Salespeople are an interesting breed. Executives usually come from the ranks of sales. So do top earners. In some companies, salespeople make more than the CEO (In some companies). What makes them so valuable? Their little black books (of business). Sales skills include prospecting, negotiation, and client management, so when you look to hire one, your main thrust is often cold-calling, lead generation, and closing.
Or at least it used to be.
This whole social media phenomenon is starting to change the rules for salespeople. The primary value in a salesperson is their connections. The book of business is a pool of clients and contacts that drive business, lead to referrals, and are the lifeblood of every man and woman paid in commission.
It takes time to build trust and reputation, but it takes more time to build up the definitive list of whose who in business. Who buys? Who wastes your time? Who is profitable? Who pinches pennies? Salespeople know this, but as the market changes, with decision makers moving back and forth from companies and positions, keeping track of your top clients isn't always so easy. So what happens when the best and brightest in a job market start making their own connections? What happens when Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning, and blogs start sharing information for free that used to be the sole province of salespeople? What happens when cold-calling no longer works, as decision makers find themselves overburdened with prospect calls, and start turning to their social networks on Twitter and Plaxo to find information on vendors, products and services?
What happens when client lists are no longer considered confidential, because every name and number in your database is already supplied at Jigsaw or ZoomInfo or LinkedIn or Plaxo or Spoke or eCademy, and thus your storehouse of carefully screened client numbers is now in the public domain? The world of networking is moving online because it's efficient to do so. I communicate with thousands of people a day, even when I only talk to a handful on the phone. And the quality of those communications ranges from two sentences to full strategy sessions. The truth is I'm always selling when I'm online.
So when hiring account managers, you must learn to hire salespeople
that understand how to generate leads in addition to prospecting. You
need to hire people who are proactive in establishing an online
presence, skilled in identifying likely prospects from online
communities, and most of all, establishing trust with a client before
they ever meet them.
That's right. The salesperson who will best represent your firm will
be a social media expert, connected to the entire marketplace through
online platforms, in the way that we used to be connected through good
old fashioned legwork.
Do your current salespeople know how to create an online reputation?
And how will you go about interviewing someone who knows how to bring
online results?
