job. but what we ended up doing was the quintessential checklist when choosing an MSP, when choosing a company. So we planted seeds there. There were three features or services that this particular company had that really none of the other competitors had. 

So we made sure to include that in the checklist and talk about how critical these three things are. So really the story was, whether you decide to work with us or another MSP, these are the ten things you need to ensure that you have with your MSP. Now, there were things they didn’t have that gave other people a competitive edge, but that wasn’t on the checklist, Right. 

The only things on the checklist were what gave them a competitive edge and then some basic things that everyone had. So ultimately, what ended up happening, which was really great, is people would use this checklist even when they were shopping. So if they were talking to him, and they said, all right, we have two more folks to talk to. I have this checklist that you’re welcome to use when you’re talking to him to make sure you’re asking all of the right questions. 

And so they would take his checklist and use that when talking to every other MSP in the area. And ultimately there were three questions that they got a no to for everyone because he knew his competitive landscape and he knew what he offered, and so that gave him the competitive edge. So that’s the story I kind of wanted to tell in this, because it made such a huge impact on his business development efforts and gaining that competitive edge.

Bob Woods

That’s a fantastic story, and I think it’s easily adaptable to any type of business that’s out there, just period. Before we wrap things up, I do want to just share really quick about how you can use generative AI or Chat GPT, whatever, to help you in this. because it can analyze competitive landscapes that we’re all in, but it can identify and emphasize your unique selling points in your content. So you feed all this stuff to it. 

You then ask it to analyze the competitive landscape in whatever industry that you’re in, and it will give you output in whatever form that you want, so that it emphasizes your unique selling points. And basically it does exactly what Brynne just said. You’re just taking it to Chat GPT. Plus every once in a while, like Brynne said earlier with a conversation that she had with Chat GPT, sometimes Chat GPT can actually surface things that you’re not thinking about but that you can actually use, too. 

So, I mean, it’s becoming more and more of a valuable tool in sales and especially when it comes to content, but even just in coming up with strategies and things like that, too. So obviously, we’re an AI shop now, along with everything else that we do. So we talk a lot about AI here. That’s a really good way that you can bring AI into not only the content development, but you could obviously use this just in that type of thing in your general sales as well.

Brynne Tillman

So this is our competitive edge piece of content. If you’re going to work with a LinkedIn training company, make sure you’re learning AI at the same time to optimize that outreach. So then I don’t know if they’re shopping. That gives us a competitive edge.

Bob Woods

It certainly does. It certainly does. We’re going to wrap up that conversation on a very high note, for us at least. But obviously anyone can do this with their own companies as well. Use your own experiences. Use Chat GPT, use them in combination to really punch up your message so that you stand apart and that you really show your competitive edge when it comes to those conversations and even before you’re having the conversations as well. Awesome.

Thanks again for joining us on making sales social live. If you’re listening to our podcast so thanks again for joining us on making sales social live. If you’re with us live here, on LinkedIn as well as YouTube, Facebook or X Slash Twitter right now, we do this every week, so keep an eye out for our live sessions. If you’re listening to us on our podcast and you haven’t subscribed already. 

Go ahead and hit that subscribe or follow button and ring the bell or whatever the heck it is you need to do on your platform so that you’ll be alerted to all of our previous shows and be alerted when new ones drop. We do two shows weekly. We do this one and our making sales social interview series where we talk with leaders and experts in sales, marketing, business and many more areas. So when you are out and about this week, in any week, make sure that you are making your sales.

Brynne Tillman

Social.

Outro  

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