LITMIR.BIZ

      Cover design: Wiley

      Copyright © 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

      Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

      Published simultaneously in Canada.

      Social Selling Mastery is a registered trademark.

      No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

      Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

      For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.

      Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.

       Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

      Names: Shanks, Jamie, author.

      Title: Social selling mastery: scaling up your sales and marketing machine for the digital buyer / Jamie Shanks.

      Description: Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., [2016] | Includes index.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2016023352 (print) | LCCN 2016031884 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119280736 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119280767 (epdf) | ISBN 9781119280866 (epub)

      Subjects: LCSH: Internet marketing. | Selling. | Electronic commerce. | Social media.

      Classification: LCC HF5415.1265 .S525 2016 (print) | LCC HF5415.1265 (ebook) | DDC 658.8/72 – dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016023352

      PREFACE

      My life changed forever on April 18, 2012, in Dallas, Texas. On that particular day, I was a first-time attendee to the AA-ISP (American Association of Inside Sales Professionals) annual Leadership Summit. I was the Toronto AA-ISP chapter president at the time, yet hadn't been able to attend the 2011 event because I had absolutely no money. That year was a disastrous one for my business, which you'll feel a true appreciation for by the end of this preface. At the 2012 AA-ISP Leadership Summit, I felt like a fish out of water. There, at this event, were all the big names of inside sales – Anneke Seley, Trish Bertuzzi, Ken Krogue, Jill Konrath, and hundreds more. Then there was me, from Canada, a 33-year-old absolute nobody in the industry. I remember feeling really awkward at the event because I was there to learn, but I also was very starstruck. My heroes have always been business leaders and now I was in a room with the top sales minds in the world. I kept saying to myself, “I'm meeting the people whose books are on my book shelf at home.” I just wanted someone to pay attention to me.

      To better understand my sense of desperation at the time, I'll paint you a picture of my financial dire straits. I'll take the story back three more years, to the summer of 2009. In that year, I was a self-proclaimed, hot-shit sales leader who made magic happen every time I picked up the phone. I was convinced that I was wasting my talents leading one sales team as an employee when I could be consulting to 10 at the same time as an entrepreneur. On January 4, 2010, I quit my job as the director of sales at Firmex (a SaaS software start-up in Toronto) and became a consultant. The first thing I learned about consulting is that there are zero barriers to entry, but 99 reasons why you'll fall flat on your face! I convinced myself that local Toronto technology companies would flock to my greatness. I'll spare you 18 months of terrible stories, but suffice it to say, I had a failing business that couldn't seem to turn a profit. I kept asking myself, “Why is my business such a disaster?” The answers to my problematic start were only clear to me years later:

      Nearly two years after starting my business, in March 2011, I was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Then, like a slap in the face from sales karma, three days before my wedding, the bomb dropped! I went to visit my top-billing client at the company's office and the doors were locked. I came to find out that certain executives of this company had committed fraud by illegally sucking money out of the corporation. All non-equity-owning C-level executives, the employees, and unsecured contractors got screwed overnight! As an unsecured contractor, my business was never going to get paid. I was owed $35,000, but with the state of my financial affairs, it might as well have been $100,000,000. I was dead! I had little backfill of clients to support this mounting debt and I was leaving for Costa Rica for my wedding, and then to Paris, France, for our honeymoon in just three…freaking…days! There was no way I was telling my soon-to-be wife what had just happened, as I assumed if I did, that this marriage thing would be over before it even began.

      After returning home from an amazing, but very expensive, wedding and honeymoon, reality sunk in. I came back to a rainy Toronto in late March 2011 only to fully grasp the devastation to my business. I was faced with laying off all my employees, not paying myself for two months, and no real prospects to help my family survive. I was scared, so scared that I felt like vomiting nearly every day. I was in desperation mode, one of several moments that will define what kind of person you are. Many entrepreneurs around the world have had very similar moments like mine, and many times, their best eureka moments are sparked from desperation. My eureka moment ignited a second-half comeback that warrants me telling you this story to help set the stage for this book.

      Throughout the summer of 2011, I worked to support my few remaining clients, but was preoccupied with thinking about new business development for myself. At night, every night, many times at 3 a.m., I would be in our spare bedroom, staring aimlessly at my laptop, hoping that some serendipitous event would come save my business. I can vividly

Скачать книгу