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Two-Thirds of B2B Salespeople Considered Average or Poor [Roundup]

Jamie Shanks
Jamie Shanks

salespeople-poor.jpgWelcome to your weekly roundup for July 21-28. This week we’ve got insight into why so ⅔ salespeople are considered average or poor, 13 social selling activities you can do right now to build pipe and the best practises of lead response management. Enjoy. 

Percentage of B2B Buyers Ranking Salespeople as Excellent, Good, Average, or Poor

How do B2B buyers perceive salespeople? Apparently, not well. This is the focus of Steve W. Martin’s latest research. He found nearly two-thirds of B2B salespeople are considered average or poor by buyers. Some other highlights of his research:

– Evaluators part of IT, engineering and accounting are more critical of salespeople than those from lesser scientific departments such as marketing. “This should not be a surprise since they’ve had years of systematic education followed by a business career that was heavily focused on scientific methods and data analysis.”

Courtesy of: Steve W. Martin

– The negativity of the sales person’s rating is directly correlated with the department’s tolerance risk, i.e., IT rated 37% of all salespeople as poor and their risk tolerance average was 5.0; marketing rated 18% of salespeople as poor and their tolerance for risk rating was 7.1.

Courtesy of: Steve W. Martin

– Tolerance risk varies by industry. “Dynamic, creative, trend-oriented industries such as fashion, entertainment and real estate have the highest risk tolerance averages,” points out Martin. Conversely, more conservative and static industries such as government and consulting have the lowest risk tolerance averages.

Courtesy of: Steve W. Martin

Basically, risk mitigation is a top priority for B2B buyers, and sales professionals should do everything they can help facilitate the vendor selection process.

*This is a summary of Percentage of B2B Buyers Ranking Salespeople as Excellent, Good, Average, or Poor by Steve W. Martin.

13 Ultimate Activities of Social Selling You Should Do Regularly

Vice President of Digital Marketing at Miller Heiman Group Yann Ropars writes on how to reap the most benefits of social selling—essentially, by playing the long game. He’s listed 13 common activities the best social sellers do daily.

1. Update your LinkedIn profile monthly.

2. Craft 20 in-mails per month.

3. Share 3 articles per week (owned content or third-party insights)

4. Reply to 12 tweets or Instagram posts from buyers per month.

5. Respond to 12 updates made by your prospects.

6. Engage where your customer is.

7. Add 10 prospects a week on Sales Navigator.

8. Continuously curate private Twitter lists.

9. Say “hello” to 20 prospects each month with industry insights that add value.

10. Like and share content from your networks.

11. Check your SSI score if you use Sales Navigator

12. Check analytics.twitter.com to understand the impact of what you share on Twitter

13. Use bitly.com or other shortening services to measure the engagement on the links you share, especially if you company doesn’t have employee advocacy software.

*This is a summary of 13 Ultimate Activities of Social Selling You Should Do Regularly by Yann Ropars.

The Best Practices of Lead Response Management

How should your sales team respond to marketing leads? Research from InsideSales.com identified three best practices for optimal sales results. The results are based on 3 years of data, 15,000 unique leads and 100,000 call attempts across a variety of digital companies.

– The best day to make contact with leads are Wednesday and Thursday.

– The best time to call a lead is between 4:00 and 5:00 pm. The second best time is between 7:00 and 8:00 am.

– Contact and qualification rates drop dramatically in just minutes and continue to decrease over the next few hours. Thus, the best time to contact a lead is within 5 minutes. (However, sometimes faster is not always better.)

– Most reps give up far too soon. Always make at least 6 call attempts, as this results in up to a 70% increase in contact rates.

*This is a summary of The Best Practices of Lead Response Management by InsideSales.com.

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