Mastering the Sale: Online for Breadth, Offline for Depth

With Social Selling becoming more and more a standard in B2B demand generation practices, we tend to get comfortable behind our screens and start to think that online social is THE ONLY way to engage with future clients and close more business.

Well, on the contrary, old-school practices still have their place in a well-crafted sales process. Picking up the phone or buying a cup of coffee also works. Really.

The act of buying and selling is a social one with the prime element of trust in one act of commitment.

Two faces of the same coin.

In our experience in training sales executives globally, we present on-line and off-line as the two faces of the same coin.

The older generation is used to traditional practices:

·        Networking events (actually showing up)

·        Attending to conferences (physically going there)

·        Going for coffee or drinks with clients

·        Present at events (stablish credibility)

·        Sending cards (birthdays, congratulations, season's greetings)

·        Calling potential clients

·        Using traditional media for advertising

Millennials find it easier to:

·        Joining and participating in LinkedIn groups

·        Attending Webinars

·        Inviting to Skype and web conferences

·        Post thought leadership pieces

·        Sending emails, messages and inMails

·        Leveraging Sponsored Content

It's all about helping us engage with our potential client and advance the Both online and offline relationship have benefits and painpoints. We need to think about which ones we should select for our process and sales methodology.

Online for Breadth, Off-line for Depth

In our years of training sales professionals to use social, we have finally realized that a good way to synthesize the useful combination of on-line and off-line would be:

·        Use on-line to stablish credibility. Identify, touch, engage and interact with a multitude of potential new clients. Digital tools enable multiple, simultaneous conversations. Digital tools like Sales Navigator enable this. In words of LinkedIn's Paul Terry: "Using LinkedIn is like attending a sales conference and being able to say hello, exchange business cards and start conversations with ALL the attendees"

·        Use off-line to really dive into the relationship with your potential client, to let them be aware that you value their time and to let them know that they have your full attention. Facetoface conversations enable trust generation that  uncover the true motivations and concerns of your potential customers.  There is no better way to truly advance in the relationship (and in the sale!) than looking in the eye of the other person.

Consciousness and mastery of both online and offline as the two versions of your same identity is the key to success in today's sales landscape.

Whichever way you decide to sell, make sure it's personalized. We share our best personalized sales strategies in our eBook, How Personalized Selling Unlocks Competitive Advantage.