This shift has given rise to a more strategic and customer-centric approach: consultative selling. To excel in this new landscape, reps must focus on building authentic relationships and becoming experts in their industry. In this post, we’ll explore the meaning of consultative selling, the differences between the two approaches, and five key strategies to help hone your skills.

A tale of two techniques: Consultative selling vs. transactional selling

Imagine being a buyer 15 years ago. A seller would pitch a product, show little interest in your needs, and push the buyer to close the deal. Now, fast-forward to today. Buyers want sellers to actively listen to their goals, understand their pain points, and offer tailored solutions. This directly conflicts with the behaviors of sellers past, leading to the rise of consultative selling. 

By prioritizing the buyer’s preferences, consultative selling encourages the development of long-term connections and trusted partnerships. There are several advantages of consultative selling,  including closing more deals and encouraging an ongoing partnership over time. When sellers make deep connections with customers, buyers seek out their trusted partners again and again when a business need arises.  

5 tips to improve consultative selling

Consultative selling isn’t necessarily a skill set that’s in every seller’s repertoire, especially if the seller comes from a more traditional sales background. The good news is that most reps can successfully adapt to this approach if they embrace a learning mindset. Let’s look at five strategies to use: 

1. Always be empathetic: Empathy begins with putting yourself in the buyer’s shoes, understanding what keeps them up at night and what they dream of accomplishing. Only with true empathy can relationships move beyond transactional interactions. Start by acknowledging the prospect’s feelings, such as frustration with their existing solution or fear about hitting goals at work. Imagine how it must seem from their vantage point, and show genuine interest in their story or experience — the secret sauce to any strong relationship.
   
2. Listen first, ask more questions second: The consultative selling process starts when you have an opportunity to engage with a potential buyer. At this moment, active listening is critical, allowing you to understand their needs and make them feel valued and heard. Then, ask insightful, open-ended questions that encourage buyers to elaborate and share more context. This information can help you later as you anticipate and overcome objections. Prepare for discovery conversations by brainstorming a list of consultative selling questions to ask (If you need help getting started, Hubspot shares 28 question ideas in this resource.).
   
3. Know your products and services: In the world of consultative selling, mastery of your products and services is table stakes. Beyond this, be sure to cultivate expertise in the industry overall so you can speak to the prospect’s pain points in the larger context. Confidently suggesting tailored solutions that solve their challenges allows them to see you as a dependable partner and, ultimately, help you close the deal.  

4. Guide your buyer to a solution, not a product: Steering your buyer toward a solution rather than promoting a product is core to the strategy of consultative selling. Through active listening, you’ve understood the buyer’s challenges — now, your goal is to empower them with the tools and insights to achieve their goals. 

5. Practice, practice, practice: Honing your consultative selling skills is an ongoing process that requires dedication, patience, and a willingness to learn. Practice active listening, asking questions, and guiding buyers to solutions. By using a tool like Seismic’s Learning and Coaching technology, sales teams can easily provide consultative selling training that also gives reps a safe space to practice their skills and get feedback to strengthen their expertise. 

How sales enablement can help

Sales enablement software is an excellent way to boost sellers’ confidence and preparedness. 79% of respondents in Seismic’s Value of Enablement Report said enablement technology provides quick access to content, information, and coaching — all of which allows reps to prepare to engage with buyers from an informed standpoint. What’s more, 76% indicated that having rapid access to coaching and training content prevents them from second-guessing themselves. 

By harnessing the power of sales enablement technology, sellers can bolster their confidence, serve as trusted guides, and pave the way for more productive and successful client relationships. If you’d like to learn more, connect with us to schedule a demo today. 

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Gaining and maintaining client trust has always been an important task for financial advisors. But given today’s changing client preferences, coupled with the challenging market conditions, banks need to embrace new ways to deepen client engagement, improve retention, and attract the next generation of clients. And, in order to improve banking client engagement, it’s important for them to demonstrate a level of trust and expertise that meets and exceeds expectations. So, how can advisors do that?

In this post, we’ll take a look at three ways to rethink your relationship banking strategy in order to improve client engagement. 

Clients want personalized advice they can trust

Clients have access to more information and resources at their fingertips. In fact, more than half of clients read financial content and frequently conduct their own research. However, during challenging times, clients often look directly to their advisors to provide guidance and support. And when they reach out, they expect advisors to anticipate their needs and provide a highly-personalized and impactful experience. 

In order to better educate clients through the decision-making process, financial advisors need to leverage content across a broad range of financial topics. Remember, clients can be overwhelmed with content, so be sure to provide relevant information that addresses their unique financial needs and challenges. Instead of pushing products and services, deliver educational content that’s insightful and easy to understand. This will build a more authentic relationship that’s made of trust and one that clients will want to keep engaging with. 

