Outperform in B2B Sales by Understanding the Social Business Sales Funnel

by Christopher Rollyson       

In my twenty-five years of experience advising firms on corporate strategy and leading transformation as a line executive, I have consistently seen that the gold is hidden by assumptions that were formed based on past market conditions and organizational realities.  Disruptions work by invalidating parts of the status quo, and my role is often identifying the exceptions and showing clients how to identify optimal ways to evolve, so they can best maneuver to take advantage of disruptions.

This is why I’m so bullish on the B2B sales and marketing renaissance:  it will transform what we think of today as “sales” and “marketing.”  All organizations will be confronted by irrevocable market forces- namely profound changes in B2B client behavior and expectations- and those that evolve more quickly will see huge advantages.

Current State:  B2B Marketing and Sales

Based on managing B2B marketing myself several times as well as my participation in numerous MENG meetings over the years, I’ll summarize the current state of B2B marketing and sales before tackling the social business funnel.  Consider these generalized legacy roles and value propositions:

• 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 manage leads along “the funnel” to structure and close deals.  Sales prospects for customers, 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.

Social Business as Disrupter

As discussed in a previous MENG Blend titled 2012 B2B Marketing’s Social Business Opportunities, B2B prospects now educate themselves about products, vendors, contract terms, etc., in industry forums and general discussion boards such as LinkedIn Answers.  They tap the crowd and gain access to different ways to look at problems and solutions- and different types of vendors.  Their experience collaborating with people in forums is rapidly changing their expectations of their partners (erstwhile vendors).  It also invalidates large parts of B2B marketing and B2B sales legacy relevancy and 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.

The Legacy Sales Funnel: What Sales Teams Are Working Now

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.  Most conflicts between sales and marketing focus on how many leads get put into the funnel, lead “quality,” the shape of the funnel (the qualification process), responsiveness (how many leads bail because they aren’t engaged in time), etc.

The Social Business Sales Funnel:  Where Sales Teams Need to Go

The Social Business Funnel is a completely different animal.  It 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 relevant to the firm, products and services.  They listen and they build their professional reputations by sharing advice and insight with prospects and the audience.  They don’t try to sell or self promote because that reflects salespeople who are firm focused, not client focused.  A huge turn-off.
• 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” because that pushes people away.

The Economics of the Social Business Funnel

You’ve probably heard of “the network effect,” but here’s how it drives social business. This “ladder of participation” has beencorroborated 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.

Creating Your Social Business Funnel

B2B clients, customers, and prospects are increasingly having serious discussions online, and their practice of “tapping the crowd” is accelerating.  Because online discussions are transparent (the crowd vets them together) and vendors aren’t in control, people will continue to adopt and won’t go back to the ignorance of the 20th Century.  Social venues give prospects a powerful tool to mitigate risk and to have more control.  This means that firms that don’t learn how to engage online will be competing for a smaller market every year (comprised of late adopter prospects).  That’s a bloody ocean.  The blue ocean is expanding (see its Concept section).  Here’s your toolkit for swimming in the blue bit.

This is the third post in the MENG Blend series. 2012 Will See B2B Early Adopters Move on Social Business focuses more on market drivers while 2012 Game Changer:  This Year’s B2B Marketing Social Business Opportunities emphasizes how B2B marketing and sales can evolve organizationally.  Here are specific recommendations for creating your social business funnel:

• In client work, we consistently discover that clients aren’t fully aware of online conversations or venues where their prospects are talking about topics that are very relevant to their business.  Most sales teams are somewhat aware of some of the venues, but they consistently discount their relevance because they don’t realize their significance.  Marketing needs to discover and catalog the ecosystem.  For many firms, the most relevant ones are industry specific, but you will certainly find high quality discussions in general forums like LinkedIn Answers.
• Use these three MENG Blend posts to approach members of your sales team who tend to be more flexible and open to trying new things.  Share what you have found in your ecosystem and propose to help salespeople start interacting online consistently.  Your firm needs to start generating those annuity conversations.  Salespeople need to build their reputations in the right places.  Build some simple workflows and have some of pioneering salespeople start doing interacting consistently. In most cases, one to four is a good pilot team.
• The goal is to qualify and engage prospects more quickly and efficiently.  Then put them into the funnel.  But beware:  your legacy sales process may need serious tweaking.  Social business prospects usually want more collaborative salespeople.  You can avoid a big reengineering effort by hiving off social business leads and treating them differently during the pilot period (i.e. collaborative, trust based, no “closing” mentality).
• Stop thinking like legacy marketing.  Marketing and sales messages push prospects away because they are increasingly perceived as inauthentic.  They are brand, firm, or product focused, not client focused.  Where possible, have clients carry your message.  Honor your best clients at conferences by shooting short video interviews of them commenting on important issues, not your product.
• Approach your firm’s expertise owners (i.e. engineers, designers, researchers) with these ideas, especially those who tend to be more innovative in their thinking.  Would they be open to exploring blogging if marketing organized it to be ultra efficient?  B2B case studies
• Experiment with fast cycles, adjust your approach based on results, and keep expectations low during the “pilot” period. Sometimes it takes some tinkering to see results.  Speaking of results, assess your effectiveness in terms of quantitative measures for increasing trust.  Here’s CSRA’s model for measuring increasing trust quantitatively over time.  Note that conversion happens in Stage Four. Once you start seeing repeatable results, scale your social business program and grow your funnel.

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