Does your sales team have what it takes to build a personal brand? If the answer is no or not a resounding yes, read on.

Why do they need to?

No matter how prestigious your company's brand is, no matter how good your stuff is, people still buy from people.

 I wrote recently about how the fact that 57% of today’s business-to-business sales decisions are made before the customer even talks to a salesperson. So, you might ask, what difference does it make if my sales associates have a strong brand or not?

It is more important than ever! Since your prospects are much farther along in the decision process when they start the dialogue with your sales team, they need more, much more. It is not enough to be a talking brochure loaded with facts and figures, ROI calculations and case studies.

They need to understand the client’s opportunities and challenges and come with insights on how to maximize the first and eliminate the latter. If you are going to be trusted with that kind of responsibility the prospect will need to see some evidence of your credibility. Personal credibility, not just company credibility.

So, your sales team now must learn what marketing has been dealing with for some time. As the Internet changed how you could reach customers who might value your solutions we created websites. At first they were little more than brochures and business cards online. And that was OK - until Google came along.

Google started to rank websites according to their credibility which was determined by factors including freshness of content, amount of content, the words found in the content and the amount of people referring back to that content. Marketers adjusted and started paying for a spot at the top of the list Google presented. They also found out they could save money by earning the spot on top with credible, relevant information.

And just when we figured that out, so did everyone else!

It’s no longer enough for marketers to try to outbid the competition for ad space or to stuff their website copy with the words we use to find information. Now marketers have to deliver information so good I’d give you my email for it. So, you are seeing the great marketers put out infographics, best practices lists things to do and things to avoid, forecasting tools and calculators, and the list goes on.

Back to Sales

Just as our partners in marketing evolved so must our sales associates. Prospects need to be able to find us when they are ready for insights. Once they find us they will be looking for evidence of credibility. That’s your personal brand.

There are many ways to develop and improve your brand. For this article I’ll give you my top three personal branding tips:

1. Network, Network, Network

Meeting people where there are, at events or online, is still the best way to build your brand. Finding a few people you can help to achieve their goals is still the best way to develop a brand that says you are someone worth getting to know.

Coach your team to find a few more network connections everyday at every opportunity. Asking your associates how they make new connections is a much better conversation starter than “Have you sold anything yet?”

2. Speak

Your Mom probably told you not to brag about yourself. And, Mom is still right. We spend a great deal of time and energy training our sales asscoaites on the details about our products and services. But don’t let them become the least interesting person in the world by regurgitating that!

Find venues for them to brag about how much better customers are for having worked with them. Coach them to build stories about customer success. Let your reps know they don’t have to worry about people figuring out their role in it. Your audience will get that, you don’t have to shout about it.

3. Edit Social Profiles – Often

You could argue that this one should be first because it can lead to better networking and speaking. I put it here because if you know that you want your team to network and to speak, they will conclude that they need to get this done. It’s something they can do after hours by themselves. The others require a little outreach and might be a bit outside their comfort zone.

Just because this is a solo activity doesn’t mean you can’t inspire them to maintain a killer social profile. Share the best practices at your team meetings. Build some time in to work on profiles together. Try some guerrilla tactics together and make it fun.

Your team’s social profiles should be a reminder to prospects of the kind of success you can help them achieve. Your team's skills change, times change, climates change – encourage them to revisit their profile and keep it fresh. When they do update it, notice it and recognize them.

Use this personal branding tips to inspire your team, let me know how it’s going, and check back here for more ideas to help your sales associates achieve their maximum potential.