Episode 250: Shane Gibson

Many organizations are revising their go-to-market strategies to include digital and social selling. But what should that process look like? How can you find success if you’ve only known a world of traditional sales? Shane Gibson—the co-author of Real Results in a Virtual Economy—shares some of his tips and strategies in this episode of Sales Reinvented. Check it out!

Outline of This Episode

• [1:10] The difference between digital and social selling
• [2:45] Why digital selling is important in today’s world
• [5:15] Shane’s blueprint for a digital selling strategy
• [9:33] The virtual sales competency map
• [13:48] Tools + techniques + strategies to improve digital selling
• [17:59] Top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts
• [22:28] Shane’s favorite digital selling story

Why is digital selling important in today’s world?

What can organizations do to improve their digital selling capabilities? Everyone was forced to sell remotely because of the Coronavirus pandemic. We’ve had seven years of digital adoption happen in a year, where the consumer—both business and individuals—have made the majority of purchasing decisions digitally. It’s a larger market accustomed to making decisions remotely. Shane clearly believes that’s not going to stop.

Shane shares that most people don’t have the budget to fly their sales teams around the world. So you have to knock on people’s doors using digital tools. You have to learn to think like digital-first sales organizations. Why is it so important? Gartner predicted that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales will be conducted digitally.

Shane’s digital selling blueprint

Shane starts with the customer and works his way backward. He notes that sales leaders fall in love with the tools all the time. The challenge with digital tools is that they’re thrown at you and you get excited about them. Shane emphasizes that you need to get excited about your customer first.

Your strategy needs to be customer-centric. What channels are your customers on? What platforms are they making purchasing decisions on? What is their buying process? How do they use digital tools in that decision-making process? How can you develop a process that enables the buyer?

Your customer should be the #1 focus

It’s time to move from giving salespeople the tools they need to giving the customer the tools they need. Up to 80% of the customer buying cycle happens before the sales organization knows they exist. So you must become the #1 source for self-education for potential customers. Content marketing specific to your target niche is a vital part of the sales process.

You must first understand your niche. The #1 challenge for most sales organizations is getting the first conversation with a prospect. You have to move from a focus on closing to a focus on starting the conversation. This starts on LinkedIn, Twitter, and even chatbots on websites. The goal should be starting contextual conversations with the customer and curating content that resonates with them.

What is Shane’s “Principle of Context?” Listen to learn more about the importance of context!

Shane’s virtual sales competency map

What do sales professionals need to master to become successful with digital selling? Shane shares his virtual competency skills to master:

1. Sales mastery: People spend too much time on social channels or playing with data, and spend less time on people skills. But you’re still selling to people. You have to master relational selling skills.
2. Networking skills: You have to be good at content creation, curation, and online conversation.
3. Technology fluency: This is the next hurdle a salesperson must master. Can you speak tech? Interpret data? Are you great at learning and adapting to new tools successfully?
4. Virtual communications: Are you good at disseminating information digitally? What about broadcasting digitally? Can you easily jump on a zoom call or a podcast? Are you savvy with multi-platform writing skills?
5. Virtual soft skills and right brain sales skills: Artificial intelligence automates everything that’s repetitive. If you’re a cut-and-paste type of salesperson, everything you do can be automated. Your safe place is right-brain thinking. Can you negotiate and build rapport? Are you creative? Are you good at networking and prospecting? These are key skills that will become the biggest differentiator for salespeople in their organizations.

What are Shane’s top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts? Listen to find out!

• Resources & People Mentioned

  • Real Results in a Virtual Economy by Dr. Denis Cauvier & Shane Gibson
  • Guerrilla Social Media Marketing by Jay Levinson & Shane Gibson
  • B2B Sales Interactions

  Connect with Shane Gibson

  • Connect on LinkedIn
  • Follow on Twitter

Connect With Paul Watts

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

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Audio Production and Show notes by
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Learn More About Shane Gibson

Are there any great Digital or Social Selling books that you highly recommend? LinkedIn Unlocked by Melonie Dadaro and for sales leaders (my latest book) “Real Results in a Virtual Econony” 

Who do you most admire in the sphere of Digital or Social Selling and why? Jon Ferrera, CEO of Nimble CRM – he built Nimble purely leveraging organic social media marketing and social selling strategies and it is now one of the leading CRM’s in the marketplace.

Are there any aspects of your own Digital or Social Selling skills that you are working on improving at the moment? Consistency in producing more content, particularly podcasts, I have been podcasting for over 13 years and social audio is more important than ever. 

Hobbies, Interests? Martial Arts, Running, Hiking and Skiing. Before the pandemic my partner Little Woo and I took up Swing Dancing and I am looking forward to doing it again soon!

How can our listeners contact with you? For sales training and keynotes: SalesAcademy.ca For my podcast: Closingbigger.net and my book RealResultsVirtualEconomy.com or @ShaneGibson on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.