On this episode, I’m joined by Tim Hughes. Tim is Commercial Industries Business Development Director at Oracle UK. Tim led a social selling initiative that was rolled out across 600 European Sales professionals at Oracle. You’ll hear how Tim led this strategic initiative and you’ll learn about some of the results. You’ll also also get a glimpse into his passion for helping others understand the power of social selling in the social enterprise..
Here's what we'll cover:
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On This Episode You’ll Discover:
- How 60% of sales cycle is complete before a B2B buyer engages with a vendor’s sales representative.
- By the time a prospective B2B buyer agrees to a meeting with a vendor, the decision may have already been made.
- Social selling was recognized as a way to make a radical change in the way to reach the buyer earlier in the evaluation process.
- The B2B technology sales cycle has reduced from 18 months down to as fast as 2 weeks.
- The social selling journey is classic change management.
- It’s been an 18 month journey thus far for Oracle UK with success stories along the way….
- Social selling must be ingrained into the process to change behaviors.
- The social selling journey starts small with a few who are willing.
- The culture of social selling is different country by country.
- The 5 Pillars of Social Selling
- Social Media Listening
- Influencer Marketing
- Collaboration (Enterprise Social Network and Social CRM)
- Marketing Automation
- Influencer marketing is intended to reduce the 60% barrier down to 0%.
- Social media listening technology is an effective way of generating leads.
- Social selling behavior change doesn’t happen without management buy-in.
- The social selling roll out contributed greatly to a more cohesive integration between sales and marketing teams.
- Social selling best practices need to be continually reinforced.
- Social selling must be integrated into the business strategy for sustained behavior change.
- Tim’s blog is a “how to” for sales professionals.
- Tim’s One Thing” : “More business people need to make the mindset shift to the social enterprise due to the disruption taking place in many market segments through cloud, big data and social. Professionals should take the time to understand how social business can positively impact their business.”
Featured On This Episode:
- @Timothy_Hughes on Twitter
- @OracleTim on Twitter
- Timothy Hughes on LinkedIn
- Tim’s social selling blog
- Tim’s 5 Pillars of Social Selling
- Bernie Borges on Twitter: @bernieborges
- Social Business Engine on Twitter: @bernieborges
- Vengreso’s YouTube Channel
- Social Business Engine website
- Learn more about Social Selling
I invite you to listen to the entire podcast episode above at your desk or on a mobile device via iTunes or Stitcher.