Meet clients where they are

Delivering personalized content to clients doesn’t matter if advisors aren’t providing it to them when and where they need it. And while clients seek guidance and support from advisors in various ways, social media has quickly emerged as a preferred channel for many clients. 

Social media is bustling with both current and potential clients who are ready to have conversations. Social media provides advisors with an opportunity to share content that captures their client’s attention and spark further conversations. In doing so, advisors will be able to identify where a client is at in their financial journey and provide additional information. By doing so, advisors are better able to improve engagement and build long-term relationships based on their expertise. 

If you’re wondering where and how to get started — consider this: A 2020 study shows that LinkedIn was the most widely used social media platform used by advisors, followed by Facebook and Twitter. Additionally, 94% of successful advisors use direct messaging on social platforms during their interactions with clients. So while there are a number of different social media sites and strategies you can take, it’s important to consider your expertise, brand, and client demographics in order to maximize your social media engagement efforts. 

Leverage technology and data 

Delivering content to clients is great, but you need to understand how and when clients interact with that content. What content did they view the most? Are there certain items that they didn’t interact with at all? By tapping into this data, you can identify what types of content clients want more of and what areas of your strategy may need to be revised. As you gather more data and review analytics, it will be easier to create and deliver more useful content and accelerate the buying process. 

To do this, financial services companies need to embrace new technology that helps advisors deliver exceptional experiences during every interaction. By investing in modern enablement tools that feature content management, customization, and social selling capabilities, firms can equip advisors with everything they need to address their clients’ needs and grow relationships over time. 

How we can help

The new world of client engagement in financial services requires new tools. The Seismic Enablement Cloud  is trusted by thirteen of the largest U.S. banks and 300+ financial services organizations to deliver better engagement and experiences to banks, investment bankers, and their clients. Our platform includes tools like social selling and content automation to help bankers meet clients through email, social channels, and virtual rooms with personalized and interactive experiences.

If you’d like to learn more about client engagement in the digital-first era, check out our ebook, Rewriting the Rules of Engagement for the Modern Financial Services Client.

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In today’s ever-evolving and challenging sales landscape, sellers know that being a trusted advisor is key to closing deals faster and creating more opportunities for upselling. But that’s not enough anymore. As the buyer experience is constantly changing, selling requires more than personalized interactions and being a trusted advisor. It’s also about meeting buyers where they are.

Let’s talk about social channels. These channels are no longer just a place to share memes or photos but can be leveraged for business as well. In fact, an IDC report found that 75% of B2B buyers are influenced by social media during the buyer’s journey. 

In this post, we’ll share best practices on how you can build a social selling strategy and level up your LinkedIn profile.

What is social selling? 

Social selling is the purposeful practice of leveraging social media activity and engagement as a central part of the sales process. Instead of focusing on business transactions, social selling embraces two-way communication to build and nurture relationships that may eventually turn into business opportunities. It’s also important to note that to be successful, sellers should always start by setting the right expectations during interactions. 

So what does success look like for social selling? It’s about building authentic relationships and enabling trust at scale, and less about selling. Social media gives sellers a platform to enhance existing relationships and authentically build new ones  When this is done correctly, it can result in sales.

How to get started building a social selling program

If you’re wondering how you can kick off your own social selling program at your company, here’s a roadmap to help you get started:

• First, identify the roles you’ll support and assess how they use social media today. We recommend starting with business development teams as they stand to benefit most from a strong presence on social media. 
• Determine how you will facilitate and enable sellers on your social selling program. The scalability of the program, while adapting to the needs of a role, is critical to long-term success. 
• Identify success factors, and decide what success looks like for your organization. Then, communicate this clearly to your leadership and teams. 
• Assess the current state of your program. For example, what content exists versus what needs to be built? Do you have a platform? What’s the adoption? Assessing the current state will allow you to have a more holistic view of what it will take to get your program off the ground.

How Seismic Can Help

We’ve made it easy! If you’re ready to get started, we’ve provided an objections checklist to help as you begin your social selling program. This checklist identifies the roles you’re supporting, uncovers the most common objections from those roles, and offers counterpoints to their concerns. 

Additionally, here’s a handout to create your own personal brand and start social selling. This handout provides guidance on how you can get started on updating your LinkedIn profile. This guide is meant to serve as a reference for how you can customize and make it stand out.

If you’d like to learn more, watch the recording of our webinar: The Power of Social Selling: Enable go-to-market teams to increase their social media influence as experts in their field. We look forward to seeing you there!

