How Social Business Is Changing the Game in B2B: Sales, Marketing, Human Resources, Product...

CSRA Social Business Education Series

How Social Business Is Changing the Game in B2B: Sales, Marketing, Human Resources, Product Development and Others

2012 Roadshow

http://www.socialbusinessservices.biz/



05/05/2012 Entire contents © 2006-2012 by Christopher S. Rollyson

Enterprise Social Business Strategy & ExecutionChristopher S. Rollyson and AssociatesPlan | Learn | Scale | Integrate | Manage

Social Business Disruptionof B2B Sales and Marketing

Study Guide

Part1: The Dynamics of Change

Social Business Adoption (2006-2011)

Disruptive technologies change, but people don’t

The Internet is a useful example for social business

Starts with consumer, matures to B2B business processes


Disruptive technologies change over time, but the way people adopt them doesn't, so we can look into the past to predict the future. For example, "the Internet" is useful for predicting social business adoption.

B2Bs' adoption of the Internet began with consumer sites like pets.com and amazon.com. At first, business executives rejected it: "that's wasteful - it's frivolous - that's only for kids!" they said.

With time, executives became familiar with "surfing" and ecommerce, and more firms built websites. Then, around 1999, leaders realized they could save money and improve service. So they enabled customers to access enterprise data via the Web. B2B had arrived.


Social business offers

savings and efficiency in relationships


2012 is the 1999 of social business

Prospects self-educate on B2B business challenges in LinkedIn, blogs, forums...

Firms need to get in these digital rooms and distinguish themselves


2012 is the 1999 of social business. Prospects, clients and customers are more used to interacting in digital social venues. Pioneers are applying social business to B2B sales and marketing.

Prospects increasingly do spontaneous problem solving in online discussions, where they tackle serious topics like click-through rates, reverse logistics, or finding a new CFO.

Prospects now educate themselves about products, vendors, contract terms, etc. They tap the crowd and gain access to different ways to look at problems and solutions—and different vendors. This can work to your advantage when you know how to get in front of it and stay there.

The bottom line is, prospects and clients now want collaborative relationships with salespeople, but most salespeople haven't gotten the memo. They need to learn how to make social business work.


Prospects want a different kind of

relationship

Legacy B2B Processes

B2B sales & marketing: growing disconnect with clients

B2B marketing: research & scaled, impersonal communication

B2B sales: personalized interaction, but low scale-high cost


Now let's review how sales and marketing work, so we can see the growing disconnect between firms and clients and customers. Then we can see how social business will change the game.

B2B marketing is accustomed to defining and controlling the firm's strategy, brand and value proposition. It runs marketing research, CRM, events and the channel. It designs and manages inbound and outbound campaigns to generate leads.

Marketing's core value to the firm is based on secondary research and scaled-but-impersonal communications.

B2B Sales traditionally manages leads along "the funnel" to structure and close deals. Sales prospects, works trade shows, entertains clients and collaborates with the channel to exchange and work leads. In professional services firms, "sales" often manages services delivery as well.

Sales' core value is primary research and personalized interactions, which are low scale and high cost, compared to marketing's.


The legacy world is scaled OR personal

Social Business Disruption

Social business turns sales & marketing on their heads

Prospects have knowledge & relationship on demand

.. and completely new ways of thinking about solutions

Social business is scaled and personal


Social business weakens legacy value propositions:

Marketing's impersonal communications were effective when prospects didn't expect personal attention.

Sales' personal interactions were effective when prospects had little access to relevant information about their business challenges.

Social business is scaled *and* personal. It gives prospects knowledge and relationships on demand. It confronts sales and marketing with changing how they relate to prospects and clients.


Sales & marketing that evolve will

outperform

Flipping the Funnel

Legacy funnel: from wide & general to narrow & specific

Social business funnel: from narrow & specific to wide & specific

The social business funnel keeps on producing leads, forever

Flipping the Funnel

Now let's drill down into the legacy funnel and look at how social business is transforming B2B sales and marketing.

The legacy funnel goes from wide to narrow. Sales and marketing dump leads into the funnel. Leads get eliminated when prospects don't respond or when sales determines they aren't relevant. The traditional funnel transforms many general leads to few specific leads over time.

The Social Business Funnel goes from narrow to wide; it starts with few highly qualified leads and transforms them into *more* qualified leads over time. Here's how it works.

Salespeople go to where the people are, where prospects are engaged in *very* specific discussions. They listen and they build their professional reputations by sharing advice and insight with prospects *and* the audience.

By the way, these ultra-relevant discussions are discoverable now, and forever. Also, social business interactions are more credible to prospects since vendors aren't in control. Prospects believe them more.

What's *really* interesting is, salespeople immortalize themselves in these discussions. They increase trust by helping prospects—but they don't try to "sell" or promote themselves.

Flipping the Funnel

Smart salespeople immortalize

themselves online

The Social Business Funnel

Social business network effects & the ladder of participation

The Web remembers when you model behavior that inspires trust

Online conversations spread virally


1990

Curator

Creators

Observers

Ladder of Participation

You've probably heard of "the network effect," but here's how it drives social business. This "ladder of participation" has been corroborated by extensive research. It tells us that, on average, *social actions* in digital social venues are created by 10% of the people: fully 90% are observers.

This means your impact is 10 times greater than it appears. You influence 100% of the people, even though 10% are interacting. By serving the few, you influence the whole room.

The goal becomes modeling behavior that you want to be observed, not only now, but forever.

There's more. People usually broadcast their interactions to their networks automatically, which creates a viral effect. For example, you answer a question about supply chain software in LinkedIn Answers. This is shared with your network, and anyone who responds broadcasts their "activity" to their connections, too.

Conversations spread virally, but you won't readily see it. Social business conversations are annuities. This is how the social business funnel increases highly qualified leads over time.


Online conversations are immortal: they’re

searchable

The Glue of Social Business

Trust is the main driver of B2B relationships & deals

Prospects want to mitigate risk

Social actions are the “data” people use to assess trust

Online social actions are specific, fast & inexpensive


Now let's talk about the elephant in the room. Trust is the main driver of B2B interactions. Prospects are faced with making decisions about complex, expensive transactions that can get them fired. Therefore, prospects want to learn how trustworthy salespeople are--in order to manage risk. Prospects ask themselves, "Is it safe to do a deal with this person or firm?"

This forms the context for most prospects' behavior. Based on social actions, prospects trust salespeople more or less. Not only that, remember that there are 10 times more observers in the room; *they* are adjusting their trust meters based on what they see, too.

The bottom line is, it's faster and cheaper to build trust online. Salespeople who understand this will outperform for years.


It’s faster and cheaper to develop

trust online

How Social Business Is Changing the Game in B2B: Sales, Marketing, Human Resources, Product Development and Others

Part1: The Dynamics of Change

Part2: B2B Sales & Marketing Case Studies

Part3: Action Steps: Evolving Sales & Marketing

2012 Roadshow


Social Business Disruption of B2B Sales and Marketing: Rare 2012 Opportunities05/05/2012

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Christopher S. RollysonManaging Director [email protected]+1.312.925.1549http://about.me/csrollysonhttp://rollyson.net/consulting

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Social Business Disruption of B2B Sales and Marketing: Rare 2012 Opportunities05/05/2012

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