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#S4LSocial Blog

#S4LSocial Twitter Chat- April 2014

S4L Twitter The question we hear most often at Sales for Life is, “How do I get started Social Selling?”

Jamie Shanks offers some great tips in the following video that will serve as the background for our inaugural #S4LSocial Twitter Chat, which begins today (and every Wednesday) at noon ET.

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Blog Social Influencer Series Social Selling

The Social Influencer Series: Steve Richard Brings Balance to The Force

The Social Influencer Series of Steve Richard

In this episode of the Social Influencer Series, Steve Richard of VorsightBP/Vorsight talks about finding a balance between traditional cold calling and modern social selling.

In the intergalactic fight between social sellers & cold callers, Steve Richard brings balance to The Force.
Steve leads the charge at VorsightBP/Vorsight and is one of the pre-eminent voices and leaders in the world of sales today. Vorsight is one of the biggest names in tele-prospecting today, so it may seem a little unorthodox for this social seller to have him on the show, but the two are not so different. Steve assures me of this and validates this point brilliantly.

Steve tells us that the modern-day sales professional is one that finds the harmony between cold calling and social selling. It’s not one or the other. It’s both.

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Blog Social Influencer Series Social Selling

The Social Influencer Series: Nick Foster Discusses the Future of Sales & Marketing

The Social Influencer Series

Nick Foster, the former CMO of Softchoice, shares his insights about the future of sales and marketing, and how social selling fits in.

Welcome to The Social Influencer Series, a new video series we’re starting at Sales for Life, dedicated to learning more about how social media is impacting the world of sales & marketing. When we have the opportunity to learn from business visionaries and thought leaders, we jump at the chance.

Nick Foster is the former Chief Marketing Officer of Softchoice, one of North America’s biggest technology powerhouses. I had the opportunity to ask him about his insights on what the future of sales & marketing could hold. For the sales professionals watching this, there is a lot you’ll learn from Nick’s perspectives.

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Blog Sales Advice Social Selling

Do Phone Calls Have a Place In Social Selling?

Social selling isn’t replacing the telephone, but it is replacing cold calling.

“Baby please forget me not, I want you to remember.”
– Patrice Rushen

For those of you that are too young to remember, those are lyrics from the classic “Forget Me Nots” (seriously, check out the song).

And that’s exactly what people think the phone is saying to sales people today, “don’t forget me”. But, here’s the problem… IT’S NOT! How can it?

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Blog Social Influencer Series Social Selling

The Social Influencer Series: Julio Viskovich

The Social Influencer SeriesAs social selling started to creep up on the sales community, we found out that we were all really late to the party.

While buyers were already researching solutions online, the B2B sales world finally woke up to this reality a while later.

One of the few people that brought this to our attention was Julio Viskovich. I like to refer to him as the Jedi of Social Selling. Not only because I love Star Wars, but also because Julio is one of the Top 10 Social Selling Influencers that I look to for guidance.

I had the chance to sit down with him as he explained his perspectives on social selling, where sales reps are with it, and what his predictions are for the balance of the year.

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Blog Content Marketing Social Selling

Sales and Marketing: The Ultimate Tag Team

Sales And Marketing

 

When your sales and marketing teams works together, fantastic business results can be realized.

Sales professionals are pounding the pavement every day trying to get on the radar of new potential buyers (and future advocates). The marketing team arms the sales team with solution-based information, that is then sent to users by way of glossy brochures, e-mails and forced newsletter sign-ups.

Sounds familiar, right?

But, what if there was some way to know what buyers really care about and how they research? There is, and the signals are all around us.

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Blog Hiring Advice sales training

Power Up Your Millennials With Social, Or Watch The Lights Go Out

MillenialsI’ve been doing a lot of thinking about Millennials lately. Sales leaders and business owners are pissed off about Millennials’ approach to career progression, entitlement and hell, even dress code.

Hey, I get it. They approach work with a style different that you’re accustom to dealing with.

However, trying to convert them to your sales process is going to be like canoeing upstream against Niagara Falls!

In 6 years, the Millennial will make up 50% of the workforce, and 75% in 10 years!

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Blog Content Marketing Sales Metrics

Hockey Stick Growth: 1 Post/Day to 24 Posts/Day

Hockey Stick GrowthThe goal is to have your growth acceleration stop travelling linearly like the shaft of a stick, and travel north like a “J” – FAST! This is hockey stick growth.

Your linear growth has been achieved from your sales and marketing team’s commitment to sharing your blog post 1x a day. It’s been great. You have one use case for social selling.

However, a pat on the back isn’t what you’re interested in. In fact, you’ve grown tired of just having okay results from your sales reps social selling activity.

Categories
Blog Sales Social Selling

Buyers: Catch Me If You Can!

Catch Me If You Can

Every time a new and exciting type of technology is discovered, society adopts it as quickly as possible.

Think about one of the biggest shifts, mobile technology. Can’t your life be defined as pre-smartphone and post-smartphone?

Social media is no different. Whether you’re buying a TV or hundreds of servers, there are ways to research virtually everything online. This is why the modern-day hunt for buyers starts online.

Categories
Blog Content Marketing Sales Metrics

How to Increase Your Inbound Leads and Web Traffic By 200% With Social

Sales Recruitment ProcessUsing content marketing and social media tools, you can increase your inbound leads and website traffic significantly.

This is such a simple equation: (Number of participants x Content Shared) X Original Content Created

We, at Sales for Life, understood most of that equation intimately. However, we didn’t understand the power of a unified content sharing front (as we’re a Ken Krogue at AA-ISP. That’s when my eyes were opened to the power of volume.