The post How to incorporate social selling into your sales process appeared first on Seismic.

If you’re unfamiliar with social selling, examples include your sellers using their personal social media accounts to establish meaningful relationships with buyers. Organizations that use social selling correctly can build credibility, increase leads, and convert buyers into customers to ultimately improve the bottom line. Let’s take a close look at these benefits of social selling for you, your sellers, and your company.

1. Build your personal brand

A social selling strategy is not the same as regurgitating your company’s content on a rep’s personal social media accounts. Instead, sellers intentionally use social media to engage in conversations and share relevant and useful content with buyers. This is a chance for sellers to establish themselves as experts and connect with prospects on an individual level. 

Any social media site can be used for social selling, and LinkedIn and Twitter are natural channels to establish professional relationships. Regardless of the channel you choose, your personal brand can flourish in any setting as long as you communicate the way your audience prefers.

2. Establish trust with buyers

Customers buy from sales reps and organizations they trust. Buyers are more inclined to trust a solution when sellers offer guidance that relates to their specific use case. It’s important to remember that buyers trust sellers who they know and relate to both personally and professionally. 

Social selling for B2B organizations is no different. Using direct messages and comments to demonstrate your authenticity and understanding can make you seem more open and authoritative online and offline. While sharing relevant industry content is extremely important, talking about personal topics and interests can also make prospects feel more comfortable.

3. Add value to relevant communities

Chances are, your area of expertise already has a vibrant online community full of interesting conversations. An excellent social selling example can include listening to what is already being discussed and interacting when the opportunity arises. Commenting on posts that spark your interest or reposting ideas that resonate with you can be a great way to naturally contribute and add value to the conversation. 

4. Listen to understand what your customers need

In many ways, your company’s buyers look like the average individual consumer.  However, that doesn’t mean every buyer is the same. After all, every buyer has their own unique challenges, goals, and even communication preferences. They’ve also likely taken their own time to research your company before reaching out to your company. 

76% of B2B buyers expect companies to understand their unique needs once they do reach out, so it’s important to deliver an experience that meets them where they are in the buying process. A social selling platform is a great place to contribute ideas and listen to buyers’ concerns and feedback. Actively listening to your buyers’ needs and addressing issues as they arise can add to your trustworthiness as a professional and as a seller.

5. Identify the right prospects faster

The positive effects of social selling do not strictly flow from sellers to buyers. As you create more connections and deepen your thought leadership and expertise in your industry, you’ll be able to cast your net wider to learn more about prospects. 

Perhaps, you will be guided to lucrative ventures you would not have otherwise heard about. You also may be able to identify new leads from the organic conversations you start online. It could also be a great way to learn about new organizations or networking groups to build lasting relationships.

How Seismic can help

Personability and relatability are critical to building new relationships and deepening existing ones. That’s where Seismic comes in. Our comprehensive sales enablement platform includes buyer engagement, training, and social selling tools that can help sellers embrace and succeed in the virtual sales world. Get a demo and see how Seismic makes it easy to leverage the power of social media.

The post 5 ways social selling can boost your company’s revenue appeared first on Seismic.

Seismic Enablement Cloud

When we launched the Enablement Cloud, we understood that digital-first and hybrid sales were here to stay. And the numbers bear it out – McKinsey recently conducted a survey of 2,500 sales organizations which found that 90% of buyers are willing to spend more than $50,000 in a single remote or digital self-service model. 

Fewer and fewer buyers are opting for in-person meetings. Sellers who can engage and build relationships with buyers in digital channels will be best positioned to win new business. 

In order to effectively connect with this new generation of digital-first and hybrid buyers, organizations need technology that enables their sellers to engage buyers in an omnichannel landscape. The latest innovation and updates within the Seismic Enablement Cloud empower organizations to do just that.

Read on to learn more about the latest features and capabilities!

What’s new and available today

As part of our Spring 2022 Release, there are several new features that are available today. These product enhancements provide sellers with new and updated capabilities that empower them to tailor their buyer engagement, data and analytics, and skills development. 

Buyer Engagement

Email Blast enhancements

Email Blast empowers sellers to engage their buyers at scale. Our new Simple Email Editor helps sellers quickly build and personalize emails and provides marketers with more flexibility in the template formatting options. Now, sellers also have the ability to add inline images and gifs to every email, so they can stand out from the crowd and drive higher engagement.

LiveSocial integration

Sellers need to use a variety of channels to engage buyers – social media is one of the most important. Updates to Seismic LiveSocial enable users to share content to Social, SMS, and other digital channels from a single location. Integrated reporting provides a holistic view of buyer engagement across channels, so you can make smarter, data-driven decisions and uncover more opportunities to engage.

