This was episode sixty-six of The Six Sells Podcast, and probably one of the best episodes we have produced.
Barney and I crammed a combined six decades of sales, marketing, and business development experience into one hour and sixteen minutes.
The state of B2B sales:
The problem that B2B sellers have today is one of attention. Buyers are absolutely drowning in what Barney described as "an avalanche of irrelevance" as automation and email address discovery tools are allowing more people, to send more emails, to more people, more often.
The more email that is landing, the less chance each individual email has of getting attention. I spoke to a CMO of a tech company two years ago, and she told me that she gets over 100 emails a day from people she doesn't know, representing companies she is unfamiliar with. That doesn't include whatever her SPAM filter catches and automatically moves away from her inbox, and in the last two years, I suspect that number has increased. The email inbox is a working 'doing stuff' tool, and for best results, the people in the inbox should be familiar to the reader.
When buyers are scanning their burgeoning inboxes, they scan for their boss, their clients, their direct reports, their wider team and their partners. That is busy, and anything outside of that is competing for a very fleeting slice of attention - if you are not familiar to the buyer, you will very likely be ignored.
Please do have a listen to the Podcast.
In this conversation we covered:
‣ The state of B2B sales
‣ The "lose, lose, lose, lose" system
‣ Getting attention during "an avalanche of irrelevance"
‣ The B2B Buyers' Journey
‣ Why email is for the familiar
The Six Sells Podcast is available on Apple, Google, Spotify, Amazon Music and other podcast providers.
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Six Sells is a B2B communications agency for sales and marketing leaders.
We help your client-facing people to speak to more of your ideal clients, more often, via social media and personable content.
We offer training, consulting or done-for-you services, which increase the awareness, familiarity, trust and interest in your company and its products and services.
Email hello@sixsells.co.uk for more information.
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