People sometimes ask us: Who is really worth listening to online about better enterprise selling (software, SaaS, IT services …) and more revenue from better sales processes? It gets asked enough that we decided to make a list. Here goes.
Our sales influencer top five
We’d go with:
The first four links are to LinkedIn profiles; Max’s link is to his site.
35,000-foot view: Why follow these guys?
There are, of course, other people in sales you could follow. Even more for marketing. Someday we’ll make a list of 20, then perhaps 100. Some thought leaders spout bullshit all day, but there is value out there.
As for these five, we’re not going to walk through every tweet or LinkedIn post they’ve ever sent. You can click the links above and start investigating.
Instead, we’d say this: if you need advice that hits these categories — >
- B2B-focused
- Immediate
- Actionable
- Using examples of companies/agencies similar to yours
- Strong comment threads where you can learn more beyond the initial post
… then these are the five we’d recommend you start by following.
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The overall importance of social in selling
Look, we know that very few people close deals via Instagram or LinkedIn. It happens, of course, but usually these platforms are initial point of contact, and the sale happens downstream at an in-real-life point of contact. This is how most sales works, and will continue to work, and that’s fine.
Still, though, you absolutely cannot ignore social. You can’t ignore it for various reasons. These would be some of the biggest:
- Your prospects are there.
- You can learn from other people.
- You can find potential buyers you literally never knew existed.
- It’s a good way to find people to work with (similar ideas, etc.) as well.
- You can find “hacks” and workarounds that make your week much less stressful.
There are other benefits to social, of course — but those are some of the big ones.
Here’s your homework, then:
- Follow the above five people.
- Do something a little bit different on social this week. Share a personal story. Research a company you’ve never heard of that could be a target. Look at what they discuss and how you could engage.
If you do those two things for 30 total minutes this week (the first bullet should take less than 2 minutes), your week is already headed in the right direction.
