Not too long ago, before the advent of social selling, if a salesperson needed to add new opportunities to the pipeline, there were basically two options:

1. Make cold calls; or
2. Call existing customers for referrals and introductions.

Interestingly, this choice was not a no-brainer!  I observed that for every three salespeople who would call customers for referrals, there were always two who preferred to make cold calls.  This was not because they loved making cold calls, but because in their minds, it was a more comfortable option for them than asking for something from customers.

Of course, things are quite different today.  Most salespeople are the beneficiaries of a nice supply of leads from their company's marketing, advertising and online efforts.  I typed that "things are quite different", but is that the same thing as, "things are quite better"?

I don't know about you and your leads, but a lot of the "leads" I see aren't very good at all. They're actually more like names with email addresses and a good percentage of them can't really be considered leads at all.  But because a small percentage of them turn out to be really good ones, all of them must be followed-up.  One can't distinguish the good from the bad until the follow-up calls have been made.

With salespeople so busy, following-up on mostly crappy leads, they probably don't even give a thought to calling customers and asking for referrals.  Suppose I was given the option to phone one of two leads:

I know all the statistics about lead follow-up.  If you don't place a follow-up call within the first 10 minutes, your chances of connecting decrease by...I know.  I also know that it takes 8-15 attempts to reach one of those leads...

We all know that the introduction beats the crap out of the lead follow-up 95 times out of 100.  If that's the case, why are so many salespeople spending all of their time attempting to generate and follow-up on the leads that produce results 5 times out of 100?

If you've been reading my blog for the past 8 years, then you know that according to Objective Management Group (OMG), 74% of all salespeople are ineffective.  So we already had this huge class of sucky salespeople and now, with leads making life so easy for most salespeople, we have created a new class of sucky salespeople who are also lazy.  

Have your salespeople pretend it's 1985.  Have them each call 5 customers or clients every day for the rest of the month and ask for referrals and introductions.  If they don't do it, shame on them.  If they don't know how to do it effectively, shame on you.

Image: Chin Kit Sen via Shutterstock

 

The battle that I inadvertently started with this post moved here where it took on a life of its own.  As of this writing, there were 36 comments, some more pointed than others.  Gerhard Gschwandtner added this post to the ongoing discussion.  Earlier this week, I wrote this post to address most of the confusion that's out there.  Yesterday, this post appeared on the Sales Thought Leaders Blog to add fuel to the fire.

I think it's all quite funny that so many have so much difficulty letting go of their positions and take things so personally.

I'm actually a proponent of social selling, not a detractor.  I proactively and consistently use LinkedIn, ToutApp, Hubspot, YouTube, Wistia, Postwire, HootSuite, MeetMe, Eventbrite and more.  Both of my companies have Twitter accounts that tweet Blog posts, news and retweet many of the tweets from other sales thought leaders.  

Bob Thompson left several comments on the article at the CustomerThink site.  In his last comment, he asked what the stats would look like if we only reported on what the best salespeople did with social media.  I think that's a terrific idea, Bob, and while it's much more difficult to isolate those statistics, I did the research and report on it here.

One important thing to remember when making these comparisons is that the most successful reps don't make cold calls, so we need to compare their social media successes to the alternative which, for them, is referral/introduction selling.

I looked at 1,921 leads that were assigned to a group of top salespeople.

They closed 69% of the leads that were customer/client referrals/introductions.

On the other hand, they closed only 5% of the leads from social selling.  WOW!!

However, I looked more closely and found that we can identify something different altogether.

If we isolate the leads that were either call-ins or emails generated from Blog Posts or videos, the closing rate shot up to 29%.  It's not the 69% of referrals, but it sure beats the hell out of cold calls and the rest of the social selling leads.  How did the top salespeople fare on those?

They closed only 3% of the "leads" that were from White Paper downloads, Sample Requests, Webinar views, and the like.

In summary, top salespeople closed less than half as many quality social selling leads as they did with all referral/introduction leads.  That's not bad.  But the 3% suggests that the "leads" from other sources should never go to salespeople.  Those leads waste time and should remain with marketing.

One question this leaves me with is who would have been better at following up on the quality social selling leads?  The top salespeople (who never cold call and rarely get resistance) or the newer and/or less successful salespeople who regularly deal with such annoyances?

