This week on the show I’m welcoming Tim Hughes, co-Founder of Digital Leadership Associates. This episode is all about selling. Or, as Tim might redefine it – ‘helping people buy’.
Tim’s been selling for 25 years, and has seen it change up close. Tim’s probably one of the better barometers you’ll find when it comes to the sales process, and he’s right into ‘social selling’ – helping businesses get in front of people early in the purchase journey.
One stat Tim quotes really hit home for me – as he says, people are 57% of the way through the purchase journey before they contact a salesperson. That means content creation and social media is now part of the sales process.
Also, watch out for his story about how Tim’s team at Oracle cut the sales cycle down from 18 months to six months (and sometimes weeks) by throwing out the PowerPoint slides and using an old-fashioned whiteboard instead.
We talked about:
• The evolution of sales and how the process has changed;
• How to be visible earlier on in the journey;
• Where salespeople can enter the process in this new world;
• How to ‘bump into people’ and create serendipity using digital;
• Prioritising time and resource for content and social selling;
• Tim’s writing process;
• Which social media platforms are good for salespeople;
• The changes of behaviours involved in social selling;
• The theory behind posting on LinkedIn;
• Throwing out the PowerPoint for a whiteboard in a sales meeting;
• How large corporates sell – yesterday and today;
• Books and resources Tim finds life-changing;
• And the art of the close.
People Tell Richard Stuff: Episode 42
Tim Hughes, Co-Founder, Digital Leadership Associates
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