Why IBM Supports Social Media for B2B Tech Sales

Big Blue Fosters “Personal Online Branding” for Sales Reps 

It’s my pleasure to catch up with Ed Linde II, one of IBM’s successful inside sales managers and leading advocate of marketing and selling via social media. Ed was a client of mine in a past life – about 20 years past – and I was impressed when LinkedIn revealed to me that Ed was still enjoying his tenure at IBM to this day. When it comes to B2B tech sales via social media, Ed is certainly a “person to know”. It’s my pleasure to introduce you to him, and stir up your thoughts about the relevance of social media, particularly how it can be used in B2B technology sales.

 

Letting the Customer Lead you to the Top 

Kathy Tito: Ed, how long have you been with IBM? 

Ed Linde II: My first day was August 1^st, 1985. I started as a sales rep selling telecom hardware and software and went on to become a client sales rep. Since I did have an MBA in marketing, I had a strong interest in that subject and moved into product marketing in 1991. Once IBM started to get into the direct business we had a Lotus recruit setting up a direct sales channel. He didn’t have any takers, but I raised my hand. We developed and executed a 3174 terminal controller upgrade campaign and our goal was $1 million in sales. We ended up doing $6 million instead and broke the switchboard on the volume of incoming calls. I got hooked as I realized that direct marketing was the intersection of marketing strategy and sales execution. 

Direct marketing morphed into digital marketing in the late 90s as we established our e-commerce business. That has gone through some iterations, but we’re always enabling the sales team. It’s been a long and fun career.

 

Kathy Tito: In this age of IT, where products some and go, you often hear people say, “It’s not like the days when you worked for IBM and you stayed there for your whole career.” You have certainly bucked the trend, and stayed with IBM. To what do you attribute your tenure there? 

Ed Linde II: It’s a combination of things. Companies come and go in this industry, and in the 1990s IBM had its own near-death experience. I think that corporate instability can be attributed to not enough listening to customers or prospects and adjusting as needed. 

I’ve been a people manager for 15 years. My success hinges on helping people succeed and creating a vision to accomplish extraordinary things. Nobody can ever guarantee you a job for life. But what we can do, and what we owe people, is an environment where we help them stay competitive. IBM has a high performance culture. In order to have sustainability you have to constantly be looking around you and identify problems and opportunities that need to be addressed. 

If you put the customer first, company second, and yourself last – everyone will make out fine. Don’t lose sight of the most important person, the customer. Take a very positive approach to helping them solve problems. This contributes to longevity for everyone.

When I talk to younger generations, they sometimes have a different orientation. Being in front of the customer helps set your guiding principals. I encourage people starting out to spend time with customers. 

 

Digital Selling: the New Frontier 

Kathy Tito: I’ve seen your name associated with social media and some pretty impressive claims, such as using it to make millions of dollars in sales. What first interested you in social media? What was adopting social media like for you? 

Ed Linde II: What first interested me in social media was my need to keep up with what other marketers were doing. I am conscious of getting too parochial – and I want to avoid that. In order to be the best marketer or salesperson you can be, you have to look for trends as they emerge and get on that early adoption cycle. 

IBM has been very supportive regarding digital sales techniques and social media in order to extend reach, frequency, and scope of our communication and relationships.

Digital communication has the potential to make things either extremely impersonal – OR – extremely personal, forming a much better bond between you and your constituents. 

We supported “rep pages”, training, use of text and video chat to improve collaboration, to name a few tactics. I think the biggest challenge a B2B marketer has is getting the salesperson to realize that you have to create your own personal brand. You have to be interesting and engaging, so people will want to contact you to add value to them as a customer. 

 

“I think the biggest challenge a B2B marketer has is getting the salesperson to realize that they have to create their own personal brand online. You have to be interesting and engaging, so people will want to contact you to add value to them as a customer.” –Ed Linde II 

 

The internet has become a great equalizer. Customers used to go to the company or sales rep because they had a problem and they needed the sales person to help them deploy a solution. Nowadays, 60-70% of customers do all of their research on the web before they ever engage a sales rep. They want to ask intelligent question and have a good dialog about the solution. That raises the bar for what is expected of sales and marketing people. 

 

“Nowadays, 60-70% of customers do all of their research on the web before they ever engage a sales rep. They want to ask intelligent question and have a good dialog about the solution. That raises the bar for what is expected of sales and marketing people.”- Ed Linde II 

 

Customers want to find someone to buy from who is smarter than they are on the topic. Reps need to know more about everything that is related – what industry pundits say, trade articles, competition, etc., so when they engage, they are a cornucopia of information and can talk intelligently from all sides. That is all supported at IBM. You do need to adhere to business conduct guidelines, but we encourage sales reps to have a unique voice and represent themselves. 

Kathy Tito: Fostering that kind of online individualism sounds somewhat unexpected from an organization known for process and protocol. 

Ed Linde II: We create messages to help them sell via social media. But as we evolve, we need the sellers to become astute enough to find their own content sources. They are creating their own personal brand – within IBM. IBM provides guidelines, but very much encourages individualism online, which is useful to the sales process.

 

More to Come for Selling Technology via Social Media

Kathy Tito: Is it true that IBM predicts an increasing role for social media in business transactions? 

Ed Linde II: We have done research and we know that customers use social media as part of the decision making process. It makes sense. They trust other customers more than the vendor. Smart marketers will leverage this further. The next step is further collaboration between vendor and customer to develop offerings. At the end of the day, everything will be developed with a tighter customer point of view. 

 

“We have done research and we know that customers use social media as part of the decision making process. It makes sense. They trust other customers more than they do the vendor.” –Ed Linde II

 

Kathy Tito: Do you have any pearls of wisdom for marketers who are interested in staying with a company for the long term? 

Ed Linde II: You need to be able to reinvent yourself, learn new things, and try new things Realize that every day is a learning experience. Each day you need to learn, hone skills, and acquire new skills. Not only embrace change, but lead change. Help change the destiny of your company along with your own career. 

 

An Inside Look at one of IBM’s Approaches to Social Selling:

“Listening for Leads” combines social media and telemarketing

IBM has a program called Listening for Leads, where we have people we call “seekers” who on a voluntary basis go to particular social media sites where they listen to conversations and determine whether there’s a potential sales opportunity.

The “seekers” go on a voluntary basis to sites in the public sector. For example, government agency sites where RFPs [request for proposals] are posted, and there are discussions about proposals. In the tech space, there might be blogs or discussion boards about the new Intel chip for servers. We’ll monitor those conversations.

Seekers listen to and look at conversations. For example, if someone says, “I’m looking to replace my old server” or “Does anyone have any recommendations on what kind of storage device will work in this in type of situation?” or “I’m about to issue a RFP; does anyone have a sample RFP I could work from?” Those are all pretty good clues that someone’s about to buy something or start the buying process.

We try to identify those leads, get them to a lead development rep that is a telephone sales rep who has been trained to have a conversation with the lead to qualify and validate the opportunity. They’ll qualify and validate it and then pass it to the appropriate sales resource to follow up.

Source: eMarketer’s interview with Ed Linde

 

Kathy Tito, President of New England Sales & Marketing, provides lead generation services to B2B companies. Her offerings include social media services and training for organizations that are interested in leveraging social selling to fuel their sales pipelines, develop more lucrative partnerships, and raise brand awareness affordably. She can be reached at (978)387-0999 or ktito@newenglandb2bmarketing.com

 

Ed Linde II’s title is Senior Marketing Manager, IBM Inside Sales STG, GARS and Digital Sales Programs. Feel free to visit his rep page: www.ibm.com/myrep/ell11