What is Technology Aided Prospecting?
Social media has forever changed the way we used the internet and ushered in a new buyer led age. This has had profound consequences for both sales and marketing.
Marketing has moved in the past 5 yearsfrom a creative art to a data driven, short term focused, results driven, measurable discipline, targeted with producing leads for the salesforce. A recent US survey revealed that over 50% of marketers are now responsible for a revenue goal or metric.
Sales has also changed dramatically as methods once considered best practice are now almost unusable. Targets are rising but engagement is falling rapidly. Salespeople have been slow to embrace online methods and are being shuffled down the sales funnel into “closer” roles for marketing generated leads.
This has created a panic in the minds of many salespeople and marketers as they struggle with sales engagement, digital methods and accountability. They don’t understand how the game has changed and many marketers have tried to shout louder, while sales people have been more aggressive.
But what is emerging is a new way forward. One where marketers and sales people work hand in hand to build trust and authority, demonstrate relevance and approachability and take advantage of the modern technologies available to them, rather than fight against them. We call it Technology Aided Prospecting.
So let’s take the words in turn (working backwards):
Prospecting
If you are a salesperson the days of prospecting by car and telephone are behind you. For marketers, the mad men days of advertising and push messaging have also gone. We are now engaged in buyer facilitation, involving both sales and marketing skills. Clever marketers will learn sales skills and clever sales people will learn marketing as they re-engage into a single prospecting discipline.
Aided
This sets the hierarchy. Technology is only as good as the people who programme it – if you automate a flawed process it only creates bigger mistakes. But technology will create opportunities which simply aren’t possible with manual processes so both must work together.
Technology
We’ve only scratched the surface of what technology will do. Technology can:
1. Release time and help us to concentrate on the prospects we are best able to help, while automating others.
2. Alert us to opportunities or potential failures in time to maximise the benefit.
3. Give us intelligence on our prospects so we can serve them better and engage more effectively.
4. Help us build loyalty, maximise customer value and drive product development.
5. Ensure our systems learn constantly from every touch and evolve to get better and better
6. Create data to inform our manufacturing, buying and distribution departments so that we can run leaner, more efficient and predictable companies.
Technology Aided Prospecting will allow clever sales and marketing professionals to engage more successfully with more prospects and produce better results than we ever could alone. It will produce more predictable, measurable results. It is the gateway to greater profitability and to a competitive advantage for companies and individuals who use it effectively.
Foreseeing the Future
There are a host of technologies available and a number which haven’t even been invented yet. Some companies are trying clever new initiatives and putting several technologies together may create a more effective result. Technology Aided Prospecting is thus a think tank for these new ideas.
I urge you to join our LinkedIn group and give it your support with ideas, suggestions, questions and clarifications.