Presentation that describes why & how to use social channels to listen, observe, engage, communicate and gain advantage and defeat your competitors’ strategy.

1. 1
Information Technology
&Telecom Sales
= Social Business Sales
Adapting to today’s
buyer driven sales
environment
Al Brodie

2. 2
You know what’s on your customer’s mind?
Develop Stronger
Customer
Relationships
Make sense of Data
New Competitors
Anticipate Market Shifts
Increase
Revenue
Increase Business
Agility & Speed
Reduce Capital &
Operating
Expense
Increase Sales
Increase Brand
Recognition
Regulatory Compliance
Reduce Time-to-
Market
Engage Customers in
New Ways
Increase
Collaboration
with
customers
and partners
Increase Security
Innovation for Growth
Increase
Customer
Satisfaction
Traditional
Competitors
Increase Market
Share
Improve Speed of
Decision Making
Employee
Productivity

3. 3
And, you have the solutions to solve their problems
Sales Force
Automation
Security
Data Center
Networking
CRM
Big Data
Cloud Computing
Content
Management
Business
Analytics
Wireless
Networking
Social Relationship
Management
VoIP
Marketing
Automation
ERP
Virtualization
SOA
Collaboration
Software
Contact Center
Management
MobileMobile Apps
Infrastructure
Management
Financial
Management
Data Services
Voice
Services
Gigabit Ethernet
Hosted Services
IaaS
SaaS
PaaS
Mobility
Routers &
Switches
Unified
Communication
Web
Conferencing
Video
Conferencing
Storage
SAN
NAS
IP / MPLS
Next Generation
Networks
e-Commerce

4. 4

5.  Social Tools
 People & Networks
 Processes
 Information & Assets
 Internal & Externally
Focused Activities
5
So, what is a social business?
“…… activities that use social media, social
software and technology-based social
networks to enable connections
between people, information and assets.
These activities could be internally focused
within the enterprise or externally focused
toward customers, suppliers and partners.”
MIT Sloan Research Report:
Moving Beyond Marketing

6. “80% respondents in IT,
Technology and Telecomm
companies stated social
business was important to their
business.”
6
And, why should you care?
“…at least 60% of respondents in most
industries agree that social business is
important or somewhat important today
(four or five on a five-point scale).”

7. 7
Recent studies show a clear connection between social
business and top marketing priorities and sales projects
 Lead generation &
conversion
 Increase audience
reach
 Increase customer
loyalty & revenue
 Reduce costs for lead
generation
HubSpot
State of Marketing 2014 Report

8. Lower
Sales
Productivity
Ineffective
Lead
Generation
Poor
Pipeline
Quality
Reduced
Forecast
Accuracy
Longer
Sales
Cycles
Higher
Discounting
Lower
Close Ratio
Reduced
Sales &
Profitability
Higher
Turnover
Rising Cost
of Sales
8
However, many sales organizations continue to use outdated
sales methods that yield lackluster results
A Vicious Cycle
Time
Consuming
Research
Cold Calling
Rising Cost of Sales
Seller & Buyer Frustration
Expensive Leads
Declining Sales
Marketing & Sales
Dysfunction

9. Outbound Sales Is “Interrupt”
Driven
 Cold Calls
 Voice mail
 Unsolicited e-mail; SPAM
 Letters
 Doesn’t align with customer
buying process
9
Research tells us that traditional outbound sales strategies
are ineffective and mostly a waste of time and money

10. Because what was once the sales process has become the
buying process requiring sellers to either “Adapt or Die”
 Online Research
 Education
 Community Discussions
 Content Consumption
 Ratings
“…..distribute content that enables
them to build up credibility and
eventually develop a trusted reputation
based on their expertise.”
“….making sales is now about
delivering content at the precise
moment each buyer needs it.”
The Buyer Journey
Featuring
 Recommendations
 Vendor Engagement
 Supplier Selection
 Review & Endorsement
THE NEW RULES OF
SALES AND SERVICE
David Meerman Scott
MIT Sloan Research Report:
Social Business: Shifting Out of First Gear

11. 11
And, to engage today’s information savvy buyers requires an
entirely different sales methodology
“….customers now handle an
estimated 53% of the traditional sales
process via online research and self-
service.” Defining the 21st Century
Salesperson: Forrester Research
Today’s selling environment requires
salespeople to have “a deep
understanding of potential clients
and can reach out to decision
makers and influencers through
introductions and build credibility
with meaningful content.”
The 21st Century Buyers
• Are better informed
• Expect greater knowledge and
sophistication from salespeople
• Insist on more than basic product
information
• Require collaborative partnerships
• Demand solutions and capabilities that
deliver quantifiable, measurable,
business results
• Are slashing procurement process costs
• Eliminate vendors that don’t add value

