Sales and marketing functions have been converging for years, with lead generation now frequently arising from digital promotional campaigns, and the opportunities for tried and tested sales techniques diminishing in the face of shrinking customer attention spans.
In his new book, Digital Selling: How to Use Social Media and the Web to Generate Leads and Sell More,Grant Leboff explores how the sales landscape has changed in recent years but how those working in sales have failed to change their behavior to meet customers. Communications and buyer behavior have shifted, with customers’ attention spans reducing, but many people working in sales have failed to alter their own behavior.
Through extensive research and discussion, Grant Leboff clearly sets out the flaws in current sales behavior, such as the failure to reach customers through appropriated digital channels, or reliance on out-dated and unreliable sales models. From here Digital Selling provides readers with a mindset which must be adopted to meet today’s sales challenges, focusing on activities which must be undertaken in order to achieve success.
Digital Selling also presents, for the first time, a new funnel, more appropriate and aligned with effective selling in a digital era: The Digital Sales Funnel. With customers now capable of finding vast amounts of information on products, companies, and their competitors, this Digital Sales Funnel emphasizes the importance of reaching customers earlier in the sales cycle, supported by high levels of engagement, social proof and word of mouth.