Learning & Coaching

Automated coaching

Automated coaching supports managers by providing a real-time evaluation of practice sessions to sellers. This capability helps build high-performing teams through practice sessions that provide real-time feedback on filler word usage, keyword accuracy, speaking pace, and more.

Enhanced data & analytics

The new training overview dashboard provides managers and enablement leaders with actionable insights on their teams’ training performance such as overdue lessons, average scores, grading statistics, and responses to assessments. The dashboard allows them to quickly identify opportunities for further coaching and development and surfaces high performers.

Learning data via Snowflake 

Combine data sources to gain deeper insights and a holistic view of your business. Enhancements to Seismic’s Snowflake integration help teams achieve greater flexibility in aligning learning data to unique business goals with a direct import from Snowflake Data Marketplace into a dashboard of your choice.​

Sales Content Management

Content notifications

Sellers have to keep track of a LOT of information, so we’re making it easier for them to see when their favorite content is changed or when new content is added – at their preferred frequency and channel. They can select how frequently they wish to receive updates and where they’d like to receive notifications – on Slack, Teams, or within Seismic. Never miss an update to your pricing sheet or go-to one-pager again!

What’s next?

We’re excited to keep elevating the user experience for the Seismic Enablement Cloud. We believe that these product enhancements will continue to empower our customers to win and grow.

If you’re interested in learning more about any of the capabilities that we announced today, please reach out to your account manager or get a demo.

The post Spring 2022 Release: Enhancements to the Seismic Enablement Cloud™ appeared first on Seismic.

In order to win more deals and build stronger relationships in a digital-first world, investment bankers need the right tools and technology to adapt and succeed. In this post, I’ll share how sales enablement helps investment bankers deliver better client experiences and faster deal cycles – and hopefully take back their personal time on nights and weekends. 

What is sales enablement?

As I mentioned before, clients are looking for personalized relationships. In order to meet client expectations, investment bankers need to understand their unique needs and be able to engage them with the right content at the right time, on the right channel. 

Sales enablement empowers your bankers to personalize client engagement at scale. It’s defined as the strategic use of resources, processes, and technology that investment bankers need to engage clients at every stage of the deal cycle and close deals faster. 

Why do investment bankers need sales enablement?

As clients have adopted digital interactions in higher numbers, investment banks have lagged behind in digital transformation. Today, two out of three clients prefer digital interactions, and the number of clients that investment bankers need to engage is only growing. Each deal will be different but there is no doubt that client engagement is becoming more complex. Investment Bankers need the right tools to scale their approach to engagement while maintaining the other critical functions of their teams If you recall, the goal of this post is to help investment bankers save time while delivering better client experiences. 

In order to save time and earn clients’ trust, investment bankers need to practice smart enablement. Smart enablement empowers investment bankers to increase sales effectiveness and gain client trust while saving time and effort by 

• Enabling bankers with digital tools and content management to demonstrate expertise, earn trust, and win business. 
• Engaging clients at the right time and place to maintain trust
• Continuously improving efforts based on real performance data. 

Sales enablement software helps bankers do all of the above, at scale. Content management, content automation, client engagement, and training and coaching tools ensure that investment bankers know how and when to engage their clients. 

How to achieve faster deal cycles 

Digitalization gives investment bankers the tools to become more agile and build operational efficiencies. Enablement software empowers investment bankers to achieve faster deal cycles by streamlining the preparation and processes that make client engagement happen. 

Before investment bankers ever engage with a client, they first need to develop the knowledge and skills required to earn trust and build relationships. Learning and coaching tools help onboard bankers faster, while also ensuring that experienced bankers are always up to date with the latest training to help navigate complex client conversations. 

The content your bankers share with their clients is a tool for strengthening their relationships. To create meaningful, personalized content experiences for clients, your bankers first need to be able to discover and personalize it at scale. Content management tools help investment banks build, maintain, and control content in a way that makes it easy to organize, find, and share.

Client engagement is more important than ever in remote and digital environments. And since your clients engage across a variety of channels including email, social media, and text, your bankers need to use these channels to build trust with their clients. 

A sales enablement platform that provides each of these capabilities in one unified platform empowers bankers to do more without juggling multiple tools. The ability to access, personalize, and share content within a single platform empowers bankers to become more agile and productive. 

FAQs about enablement in investment banking

How does sales enablement empower investment bankers to personalize client engagement at scale?

Sales enablement provides investment bankers with the resources, processes, and technology they need to provide personalized client engagement at scale. It involves understanding unique client needs and delivering the right content through the right channels at the right time. 