12. What’s needed is a new approach

13. 10 Things Social Selling Does:
 Delivers customer focused content
 Educates and informs
 Generates awareness & interest
 Solves customer problems
 Demonstrates expertise & leadership
 Provides insight through storytelling
 Supplies information when and where
needed
 Facilitates conversations and connections
 Aligns with the customer buying process
 Employs data to gain deeper customer
understanding and anticipate needs
13
One based on building relationships and providing buyers
with information they need to make purchase decisions

14. 14
That uses storytelling to articulate why your company is
uniquely positioned to solve a buyers problems
Effective Storytelling
 Discusses customer problems and concerns
 Acknowledges industry trends and directions
 Aligns solution messages and value propositions
with customer needs and emerging trends
 Uses customer examples, references and case
studies to describe how you solve buyer problems
 Employs a single unified message across the
organization from Marketing, Sales and Customer
Service
 Uses simple language not technical jargon &
Gobbledygook
 Told in a compelling manner using a unique tone
 Based on data and analytics gathered through
research and social listening tools
 Appropriate level of content for where the buyer is
in their journey
65% of industry leading
companies use social
media to understand
market shifts vs. 14% for
less socially mature
companies
MIT Sloan Research Report:
Social Business: Shifting Out of First Gear

15. 15
And provides clear and differentiated messages through
customer focused content
Customer Focused Messaging
 Solution oriented not product focused
 Describes value not features
 Describes “How and Why” not “What”
 Provides vision and a bridge from customer’s
current state to desired state
 Based on fact versus fiction
 Specific to individual buyer profiles: “Buyer of
One”
 Is differentiated and unique
 Timely and uses news stories and current
events to draw attention and raise visibility
 Distributed through multiple social media
venues
 Interesting and engaging
“Vendors need to base their
message on their high-level
value propositions….the wrong
value proposition dooms a
product or a whole company.”
Forrester Research
Defining the 21st Century Salesperson

16. 16
An approach that parallels and intersects with a customers
buying process
Engage With The Buyer Process
 Uses buyer profiles that aligns your
offerings with a buyers problems, needs
and concerns
 Increases buyer awareness with
customer centric information optimized
for buyer searches; available across
multiple channels
 Provides appropriate level of content or
resources at each stage of the buying
cycle
 Encourages collaboration and
discussions among buyers, sharing
similar problems, and your sales staff
 Provides flexibility for buyers to connect
with your salespeople in multiple ways
 Facilitates speed and responsiveness to
customer buying signals
Give them what they need at each stage
 Discovery: Basic information that educates
 Evaluation: Greater detail for comparison
 Validation: Proof points, value propositions
and references
 Purchase: Real-time connection with sales
and technical resources

17. 17
That aligns Marketing and Sales to provide a single voice in
all communications
Aligning Marketing & Sales
 One message articulated across the
organization
 Educates and informs audience
 Focused on individual buyer persona
needs, concerns and interests
 Addresses buyer perceptions for doing
business with you or your competitors
 Takes into account competitive strategies,
messages and solutions
 Based on insight about how, when and why
buyers make purchase decisions
 Gives salespeople contextual content to
share with buyers at just the right moment
 Structured to lead buyers to eventually
connect with your experts & salespeople
“Marketing generates attention of
the many people who make up a
buyer persona, whereas sales
communicates with one potential
customer at a time, putting the
buying process into context.”

18. 18
While using rich data and analytics to learn more about
customer needs and preferences through their interactions
Rich Data Provides Insight To:
 Quickly identify and respond to customer
buying signals and trigger events
 Anticipate buyer needs
 Improve lead qualification, pipeline and
forecast quality
 Facilitate real-time customer connections
with your salespeople to accelerate and
shorten buying cycles
 Align with the buyer journey by
understanding how, when and why they
make purchase decisions
 Gauge effectiveness of strategy,
messaging and tactics
 Rapidly recognize and capitalize on new
market opportunities
 Improve responsiveness to market shifts
and competitive threats

19. With the underlying objective that
enables buyers to purchase from YOU

20. 20
Social Selling delivers
tangible business results for
Technology &
Telecommunications sales
organizations

21. 21
Social Selling delivers
tangible business results for
Technology &
Telecommunications sales
organizations