Selling | Jane Frankland

February 25, 2015

Cold Calling UK Law Changes & What This Means To You

By JaneFrankland | business start ups, Established business, Sales, Selling | 4 Comments

Nerd writer received the good news

I’ve been saying this for years. Cold calling is dead. Warm calling is the future. And, today the UK Government put one more nail in the cold calling coffin as they announced a clamp down on companies who are cold calling in the UK.

The Telegraph reported today that changes to the law will make it far easier to punish offenders. Furthermore, that the directors of firms using such techniques would be liable to personal fines of £500,000, according to the Daily Mail.

November 7, 2014

7 Dumb Mistakes That Smart Business Owners Make With Social Media

By JaneFrankland | business start ups, Established business, Marketing, New business, Selling | One Comment

Social media is a lot like coffee. You'll either love it, consume a lot of it and get energized over it, or you won't. Instead, you'll hate it, sweat over it and become exhausted.

Whatever it does to you, be aware. Social media, just like coffee, is big business and it's here to stay.

So if you want to keep your client base happy and attract others, you must know how to use it effectively.

This 11-page report that's entitled 7 Dumb Mistakes That Smart Business Owners Make With Social Media, has been compiled due to popular demand. Repeatedly I see the same mistakes being made when business owners pursue social media as a tool for business development. Repeatedly too, I get asked how to spot social media fakers, rectify their shoddy work and advise on implementing it strategically and intelligently.

October 18, 2014

What Is Social Selling & Why Should You Care? [Part 4]

By JaneFrankland | business start ups, Established business, Marketing, Sales, Selling, social media | No Comments

In Part 3 of What Is Social Selling and Why Should You Care, I discussed how you can move opportunities through the pipeline faster, free up yourself (and your sales team) to move on to new prospects, and lower acquisition costs.

In Part 4, (the final in this series) I'll be going through how you can achieve greater client lifetime value, make bigger deals and retain more clients.

October 8, 2014

What Is Social Selling & Why Should you Care? [Part 3]

By JaneFrankland | business start ups, Established business, Marketing, Sales, Selling, social media | No Comments

In Part 2 of What Is Social Selling and Why Should You Care, I discussed how you can get more and better leads. In Part 3, I’ll be looking at how social selling methods will help you shorten your sales cycle. I’ll be going through how you can:

Move opportunities through the pipeline faster
Free up your sales team so you can move on to new prospects
Lower your acquisition costs

September 21, 2014

What Is Social Selling & Why Should You Care? [Part 2]

By JaneFrankland | business start ups, Established business, Marketing, Selling, social media | No Comments

In part 1 of ‘What is social selling & why should you care?' I wrote about how buying has changed and how you now need to sell in a different manner if you’re going to build a strong sales pipeline and exceed your revenue targets. In this post I’m going to expand upon this and show you how you can get more and better leads.

As you now know much of the buying process occurs before your buyer reaches out to a salesperson. However, what you may not be aware of is that it’s not happening behind closed doors. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Buyers are in your sight-line and good leads are there for you – in full view.

Yes, your buyers are on social media. And, there they're talking about their business needs, asking questions about issues in their industry, revealing intelligence about their own companies and reaching out to their peers for advice.

So, the question begs. If they’re doing all of this, why aren't you there too? Why aren't you socially surrounding them and recognising their buying signals so you can be of help?

September 15, 2014

What Is Social Selling & Why Should You Care? [Part 1]

By JaneFrankland | business start ups, Established business, Marketing, Selling, social media | No Comments

Over the past few months there's been a lot of hype over social selling so I'm going to explain exactly what it is (and means) in a series of posts. The first starts here – obviously!

Meet Jessica. She's a a buyer and she's looking for a supplier. She doesn’t do a Google search and then call to make her inquiry. Instead, she searches Google, reviews the supplier’s website, considers their services, checks their reviews and reaches out to her connections for verification or recommendations. If she thinks they're OK, after having done all that and having compared them to other suppliers, she then makes contact via email or the phone.

Chances are, you're no different to her. When you're looking for a new supplier you do the same thing.

Why?

Well it’s because buying has changed.

And, it doesn’t matter who you are or what industry you’re in, that's a fact.

Today’s buyers are better informed and better connected thanks to technology. Social media had lead the way and revolutionized everything.

And, as a result we need to sell in a different manner – that is if we’re going to outperform our peers and the competition (of course).

July 8, 2014

6 Social Media Tips for B2Bs [ignore these & sell diddlysquat]

By JaneFrankland | Established business, Marketing, Selling, social media | No Comments

In this post I'm going to be sharing six social media tips that B2Bs can use to help them strategically develop business. I'll be looking at some of the main challenges and how they can be solved. Whilst this article is aimed at anyone who's responsible for selling in a B2B environment, if you're looking to build your influence (and brand) as a consultant I'm pretty confident that you'll get mileage out of it.

Now let's get started!

In case you've not noticed social media is maturing. No longer is it just seen as a tool for marketers. Now, there's a growing amount of buzz around using it as a sales tool especially for B2Bs. Many understand its value. They know from experience that when it's implemented correctly it delivers a solid return on the investment. And, that's why more and more businesses and individuals (brands), year-on-year, are keen to get it right and use social media as a tool for increasing their influence and business development.

So let's look how you can set yourself up for success by giving you six social media tips that address the main challenges. These are: