The new rules of sales and service : how to use agile selling, real-time customer engagement, big data, content, and storytelling to grow your business

Content: Introduction 1    The Time Is NOW 5    Living in the Past: The Old School of Sales and Service 7    First Marketing and PR, Now Sales and Service 8    The New Rules of Marketing and PR Are Now Widely Adopted 9    Living Real-Time and Mobile Has Changed Everything We Do 10    Why Sales and Service Are Experiencing a Revolutionary Transformation 11    Restoring the Human Touch: The Compelling Power of Authenticity 12    The Importance of Story 13    Social Media Is All about Connecting and Sharing 13    Content Drives Sales and Service 14    We   re All in Sales and Service Now 14    Online Content That Informs, Entertains ... and Sells Insurance 15    Learning from Examples: How the Successes of Others Can Provide Ideas and Options for Your Own Organization 17    1 The Old World of Sales and Service 19    The Old Sales Model:    Dialing for Dollars    19    The Voice of Authority: When the Salesperson Was the Expert 20    The Salesperson Expert versus the Web-Educated Buyer 22       These Sales Leads Stink!    24    Tell the Truth: The Power of Authenticity 24    Customer Disservice: The Little Things That Drive Us Crazy 27       Please Take a Moment to Complete Our Survey   : All Take and No Give 28       There   s a Robocall on Line One. It Says It   s Urgent.    30    Receiving an Email Address Is Not an Invitation to Spam 32    Adding Social Media to Old School Sales and Support Is Still Old School 33    The Old Rules of Sales and Service 34    2 The New Rules of Sales and Service 37    Setting Down the Rules 37    Living Up to Their Name: OPEN Communications to Customers 40    The Communications Revolution That Wasn   t Televised 45    Time to Join the Revolution 48    An Invaluable Sales and Service Asset: Your Employees 49    Big Data. Rich Data. 50    An Underground Business Cooks Up Innovative Sales and Service to Discover a Menu for Success 52    Navigating Your Sales and Service Plan 55    3 Your Story 57    Storytelling 57       Let Me Tell You a Little Bit about Me   : The Story Customers Tell Themselves 58    Call Larry: How One Entrepreneur   s Story Defines a Company 59    The New Model: The Salesperson as Consultant 60    Mastering the Art of Effective Storytelling for Any Organization 64    The Health Club That Tells Its Story by Exercising an Attitude 66       What Happens Next?   : How a Compelling Narrative Builds a Following 69    4 Integrating Marketing and Sales with Buyer Personas 73    Creating Magic by Adding Context to Content 73    The Power of Content That Provides Exactly What You Need 75    The Nobis Hotel Sells to David Meerman Scott 76    Making Stuff Up 78    Annoying Three out of Four Customers 78    Egocentric Nonsense 80    Buyer Personas 80    No Red Alfa Romeo? 82    Multiple Personality Order 83    The Buyer Persona Interview 84    GoPro Keeps Its Buyer Personas in Focus and Sells Millions of Cameras 88    Close the Gap between Sales and Marketing 90    Buyer Persona Interview 92    Buyer Persona Profile 94    Midnight Oil 96    Sales and Marketing Working Together 97    People Reaching People 98    5 The Sales Cycle Is Now the Buying Cycle 99    We   re Buying. So Stop Selling. 99    The End of the High Pressure Zone 102    Mingling with Buyers at the Learning Party 103    Educate and Inform 105    The Buyers    Journey 106    Driving People into the Buying Process 107    The Collective Intelligence of a Million Mechanical Engineers Creates a Unique Marketplace ... and More 108    Now Raise Your Hand (Please) 109    Got Square Footage? 110    The Merging of Sales and Content to Facilitate the Close 111    A Customer for Life 113    Lead Generation Calculus 113    Growing Business in a Shrinking Industry ... without Leads 115    Please Don   t Squeeze the Buyers 117    Can I Have Your Phone Number? 117    Lessons from the Grateful Dead 118    The Hybrid Lead Generation Model 120    Defining Your Business in the Marketplace 121    Are You Watching Your Direct Competition or Your Customers? 123    Learning from Outside Your Comfort Zone 124    Do You Even Need Salespeople? 125    The Product That Virtually Sells Itself 127    Good for You, but What about the Rest of Us? 129    6 Agile, Real-Time Social Sales 131    The Quickest Wins My Business 131    The Ideal: Agile Sales 132    The Decisive Advantage: Speed 134    Context: The Key to Unlock Every Buyer 136    Newsjacking to Find Buyers 137    Ronnie Dunn   s Real-Time Disruption 138    The Art and Science of Newsjacking to Reach Buyers and Create Real-Time Sales Opportunities 139    Newsjacking: One Lawyer Considers the Legal Implications 142    Automation Runs Amok 143    When Real-Time Sales Put You at the Front of the Line 146    Who Is Selling Whom? 147    Agile Sales Require a Real-Time Mind-Set 148    Agile Sales Mean Going Off Script 150    Big Data Plus Real-Time Technology Drives Sales 150    Predictive Analytics 152    Social Selling and Your Customer Relationship Management 157    Brawn or Brains? 160    Buying Signals! 162    7 The New Service Imperative 163    Busted Dishwasher. Great Service. 163    What Is Customer Service Anyway? 165    The Elements of Customer Service 166    Customer Service and Corporate Culture 167    Content Creation 167    Great Customer Service Drives Sales 168    Getting Sales and Service into Alignment 168    Poor Customer Service Is the Norm 169    Teaching Customers to Wait for a Sale 171    A Clear Picture of How Great Service Generates Additional Leads 172    A Nonprofit Changes the Rules of Charitable Reporting While Also Changing the World 173       I Hope Everyone Who Works for Your Company Burns in Hell    176    Great Customer Service Starts in Person 179    Customer Service    Wow!    180    First, Educate and Inform Your Customers 181    Surveys: Your Opportunity to Gather Real Data 182    Using Customer Feedback to Grow Revenue 186    How to Conduct a Survey That Helps Grow Revenue 187    8 Agile, Real-Time Social Service 191    Embracing Change 191    The Real-Time Customer Engagement Mind-Set 192    How Boeing Used Real-Time Communications during the 787    Dreamliner Crisis 193    Putting Your Customers First 196    Customer Service Using Social Media 197    Vodafone Egypt Proves Social Customer Service Works Worldwide 200    People Want to Do Business with Other People 202    Lost in Clinical Gobbledygook 203    Terrible Healthcare Customer Service 204    Healthier Patients through Video Customer Service in Healthcare 205    Making Clients Feel More Connected 208    Making Healthcare Personal 209    Customers and Business Growth 212    Implementing Agile Customer Service 213    9 The Social You 215    When the World   s Attention Turns to Your Expertise 216    Getting Social 219    Why Social Networking Is like Exercise 220    People You Know 221    You   re Already Online 221    Building a Fan Base One Download at a Time 222    Don   t Hide in the Shadows 223    You Are Not a Cat 225    Building a Following 226    Tweeting Yourself into a Job 227    Inbound Job Search 229    Achieving Your Dreams 230    10 Your Social Company 235    Building the Social Selling Process into a Large Organization 235    Hiring for Social Success 239    Sales Managers Must Adapt, Too 241    Training for Social Success 242    A New Kind of Company 244    Your Sales and Service Ecosystem 246    Your Turn 247    Acknowledgments 249    About the Author 250    Index 251    Have David Meerman Scott Speak at Your Next Event! 260