Are these findings more encouraging?

I believe they are.  They suggest that with the existance of two variables, social selling can be effective.  

We must be able to differentiate between quality and other leads.

We must have a method for getting only the best quality leads directly to the salespeople.

We must funnel those leads to the salespeople who are most capable of closing them.  That last statement is different from traditional lead distribution at most companies.  Aren't you sick and tired of giving leads to salespeople who don't follow up on a timely basis?  Who don't convert them?  Who don't close them?  I believe that leads should go only to the salespeople who prove they can be effective with them and follow up on a timely basis.

It all depends on the parameters.  I'll list a dozen or so items that both sales and marketing should care about and provide my opinion about who cares more.  Then you can tell me how wrong I am.

Who cares more about:

• Revenue - Sales is often compensated on revenue or at least gross profit so sales wins this one hands down.
• Leads - This one could go either way...Marketing is supposed to generate leads and  companies that place an emphasis on lead gen and measure its effectiveness, care more.  In fact, in companies where there is that much emphasis on leads, salespeople depend on them and hate them, all at the same time.  So many of the leads in high volume lead gen initiatives are low quality leads.  Based on that, marketing cares more.  However, in companies that don't generate many leads and where they aren't expected to generate high volumes of leads, when sales does get the occasional lead they care very much!  Scenario two is more common so I'll give the nod to sales caring more about leads but only by a small margin.
• Conversions -Marketing doesn't believe that conversions are high enough but which conversions are we talking about?  Lead to appointment?  Lead to Opportunity?  Lead to Qualified?  Lead to Closed?  Marketing cares about generating leads.  Sales cares about conversions.
• Praise - Marketing cares more about how their work looks - they want praise for their designs.  Sales only gets praise for results - for revenue.  Marketing cares more about praise.
• Income - Sales usually gets commissions and bonuses based on revenue - not marketing - so sales cares more about income.
• Pressure - Sales is always under pressure while marketing - not so much.  Sales cares more about pressure.
• Results - See Income.
• Metrics - Assuming that companies have and use metrics, sales metrics are more likely to drive revenue while marketing metrics are more likely to identify effective ways to generate leads.  With the latest technology, Marketing is more nimble than ever before and can act on those metrics and make instant changes.  With sales, the metrics typically point to changes that salespeople must make to their behaviors - something that takes longer and sometimes doesn't happen at all.  Marketing cares more about metrics.
• The Look - Marketing is responsible for the look but sales rely on the look as a crutch.  Marketing has pride of authorship so they care more.
• The Brand - Marketing positions the brand and does the "branding". They are the only ones that care!
• Reality - Sales lives in the reality of customer interaction, competition, and market challenges.  Marketing believes that every lead should be sold.  Sales cares more.
• The Customer - Sales cares more about what the customers think and say because sales, not marketing, is hearing those opinions directly.  Sales cares more.
• Activity - Sales cares more.

That's my opinion - choose one or two categories and tell me why I'm right or wrong...

Derek Jeter, the leader and all-star shortstop for the New York Yankees, goes all out running hard to first base on every ball he puts into play.  As a result, it's easy for management to expect the same kind of hustle and effort from everyone on the team.  After all, if the star does it, then everyone should do it. Other teams?  Not so much.  David Ortiz of the Boston  Red Sox never runs hard on a ground ball so what does management say to a younger player who also fails to run hard?

The sales force has similar issues.  If your Star Salesperson prospects like crazy it makes your job very simple.   You just point and say "Do what she does and one day you'll get the same results".  Then you hold your salespeople accountable to those expectations, let your top performer lead by example and watch what happens.  But the reality is that most of your Star Salespeople aren't really stars, don't do what stars do and live off of business they developed years ago or worse, off business somebody else developed years ago.  Then what?

Speaking of the grunt work, I read a statistic from one company that showed that they didn't get long term customer value from leads until 6-10 follow up attempts were made. 

SIX TO TEN ATTEMPTS!!!

That's just to get to first base. (Shameless Baseline Selling tie-in there)

How many of your salespeople are giving up WAY before 6 attempts?  

How many of your salespeople simply aren't working leads thoroughly enough?

Tell your salespeople that they're going to have to start running hard to first base on every ball/lead that they put into play.