Why is there an increasing need for investment bankers to adopt sales enablement in the digital age? 

Investment bankers need sales enablement because clients rely more heavily on digital channels. As clients engage through various channels, investment banks must scale their approach to maintain effective client engagement, and sales enablement provides the necessary tools to achieve this while saving time and effort. 

How does the Seismic’s Enablement Cloud contribute to faster deal cycles for investment bankers?

The Seismic’s Enablement Cloud contributes to faster deal cycles by streamlining preparation processes, allowing bankers to engage clients at the right time and place. It provides digital tools, content management, and client engagement capabilities, all within a unified platform, empowering bankers to be more agile and productive in their interactions. More than 400 financial institutions rely on Seismic to ready their bankers to engage their clients at the right place, at the right time, and with the right content. If you’d like to learn more about how your organization can grow and scale with the Seismic Enablement Cloud, get a demo. 

The post How to drive investment banking deals with sales enablement appeared first on Seismic.

The reality is, virtual selling isn’t an entirely new concept. Buyers were already using online research to explore companies, products, and competitors before they ever spoke to a sales rep. McKinsey also found in its study that the number of channels where buyers engage has increased from 7.5 in 2019 to 10 by late 2021. In this omnichannel ecosystem, it’s challenging for buyers to access deal-related content in a single location. Spaces like digital sales rooms allow sales reps to differentiate themselves from competitors and simplify virtual sales cycles for buyers.

What is a digital sales room?

A digital sales room is a microsite where buyers and sellers can collaborate and access content that’s relevant to the deal cycle. It’s a secure environment where sellers can create differentiated stories and personalized interactions that support buyers throughout their decision-making process. This method of digital-first selling allows sales reps to share deal-related content in a single, easily accessible location that buyers can return to throughout the sales cycle. 

How buyer behavior is reshaping the future of sales

Buyers and sellers have adapted to digital-first sales motions, and it’s clear that remote sales journeys are here to stay. Buying teams are not only making remote purchases – they’re also researching products digitally. Did you know that before a buyer first interacts with a salesperson, in most cases, they’ve already had 27 information-gathering interactions? Highly informed buyers make trust and relationships more important than ever before.

“Those businesses that can retain the ‘human touch,’ creating that all important emotional connection across all channels, whether digital or physical conversations, will likely outperform those that don’t.”

David Bell, Xero Executive General Manager

With this in mind, we believe that several factors will play a role in the future of sales:

• Trust will remain critical for winning deals. The need for trust established through relationships won’t change, and the sales teams that harness the power of data to add more value to relationships through data-driven marketing will also benefit.
  
• Each part of the sales process will become more specialized. To prepare, consider how you might train reps or teams within your organization for specific skills related to your buyer’s journey.
  
• Sales reps will focus more on the buyer’s experience to shorten sales cycles. According to the 2021 Buyer Experience Study, 80% of SaaS buyers report the buying process is too cumbersome – too many steps, too complicated, and too much paperwork. In the future, sales reps will need to exercise empathy towards the buyer’s journey and do what they can to alleviate those challenges.
  
• Meaningful interactions and relationship-building will be vital for long-term success. We firmly believe that the long-term trend is going to be about meaningful interaction, communication, relationship building, and problem-solving. Consumers expect even better buyer experiences than they did a few years ago. Social media, blogs, and other content marketing channels have made it easy for buyers to educate themselves, so sales reps will need to serve as trusted advisors who help buyers navigate the sales cycle. 

Sellers can make the most of their interactions with buyers early in the sales process by creating personalized, differentiated experiences for buyers. To remain top-of-mind with buyers, sellers need to create unique experiences that reach buyers with the right story on the right channel. A digital sales room is the space where sellers can do all of this and more.

How to use digital sales rooms

Have you ever opened an email with numerous attachments and hyperlinks, only to have that same person send a few more emails with related (but different) attachments and information? Sure, it’s all helpful information, but it’s also a challenge to keep track of everything. A digital sales room serves as one, central location  for all of the resources and information a potential customer needs to get a clear picture of what you are offering and how you can fulfill their needs. And this room is best utilized when those email attachments and hyperlinks are consolidated. Digital sales rooms allow sales reps to enable buyers by organizing all deal-related information in a single location. This has the ability to quickly add value to the buying journey by simplifying the content experience for prospects. Talk about a win-win!

The new frontier of selling is here – are you ready?

