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My wife recently returned from a mission trip to Cambodia to support the Rapha House. In recounting her experiences one of the lighter moments was her description of the marketplaces.
Haggling over price is expected in their shopping experience. There are also an abundance of knock-off products. From this springs the colorful and frequent phrase, "Same, Same, but Different." The most common use is in response to, "Is that really a Versace, Rolex, [other popular brand]?"
"Same, Same, but Different."
Flash forward…last week I was talking to a client about a new B2B social media sales training program we are building out. This client (in the business of selling big ticket enterprise software) had already noted a few natural trends in their sales organization, as it applied to using social media. There were three distinct groups:
- Sales people not using social media and showing flat or declining sales
- Sales people using social media and showing declining sales
- Sales people using social media and showing increasing sales
I was asked to explain these observations and recommend a solution.
My mind immediately jumped to my wife’s description of the Cambodia marketplace anthem–"Same, Same, but Different." The answer was simple, the results typical. The key to success in selling into today’s B2B marketplace is realizing that sales is, "same, same, but different."
Social media is not a sales silver bullet. It will not (or very rarely) yield that one Tweet close. And if you sit around staring at your Twitter stream all day you will fall into group 2.
Here was my explanation: Sales principles are the same, building relationships and trust with buyers is the same, some of the tools and much of the buyers behavior is different.
Here was my simplified answer (specific to enterprise software sales):
Selling quarter to half-million dollar software is still a complex sale. You have to really understand the customer, their pain and their decision makers. You have to lower their risk to saying, "yes." You have to demonstrate (typically an evaluation) how you are going to achieve the promise result.
What has changed? They don’t start with the vendor for education (the old RFI process). They start by querying their social network–Linkedin, Twitter, etc. They broadcast their evaluations and consideration on Linkedin, Twitter, or blog posts. They ask lots of questions, seek out communities of current users, and look for thought leaders. Multiple people significant to the buying decision are doing their own independent social media "research," being influenced, and reporting back internally.
Social media, if used efficiently, can give you a front-row seat to this whole process. If you don’t learn and use social media, you are always too late to call and confused why you never had a shot at the client.
Solution: Group 3 figured it out. We just need to teach the other two groups how their job is the, "same, same, but different."
What would you have told my client?
About Bill Rice
