In our last article, we explored the pitfalls of using social media to locate decision-makers – the people YOU want to sell to. Using B2B
social networking sites to locate decision-makers is time consuming and too limited in scope to get the real results you need. But there is a better way!
We left you with the following questions in our last post:
- What do “best-practice” sales people do?
- What do optimally-effective sales people do?
So… what DO great sales people do? What are some of their best practices we can follow when determining how and if to use social networking as a lead generation tool?
Sales people sell when they talk to decision-makers – period. That’s how they make more sales. That’s how they make more commissions. Avoiding ALL other activities is advisable to maximize sales. Think of it in terms of a well-known business principal:
The Pareto Principle
This powerful idea, as it relates to sales, reveals that:
- 80% of sales are made doing only 20% of the tasks!
The most effective 20% of tasks a sales person does, no doubt, includes primarily talking to the decision-maker. The other 80% is everything else.
So in order to sell more, sales reps must spend more time on the 20% activity – talking to decision-makers – and less time looking for decision-makers.
Hypothesis:
- The most successful sale people focus on the 20% of tasks that makes them most productive. In other words, they talk with decision-makers more often than less successful sales people.
- Looking for decision-makers (the 80%) is time spent ineffectively.
- Instead of spending x hours per week LOOKING FOR the decision-maker – isn’t it more sensible for a sales person to spend that x hours TALKING TO the decision-maker?
Sales people who are spending valuable time looking for decision-makers on social networking sites are engaged in an activity OTHER THAN SELLING (i.e. not optimal use of time). Note: They wouldn’t have to waste time like this if you gave them a better strategy?
Additionally, most sales people are getting paid a salary, so the $ clock is ticking while they are chumming for leads on a B2B site. Time is money!
So…how can you get your sales people spending more time talking with decision-makers? The good news is that there is a company that specializes in finding corporate training and HR decision-makers.
Mentor Tech Group‘s value proposition:
- Saving time for sales people, so they can spend more time SELLING!
Questions:
Is it wise for your sales team to spend SO much time searching for contacts to call?
- Wouldn’t it make more sense to increase the amount of time your sales people actually spend talking with decision-makers?
- What if your sales reps could spend as much 40% or 50% of their time FOCUSED on speaking with decision-makers? What would your sales pipeline look like then?
Wait – before you answer: Now consider that maintaining a database of decision-makers is a full time, never-ending proposition. Why? People move around – a lot.
A contact list you have today is GARBAGE in just four months. (See below…)
Realities of building a contact list:
During the four-month period from September 2015 – December 2015, Mentor Tech Group’s 38,000+ contact database had a 35% change rate.
- That is, nearly 13,500 of the contacts in our database had their information change in just four months!
- The rate of change for the eight-month period, from May 2015 – December 2015 was 60.3%, and this is not at all unusual
- The 12 month change rate in our database for all of 2016 was a whopping 83.4%!
That means that nearly 85% of the contact records in our database had a change in the past year.
Can your sales people keep up with that change without help?
And do you even want them to try??
Trust me. It’s a full-time job.
Unlike social networking sites that drive quantity, not quality, investing in a quality database of confirmed training or HR decisions-makers will save your company valuable time and resources, especially if your are asking your sales people to do more with less. Let them get back to what they do best – SELLING!
With Mentor Tech Group’s Market Intelligence at their fingertips they can call, email or send a direct mail piece to 100 confirmed decision-makers in less time than what it takes for them to build a quality list of only ten confirmed decision-makers using social networking sites.
Clever companies are going from Point A to Point B in a straight line – speaking directly to thousands of decision-makers – and leaving the maintenance of their ever-changing targeted information to Mentor Tech Group.
Which makes for sense for your business?
- Making your sales people find their own leads?
- Empowering your sales people to sell by investing with a company specializing in finding training and HR decision-makers since 1999?
The choice is yours. To start saving money, please call us today at (651) 457-8600, Ext. 3.
Learn more about MTG’s unique benefits.
To request a quote, or to learn more about how we can help you achieve your sales and marketing goals, please click here.
Until next time…happy hunting!
