Jamie Shanks helped to shape Social Selling through his company, Sales for Life. After certifying 250,000+ sales professionals on the strategies and techniques that led to Digital Selling competencies across hundreds of companies, Jamie has identified some common trends in what led to the most successful pipeline development.
In 2020, B2B Sales quickly transformed into Digital Selling. Social Selling has evolved to "selling" and become a part of the digital selling motion. Social Selling efficacy can be measured by pipeline growth, close rates, and sales cycle time for sales, self-directed pipeline.
The skills and competencies to be an effective B2B Sales professional have become muddled over the last 10 years, as a new generation has invested more time into learning how to use the tools to become "digital sellers" and have not received the traditional sales training to prospect, discover and qualify high probability prospects who will become paying customers.
Even with all of the data and signals being provided to modern B2B Sellers, often they do not understand when and how to "use the information" to increase their prospecting efficiency.
An example is the level of investment in "intent data", without providing sellers the ability to interpret and understand the context of what the information is telling the seller.
What pipeline signals should be added into the "account intelligence" to better understand "how" and "why" the target company will buy? Human capital (people) migration is a leading indicator as to where a company will allocate investment dollars.
Being able to have insights into the members of a buying team, their relationships with competitors, and especially the members' previous relationships with people in your company are critical factors in increasing "prospect intelligence".
Seller utilization of pipeline signals information, such as "intent data" is the key to the success of the business impact of digital signals. Sellers who figure out how to use "pipeline signal information" is limited to a small percentage of the seller population. The organizations that do the best job of educating, training, and facilitating the effective adoption of digital pipeline signals will be the winners in 2022 and beyond.
Jamie Shanks is not only a pioneer in using digital techniques to increase B2B sales efficacy, he is a true visionary who identifies trends and opportunities to increase the return on investment of B2B Sales professionals before the crowd!