Provide your buyers with meaningful digital experiences that drive sales cycles forward. Seismic provides a centralized location for sellers and buyers to engage and collaborate on deal-relevant collateral throughout the entire sales cycle. We empower sellers to engage buyers on their terms in this digital-first world and offer tools for sellers to engage buyers using highly intelligent insights-driven tools that connect buyers with the right resources on the right channel. Let’s get started helping you deliver engaging digital experiences!

The post Why digital sales rooms and virtual sales are the future of sales appeared first on Seismic.

How has the sales cycle evolved?

The transition to digital-first selling has changed the dynamics of the modern sales cycle. In the past, sales reps relied on cold calls and emails to get in touch with prospects during the early stages of the sales cycle… Then, they built relationships with their buyers in-person. It wasn’t uncommon to meet a prospect for coffee or at the office to continue the conversation and buying process.That’s how trust was built. 

Now, the digital sales cycle is more targeted and insights-driven. Sales reps have fewer opportunities to engage and build relationships with their prospects because they have access to so much information online. This means that sellers need to rely more heavily on LinkedIn for outreach and to build relationships with buyers. Sales intelligence tools allow reps to learn more about prospects, what they’re interested in, and whether they’re ready to buy. This “homework,” or information gathering, allows reps to make the most of their first impressions with prospects.

A hybrid approach can also help and, when necessary, in-person engagement can be a difference maker. For everything in between, digital sales rooms help reps stay in touch with their prospects and share valuable content and resources throughout the sales cycle.

Different phases of the modern sales cycle

Prospecting

The goal here is to start a conversation with the buyer, understand their organization’s pain points, and assess whether your product or service is a right fit. A “lead” is an individual who has shown interest in your products or services by taking an action such as visiting your website, subscribing to your blog, downloading an eBook, or requesting a demo. The prospect is a qualified potential customer who matches your buyer persona. Qualified leads become prospects. 

Two of the top ways to prospect include:

1. LinkedIn: Sales reps increasingly use LinkedIn for prospecting. Native tools such as LinkedIn Sales Navigator allow sellers to find the right prospects and build relationships at scale. Sellers who actively post and participate in LinkedIn communities can also build their personal brands and establish themselves as thought leaders. As a result, they can begin to establish trust and credibility among leads. 

“I try to spend an hour a day on LinkedIn. It keeps me in the know to see what’s going on with my buyers and their network. It lets me know what’s going on in technology—see what my buyers are posting and who’s active.”

Sales Manager, Seismic

2. Additional research: Sales reps can use data and tools to see who is in the market to buy and then prioritize them. By understanding a buyer’s needs based on LinkedIn interactions or discovery calls, sales reps can begin to personalize content to the buyer’s specific use case. Before a call with a prospect, sales reps should:
   

• Take a few minutes to take a look at the company’s website
• Research their organization and industry to better understand priorities and potential pain points
• Identify what sales and marketing content they’ve interacted with and use it to shape the conversation.

Outreach and buyer engagement

With this evolution in the sales cycle, buyers now have the option to engage digitally and in- person. You’re likely already familiar with the options, but here are some of our favorite methods:

1. Online meetings: Online meetings allow reps to get valuable face-to-face time with customers and prospects without the added travel or time. Calls through Zoom or Microsoft Teams have become foundational to the digital sales cycle for a few reasons. For starters, they’re convenient but, more importantly, when a prospect sees your face, they are more likely to empathize with you and listen to you. Additionally, when you see their face, you can gauge their reactions and interests. This is particularly helpful to foster meaningful and authentic relationships rather than just being a voice or an email.
   
2. In-person relationship building: Few things compare to the experience of meeting face-to-face and in person. Just as grabbing a coffee with a colleague is more personal than chatting briefly at the start of a Zoom call, the same goes for in-person client engagement. To build relationships with customers, sometimes you need more of a human touch to complement digital interactions.

When buyers consider your solution

After the early stages of buyer engagement, buying teams will begin to evaluate and consider different vendors and solutions. This step is crucial as a modern-day sale includes more stakeholders in the decision making process. It can be streamlined with:

1. Buyer engagement tools: Once the connection has been made between a sales team and the appropriate stakeholders, the goal is to take a final look at truly qualifying their needs, and to make sure there’s a mutual fit for the prospect to become a happy customer. Buyer engagement tools help sellers speed up this process and deliver perfectly-timed content for each and every stakeholder.

2. Digital sales rooms: With fewer in-person meetings, sales reps increasingly depend on digital sales rooms for day-to-day buyer engagement. Buyer engagement used to mean attaching a pitch deck or PDF to an email, but it’s difficult to effectively engage buyers when they’re searching their inbox or other channels to find content. Digital sales rooms allow buyers to have a user-friendly experience that they can return to throughout the sales cycle.

