Optimum Sales – Development of Employee Branding in a B2B Sales Team
The concept of employee branding for a sales team targeting B2B markets is to consider the salesperson as a key resource in developing your company’s influence strategy on your customers.
It is a concept that has been present for a long time in various offline forms. However, the digital revolution and, specifically, the consolidation of LinkedIn, have multiplied the impact and influence that sellers can have to increase business opportunities.
We must not forget that B2B sales are conducted between people, as they are complex sales based on technology and knowledge aimed at improving the client’s business.
For your salespeople to be able to influence your customers, you need to turn them into references, that is, they should be perceived by your customers as professionals whose vision and proposals are the best available in the market and, above all, that they generate trust.
How is a team of referents generated within a sales team?
First of all, you need to select the people who should be part of the team of referents; not all salespeople can perform this activity, as they must have a deep technical and business knowledge of the market where your company operates.
Secondly, they must assume the role of a reference point as it will require extra work from them in the preparation, production, and dissemination of content. If we force the salespeople, we won’t achieve it because there will be resistance to the project.
Thirdly, they need to be trained in content production and dissemination, as their work will shape the clients’ opinions.
Fourthly, the editorial plan must be generated, together with the marketing and communication department. This editorial plan must define the theme of the content over time, the format of the content, and the frequency of its publication. One of the most important things we must keep in mind is that a reference is not a spokesperson, meaning that their content should be informative or applicable to your products, but always from their individual perspective.
Fifthly, we must establish a metric that is useful to us, not solely based on likes, comments, and the number of times the post has been shared. These metric elements can be combined, for example, with the number of contents used by the field sales team.
In sixth place, we must establish moments of content production during the week in the daily routine of the reference person, as this task cannot be left to the team’s volunteerism, especially outside of working hours.
In seventh and last place, we must establish a recognition program for the work of the leaders, as their talent will accelerate the business development of your company.
The development of a team of representatives within a sales team generates short-term results because clients want interlocutors who provide concrete improvements to their businesses.
Implementing a mentoring program in your company will give you a competitive advantage over your competitors, whether they are large or small.
Do you want to gain competitiveness? Turn your salespeople into benchmarks.
| David Galve | General Director www.linkedin.com/in/davidgalve |  |
