Social Selling | brian farrell

Hang up the phone, get online and start selling more today!

There no doubt — the future of sales is in social media. The Social Media Sales Revolution by Landy Chase & Kevin Knebl (McGraw Hill, 2011), lays out the new rules for finding customers, building relationships and closing more sales through social media and online networking.

The way we communicate with prospects and customers has changed, and your sales skills need to change if you want to stay in the game. Traditional methods, like cold calling are no longer effective — social networking sites are now your best tools to get in front of clients. The opportunities for developing relationships and selling are enormous on social media, and is based on six simple, yet fundamental, shifts the Internet has created for the future of selling in the B2B marketplace:
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Just like oil and water, sales forecasting and sandbagging don't mix!

Mark Twain once said that there are “three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” Little did he know how apropos this statement would be when it comes to sales forecasting, and the process of sandbagging (in general terms, you “sandbag” when you hold back a strength only to surprise your adversary with it later on).

So why do so many sales professionals, and sales leaders, like to sandbag the numbers? Maybe it’s because new business reps want to surprise leadership with a massively big week. Or maybe it’s because managers want to fire up the team – “we need $200k this week” when the real number is only $175k.

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