Decision-making

The decision process is not a one-and-done event. It’s an ongoing process that moves the interest from several different decision makers into action. It’s the intersection between your customer’s buying process and your internal sales process. As you qualify and work through your deals, there are two key parts of the decision-making process that are necessary to understand:

1. The validation process: the buyer’s way of verifying that your solution will solve their highest priority requirements. That it will work as promised.
2. The approval process: the sequence of events required to get contract signatures once the validation has taken place.
    

Buyers will take specific steps to evaluate and select a partner. It’s helpful to get familiar with these steps and how each decision maker in an opportunity plays a role in them. 

Deliver captivating, engaging digital experiences with Seismic

Sellers should build relationships with customers with relevant and personalized content experiences throughout the modern sales cycle. With Seismic, you can capitalize on these trends and use sales acceleration to boost your sales team’s digital readiness with targeted sales content, training, and coaching. Seismic is the industry-leading sales enablement provider, and our software aligns and empowers go-to-market teams to deliver engaging buyer experiences that drive growth. Get a demo and see how we can help your organization succeed in the digital-first era.

The post The anatomy of the modern sales cycle appeared first on Seismic.

Before we get started, let’s take a look at the current state of play. There are countless studies that demonstrate the potential to increase sales through social selling. In a recent study, HubSpot found that 51% of marketers who leverage social media plan to increase their investment this year. Hubspot also notes that more than 65% of sales reps rely on LinkedIn social selling as a way to fill their pipeline and conversion funnel.

In most instances, your customers and competitors are engaging on social media for business. And if they aren’t yet, chances are they will be soon. In this post, we’ll help your organization understand the benefits of social selling, as well as how you can engage buyers on social media channels like LinkedIn. 

What is social selling?

Social selling is the practice of leveraging social media engagement as an integral part of the sales process. Social engagement recognizes two-way communication on social media channels as a way for sellers to build and nurture relationships that may eventually turn into business opportunities. Social selling improves upon outbound techniques like cold-calling because it’s easier for your sales reps to build relationships when they can build credibility through their network and the content they share.

What are the benefits of social selling?

You’ve heard it before, but it still holds true: Social selling can help you grow your business. Social selling generates higher quality leads, increases your sales pipeline, and boosts win rates and deal size. As your organization looks to begin or improve on its social selling journey, these are four ways social selling can help your organization drive more sales:

1. Build trust at scale

Trust is an essential part of the buyer and seller relationship because buyers are looking for a long time partnership with a vendor. In order to establish trust, sales reps need to listen and provide value to buyers throughout their purchasing journey. Sales reps who use social media to contribute to conversations, answer questions, and add value can build trust at scale. By engaging in high visibility online discussions, sales reps can elevate themselves and their company as trustworthy sources.  

2.  Trim down the sales cycle

It takes time to close a sale and lengthy sales cycles are par for the course. Longer sales cycles require more effort and can take more time for sellers to hit their numbers. But before sales reps ever meet a prospect, those buyers are already doing their research, particularly on social media. When sales reps engage and support buyers during the early stages of their research process, they can establish themselves as trusted advisors. These early-stage interactions can ensure that your sales reps are there for buyers at key times throughout the consideration process and ultimately close deals faster and more efficiently. 

3. Reach more interested buyers

Social selling is advantageous because it allows sales reps to interact with interested buyers. When buyers ask questions about sales enablement software in an Enablement Professionals LinkedIn community, they’ve already demonstrated interest. By participating in these channels and interacting with leads, sales reps can engage prospects sooner and fast-track their path to MQL. In effect, social media connects sellers with the buyers who want to hear from them, making it easier to build relationships with interested buyers. 

4. Outsell your competition

If your competition isn’t already active on social media, they will be in the near future. The world is increasingly turning to digital and social media channels to market and sell to buyers. Once you’ve built within your network, you can continue to broaden your reach and connect with new prospects. By establishing your personal brand and credibility on social media, you’re already one step ahead of your competition. And if you’re not yet active on social media, the old saying holds true: the best time to start was yesterday. The next best time is now. 

Social selling is a powerful tool for sellers

Modern buyers are looking for an immersive experience and increasingly turn to social media to research business solutions. When used correctly, LinkedIn and other types of social media sales can help businesses reach their sales targets. In fact, by implementing LinkedIn social selling as a part of your social media strategy, you can increase your win rate by 5% and deal size by nearly 35%. 

If your organization is ready to take its social selling program to the next level, Seismic LiveSocial makes it easy to activate sellers on social media and build trust at scale. Learn more here and let us help you get started!

