POWER POINTS FROM THE INVISIBLE SALE by Tom Martin

1. POWER POINTS FROM THE INVISIBLE SALE by Tom Martin Congrats! You’ve just taken the first step in a journey that will lead you to the world of Painless Prospecting. As you can see, this document has a minimum of formatting so that you can adjust it to match your company’s format, add your logo/branding and hopefully use it with a minimum amount of effort on your part. Good luck and if you find that at any point you need some outside assistance, drop me a line at Tom@ConverseDigital.com. - Tom --------------------------------------------------------------------- On the first slide, replace my notes text with examples from your own organization. Don’t worry if you can’t fit everything on one slide... expand as you need to in order to make your case.

2. WHY WE NEED TO DO THIS • [note] No one likes to be told they’re doing something wrong. So when you’re trying to convince your company to adopt an inbound prospecting methodology, be sure to start your message with an acknowledgment that the current sales prospecting system is working. • [note] Take the time to acknowledge all the wins (new business) generated by your current sales prospecting approach. • [note] Acknowledge a key strength of outbound systems—their disruptive nature. Just as you saw in the stories about the barbeque manufacturer and telecom, an outbound system can create awareness where none existed because you send your marketing materials to the prospect versus waiting for them to find your marketing materials online. Don’t ignore this in your arguments. This disarms your audience and shows that you are making a well-thought-out and properly balanced recommendation. • Painless Prospecting systems work only when the prospect is actively searching for information online—inside the invisible funnel. • Painless Prospecting systems augment traditional sales programs. • Hopefully, over time, movement from traditional approaches to more efficient Painless Prospecting programs can occur to improve sales efficiencies.

3. WHY WE NEED TO DO THIS • You can’t win if you don’t play. Every day buyers are online looking for resources, vendors, and partners to fill needs. If you’re not playing in this digital sandbox, you’re missing all those invisible sales. • Data-based systems focus on sharing content today that creates sales tomorrow. By spending valuable time creating and disseminating digital content that self-educating buyers can find, you are creating tomorrow’s leads. • The value of creating leads via content is scale. Cold calling and other one-to-one prospecting tactics don’t scale. You can and always will be able to cold call or meet with only one prospect at a time. Conversely, an unlimited number of prospects can simultaneously consume content. • Google never forgets and actually favors older content. Therefore, the content you create today creates leads not just for tomorrow, but for many tomorrows.

4. WHY WE NEED TO DO THIS • Today we live in the age of the self-educating buyerwho is using digital channels to develop a shortlist of solutions to pain points. • Executives todayare busier than ever. They don’t have time to help you qualify themfor 20 or 30 minutes via a phone call. But proper qualification is essential to creating a more effective sales prospecting system. • Data-based prospecting programs allow you to monitor your self-qualifying prospects by recording what those prospects are reading, downloading, and viewing online. • Withoutconstant, real-time data from your prospects, you don’t know what you don’t know. Instead, you are shooting in the dark, hoping to hit something or convince the prospect to help remove your blindfold. • More important, by monitoring online information consumption, your company will be able to discover newinvisible but qualified Self-Educating Buyer leads.

5. THE NEW SALES FUNNEL • There’s a new sales funnel in town, and you can’t see it in any database. It’s invisible to the naked eye but easily seen using digital technology. • Successful targetingof self-educating buyers requires a Sales Radarapproach. • The Sales Radar triangulates a prospect’splace in the invisible sales funnel • What type of information is the prospect consuming • How much of that content is the prospect consuming • Has the prospect identified himself by filling out an online form

6. THE NEW SALES FUNNEL • This new invisible sales funnel helpsyou because today’s self-educating buyers are sending you their buying signalseach and every time they interact with your content. • Sales are becoming more invisible every day. Buyers are 57% of the way through the buying decision before they’re even willing to talk to a sales rep, and consumers have doubled the number of sources they consult before making a purchase. • Self-educating buyers are just a mouse click away from your competitors’ online information, so if you want them to educate themselves on your website, you have to provide helpful information often called Content Marketing. • The goal of the new funnel is to create Propinquity between your content and your prospects.

7. GOAL: CREATING PROPINQUITY • Scientific Definition: The greater the physical or psychological proximity between a company and prospect, the more likely strong bonds will form. • Marketing Definition: To see me → To know me → To like me → To buy from meIn a search engine-based world, top-of-mind awareness isn’t enough to win the sale. Companies need to strive for top-of-mind preference to best position themselves to win the invisible sale. • You have to show upwhere prospects are turning for pre-purchase information. • To create Propinquity treat every blog/website like it is yours. If prospects congregate there, find a way to get your content or voice heard on the blog/website.

8. SELLING WITH CONTENT • The keyto successful content marketing is to create originally produced educational content. • The content must be approachable. If you’re writing text, make it scannable. If you’re using video/audio - the viewer/listener must be able to emotionally connect to the host. • Great contentdoesn’t just produce leads—it grows relationships. • Choose to be a producer, not a creator of content. Create systems and partnerships that leverage expert talent to create the content that fulfills your vision. • When you develop a reputation for creating high-quality, helping content, you can reduce your advertising and marketing costsby placing that content (with your byline) on targeted media content sites. • You can leverage great content to establish and grow manufacturer, vendor, and partner relationships.

9. SELLING WITH CONTENT • Your website and content must be funnel optimized. Your site isn’t an advertisement. It’s a tool for a prospect to conduct pre-purchase research. • Each piece of content/web page MUST include links to “next most important” contentor product/service information. • Make it easy for the prospect to continue down the sales funnel and continue to send you additional buying signals. • Use helping contentto create buying signalsthat better inform your sales team’s sales calls. • Providing helpful contenton your website is the online equivalent of a product sample. • Providing helpful content empowers your Social Agents. These unpaid promoters leverage their networks to amplify your content and create additional Propinquity against prospective buyers.

10. THE ROLE OF SOCIAL AGENTS • Just because someone isn’t a prospectfor your service or product doesn’t mean that person isn’t a valuable contact who should be nurtured. • They could be a Social Agent. Prospects buy from you. Social agents tell everyone to buy from you. And can be the most important customer that never buys from you. • Social agents are your social sales force. They are on the social networks, hearing opportunities you can’t hear and, more important, recommending you to people you don’t know. • The key to a great agent is that they desire to help you—it’s personal. • Social Agents often provide virtual introductionsthat set the table for effective Social Selling efforts.

11. THE BENEFITS OF SOCIAL SELLING • Social selling aids in the selling process by making it easier for a company or salesperson to hear the voice of the prospect. As you listen to prospects, you’ll hear things they don’t or won’t tell you on sales calls. • Social selling is about seduction. It’s not a quick close—it’s about building a relationship with prospects before they’re even ready to buy. Once you have a visible prospect, begin using social channels to continue the conversation. • The goalof social selling is to create a sense of attachmentto the company or to a salesperson.