Getting in-front of the right people at the right time has always been fundamental to sales success. So do sites like linkedin etc actually change the game or are they just variations on a theme? I ran a training session today on identifying buying influences. It was based on the CUTE model from Miller Heiman.
Coach
User Buyer
Technical Buyer
Economic Buyer
Linkedin can help you identify some of the above buying influences, but does it take the place of identifying and developing a Coach for each sale?
A Coach in this context is someone you have credibility with, and has credibility with the rest of the client’s buying influences and crucially has an interest in your sale taking place. Having a decent linkedin profile can help with your credibility but that’s about as far as I would take it, in this situation.
So using linkedin is just the start of your research and a means of networking and can’t take the place of the sales skills that have always been necessary to generate real success. What do you think?