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While buyers are spending more time researching solutions, they’re spending less time with sales reps. On average, buyers have 27 information-gathering sessions before they speak with a salesperson. And once they begin to consider solutions, buyers only spend 17% of their time meeting with potential suppliers. 

In order to connect with buyers and help them navigate the buying journey, sales reps have to make the most of every interaction and follow through with personalized content that helps buyers as they consider solutions. Digital sales rooms give buyers and sellers a dedicated environment where they can share information throughout the buyer journey. 

In this post, we’ll detail how your sales organization can leverage digital sales rooms to enable buyers to make a well-informed purchase decision. 

Consolidating scattered content experiences

According to Gartner, there are five “B2B buying jobs” that purchasing teams must address as they navigate the buying process: 

• Problem identification: We need to do something.
• Solution exploration: What’s out there to solve our problem?
• Requirements Building: What exactly do we need to purchase to do this?
• Supplier selection: Does this do what we want it to?
• Validation: We think we know the right answer, but we need to be sure. 
• Consensus creation: We need to get everyone on board. 

Buyers will manage jobs 1-3 as they identify their problem and begin to research potential solutions. This means that sales reps and digital sales rooms can play the largest role in steps 4-6. In reality, this could mean that a journey that begins on Google search may then shift to LinkedIn, before navigating to a supplier’s website and signing up for an email. 

See how quickly the content experience can become scattered? Buyers consume several pieces of content while researching and often “loop back” to it as they work through B2B sales cycles. Sales reps can quickly add value to the buying journey by simplifying the content experience for their prospects. 

Digital sales rooms allow sales reps to enable buyers by surfacing all deal-related information in a single location. For instance, if a buyer needs more information about product xyz or wants to know how ACME Software uses your product, you can share a solution brief or case study directly to the digital sales room environment. This simplifies the supplier selection and validation jobs by giving the buyer access to the information they need to consider, all in a single, easy-to-find location. 

Ongoing communication between meetings 

In the best-case scenario, meetings are an opportunity for buyers to discuss their challenges and sales teams listen. By listening, sales reps can begin to identify the ways in which their product or service can help resolve the buyer’s challenges. 

The first conversation your sales team has with a prospect should inform their follow-up communications, as well as future conversations. For example, if a buying team’s salesforce spends too much time customizing pitch decks, the seller could share a personalized presentation that details their solution for customized content, alongside a case study from a customer with a similar use case. By sharing these assets in a sales engagement platform, the buying team can loop back to these documents throughout their buying journey. 

Collaboration and communications tools within digital sales room software also enable buyers and sellers to discuss the content that has been shared. So if a member of the buying team has questions after they read a piece of content, they can ask it in the sales room or discuss it in a subsequent meeting. 

Digital sales rooms also give sales reps an advantage when it comes to helping buyers resolve the sixth B2B buying job: consensus creation. 

Building consensus among stakeholders

The buying journey has become more complex because there are a lot more cooks in the kitchen. On average, there are 11 people influencing the purchasing decision and each stakeholder has their own interests to consider with respect to a given solution.

When you think about it, it’s nearly impossible to get 11 people on the same page–it’s even more challenging when content is scattered across multiple channels. Gartner also notes that, of the ten or more stakeholders, each individual has amassed four-to-five pieces of content to support them throughout the buying process. If not everyone has access to the same information, it becomes difficult to build consensus. 

Sales organizations that engage their buyers in digital sales rooms stand out from their competitors because they simplify consensus-building. By creating a single environment for deal-related content, buying teams can have access to the same information whenever they need it. 

Digital sales rooms also provide communications features that facilitate collaboration between sales and buying teams. For example, Seismic’s digital sales rooms include chat capabilities which can be used for back-and-forth communication, as well as tagging to alert members that new content has been added or may be relevant to a specific stakeholder. 

Closing thoughts

The modern B2B buyer is more informed than ever before. Sales reps who listen to their buyers and serve as trusted advisors have a distinct advantage. Rather than selling a product, it’s important to help buyers identify the best solution for the challenge they’re trying to resolve. 

Digital sales rooms are a tool that sellers can use as they guide their prospects through the buying journey. Understanding that buyers will often revisit content throughout their journey, digital sales rooms allow sales reps to consolidate all deal-related information and establish a line of communication with buyers as they move through the sales cycle. 

If you’d like to learn more about sales trends and how your organization can best serve its customers in the digital-first era, download our eBook, Rewriting the Rules of Engagement for the Modern Buyer. 

The post How to Use Digital Sales Rooms to Engage and Delight Your Buyers appeared first on Seismic.