I was just at Sales Connect Conference, LinkedIn’s Social Selling Conference. I was there to meet and great many of the top minds in social selling and to do research for an upcoming report. What I found was that one of the best things about being at the conference (besides the technology) was to be in a room full of people who are all thinking the same thing. It’s time to change how company’s operate. It’s time to change how people get treated at work. It’s time to change how sales people are perceived. It’s just plain time to change.
I liked the idea of a Social Selling Index (SSI) and that through that one could tell where they stand with respect to using new tools like Sales Navigator and to know what we need to change. The biggest take-a-way I got from the conference was that sales is less about the product or service you are offering, and more about the relationship you are building with the customer or person you are selling to. That seems so simple that it is feels kinda silly writing it. But having been in sales positions before and knowing that the sales was more about getting the quota for that quarter than it was about how I was going to build a relationship with someone over the long haul and be able to look them in the eye 20 years from now. After thinking about it like that it doesn’t seem silly writing it.
Sales and the profession of sales has changed. It is about the relationship. And this is not new. It used to be that way when we were oriented toward mom and pop shops, where everyone in the village knew each other and did have to look each other in the eye over 20 or 30 years. With industrialization and expansion, we lost that sense of personal responsibility to those we sell to and now it’s back. And I’m glad because I feel better about the way the world is starting to go. I feel better about the level of integrity that digital / social and SaaS is bringing to sales. I’m glad that people are accountable and that we now can see a future where we are honest with ourselves and our customers.
How are you feeling about sale these days? Do you think social / digital / SaaS has changed anything?
If you missed the conference, here’s my storify report… that has all the tweets from the hashtag #SalesConnect https://storify.com/drnatalie/how-linkedin-is-changing-sales
@drnatalie
VP and Principle Analyst covering Marketing, Sales, Customer Service to bring about Amazing Customer Experiences and Long Lasting Relationships in Business