With so much information on the internet today, prospects have become more empowered than ever that if you as a seller do not also counter this by being as best prepared as you can be, they could only see you as nothing more than a sales agent rather than being seen as an industry expert or problem solver.

So how do you prepare yourself before meeting with prepared prospects?

Let’s welcome Jeff Herrmann on the show today as we talk about how you can prepare when you’re selling to folks who are more aware than ever.

Jeff is the Chief Revenue Officer at Fathom, a full-service digital marketing and analytics firm that helps clients connect, communicate, and celebrate with their customers using digital marketing strategies and tactics. They spend a lot of time designing programs to help their clients move up the marketing maturity curve from optimizing content to really structuring effective communication programs.

Here are the highlights of my conversation with Jeff:

The Empowered Prospects

Studies show that about 60% of buying decisions is already done by the prospect before they get in touch with the seller.

Companies are putting forward great content in a helpful and problem-solving way

Salespeople have become teachers and curators to help filter out the noise and leverage all data at our disposal to listen and learn.

There is no better time to be a prospect because of the advent of Google search.

What you need to do as a seller to become more effective:

1. Recognize where the prospect is in the buyer’s journey.

Use content as a tool if you offer up early stage, industry-centric, macro-economic type of content versus later stage, feature-specific, price-specific type of content and which one they gravitate more towards. Become a master of your market and become a resource.

2. Become a teacher and a problem solver.

Consumers while they have access to a volume of information, they’ve been trained to become impatient, fickle, and easily frustrated. As a sales professional, get in there. Become a trusted adviser and help eliminate some of that noise. Then you become appreciated rather than just seen as an agent of a product. Add value at every turn.

Why is there no better time to be in sales than now?

1. Observer

Consumers have more opportunity to learn. Salespeople have a bigger opportunity to observe what they’re learning. Be an observer using social media tools just to observe information about your prospects.

2. Participant

Drive some engagement to germinate the seeds of relationship. This gets consistent with being a teacher and problem solver.

3. Curator

Think of yourself as a curator. How do you become that industry expert to curate news and information that’s relevant and timely for your prospects?

4. Creator

You’re not only assembling great information but you have a strong point of view in your industry and your markets. Use social tools to put forward your consistent point of view by leveraging different platforms (ex: video and audio).

Preparation is key.

Activity and preparation matter. That’s what separates your average seller from those that achieve 10x results.

Leverage data at a consistent basis.

Use that to put forward your strong point of view.

Some essential conversations you need to include in your sales process:

1. To help articulate the value.
2. To help the individual understand that they need to change from the status quo.

Activity-based prospecting vs. engagement-based prospecting model

1. Focus on adding value.

Shifting from an activity-based sales prospecting into a slow and deliberate engagement-based model

There is more success in converting more opportunities based on smaller target lists.

2. Be authentic.

Elevate the sales profession. There is so much technology out there that we have no choice but to go straight and be authentic in our approach and have empathy for our prospects and customers.

Jeff’s Major Takeaway:

Build a testing control. Pick a set of prospects you want to engage with. Start engaging with them on a particular platform. Position your profile in way that you post meaningful and helpful information. Build a relationship with your audience.

Episode Resources:

Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn.

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