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Timothy (Tim) Hughes

Co-Founder and CEO at DLA Ignite

London, United Kingdom

Author of de facto social selling book for Sales People "Social Selling - Influencing Buyers and Changemakers" - With new 2nd edition out now!

For your speaker, social selling advice or consulting engagements please contact me tim@dlaignite.com

10 years ago I embarked on an amazing journey with social media when I sent my first Tweet. In that time I've become (according to Onalytica) the number one most influential social selling expert and a top 10 influencer, as well as creating an amazing community of 178,000 followers on Twitter and 31,000 on Linkedin.

6 years ago I started DLA Ignite with my business partner Adam Gray, our vision is simple, to place social media / digital as a strategy in every business. In that time we have transformed business after business to using digital across sales, human resources etc. We do this by empowering people and creating a workforce who are digital at their core. Thus enabling them to take advantage of what digital processes gives us, in sales for example you can expect a 30% increase in sales and a 20% reduction in your sales cycle. In HR, you can expect to reduce the cost of recruitment consultants and job ads, while being the employer of choice at the same time.

Either way, by being digital you should be able to strip out cost from your business and make it more efficient.

Either way if you are looking to be number one in your market (regardless of your company size) or remove the competition from your market, this is what we do on a day-by-day basis.

If you want to start somewhere then buy my book "social selling - techniques to influence buyers and changemakers - 2nd edition" which is available on Amazon worldwide or wherever books are sold.


Brand 24 - 16th most influential marketer in the world - 2022

One of LinkedIn’s 8 sales experts to follow in 2021

Available For: Speaking
Travels From: London
Speaking Topics: Social Selling, Sales Transformation, The importance of a business to be empowered on social media

Speaking Fee $3,500 (In-Person), $3,500 (Virtual)

Timothy (Tim) Hughes Points
Academic 0
Author 203
Influencer 289
Speaker 0
Entrepreneur 20
Total 512

Points based upon Thinkers360 patent-pending algorithm.

Thought Leader Profile

Portfolio Mix

Company Information

Company Type: Enterprise
Business Unit: DLA Ignite
Theatre: Global
Minimum Project Size: Undisclosed
Average Hourly Rate: Undisclosed
Number of Employees: Undisclosed
Company Founded Date: Undisclosed
Media Experience: I was Media trained at Oracle Corporation
Last Media Training: 12/31/1969

Areas of Expertise

AI
AR/VR
Blockchain
Business Strategy
Change Management
Cloud
Culture 30.02
Customer Experience 32.07
Digital Disruption
Digital Transformation 30.05
Digital Twins 30.67
Diversity and Inclusion
Ecosystems
Emerging Technology
Entrepreneurship
ERP
Future of Work 30.05
HR
Innovation
Leadership 30.11
Management
Marketing 35.13
Mergers and Acquisitions
Metaverse
Privacy 30.08
Procurement 30.04
Sales 58.68
Social 56.50
Startups
Supply Chain
Personal Branding 45.81

Industry Experience

Consumer Products
Federal & Public Sector
Healthcare
High Tech & Electronics
Manufacturing
Media
Pharmaceuticals
Professional Services
Telecommunications
Travel & Transportation
Wholesale Distribution

Publications

65 Article/Blogs
What actually does the term "digital twin"​ really mean and how does it impact on your revenue creation?
LinkedIn
November 01, 2022
There is a term that is being bandied about in the world called "the digital twin" but what does it mean and did you know it has a revenue impact on your business?

See publication

Tags: Digital Transformation, Social, Digital Twins

With a possible recession on the way, how to get ahead now and give the CFO the efficiency gains they will start asking for
LinkedIn
July 30, 2022
Are we heading for a recession, I don't know, we could after all be talking ourselves into one?

The war in Ukraine, political upheaval in many countries seems to be creating the structure that could certainly mean we could hit one.

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

We need to get higher in accounts, but how?
LinkedIn
July 01, 2022
At a client we had two control groups, the first was taken through our "social selling and influence" program, which is you didn't know is now a full qualification and backed Institute of Sales Professionals (ISP) the global trade body for sales.

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

Can social selling help me with RevOps?
Digital Leadership
November 02, 2021
Revenue Operations (RevOps) is placing all of the revenue generation roles under one leadership structure.

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Tags: Digital Transformation, Social, Marketing, Sales

Here is your 2022 sales and marketing plan
LinkedIn
August 24, 2021
In case you missed it, the Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch have banned cold calling and have moved all their people to social selling. This isn't some trendy tech company that might have decided to do this on a whim, this is a very conservative financial services company that has made a decision based on data.

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

Why being an analogue company is OK
LinkedIn
August 20, 2021
This week I spotted a conversation on LinkedIn where a bunch of cold callers got together in a huddle and talk about how great cold calling is.

We all love a bit of nostalgia. It reminded me of my parents telling me that the music was better in their day.

We often get salespeople coming to us day and day our asking for help. They say that all their leaders know about is cold calling and send emails and to get more pipeline is to make more calls and send more emails. And that dear reader is totally fine.

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Tags: Social, Leadership, Sales

Do you have a "digital hope"​ sales strategy?
LinkedIn
August 13, 2021
Panel Discussion: 8 Questions to Prepare CSOs for Postpandemic Success

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Tags: Social, Future of Work, Sales

Accelerating digital skills is one of the top priorities for finance leaders
LinkedIn
August 03, 2021
In this article I explain how digital is impacting the Finance and Procurement departments and how the modern digital business needs to empower it's team(s) with digital skills.

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Tags: Procurement, Leadership

Can social selling help me get past gatekeepers?
LinkedIn
July 28, 2021
Well in the past, you called people up and pitched your product or service or you sent an email and pitched your product and service or even before that you wrote a letter and pitched your product or service. Companies built "infrastructure" to stop these calls, emails and letters getting through and bothering company executives. A whole industry grew up in terms of trying to get your message in front of people. The gatekeeper was born.

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Tags: Social, Leadership, Sales

Can social selling help me if my prospect list is out of date?
LinkedIn
July 21, 2021
Can social selling help me if my prospect list is out of date?

I was once given a prospect list and one of the companies had not existed for 10 years.

So what can you do if you are new to a territory or set of accounts and need to create desire for your product or service for the first time?


At the end of this article is a whole bunch of articles that you might also find useful.

If this article has been useful and you think it would be helpful to your network or individuals then please share it. Please also tag in the individuals.

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Tags: Social, Leadership, Sales

Can I use social selling to sell into a territory?
LinkedIn
July 05, 2021
Many article are written about sales but they tend to assume either a sales person is selling into one account, or a handful of accounts. What if you are selling into 100s or 1000s of accounts?

The word I would always use when managing teams that had a territory of 100s or 1000s of accounts was "coverage". How as a salesperson do you get coverage of your territory?

How are you going to speak to as many people as you can in the short time you have, after-all the average salesperson has only 200 days to make their number.

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Tags: Leadership, Sales

Why Your Sales Aren’t Growing
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July 13, 2020
by Tim Hughes | @Timothy_Hughes | LinkedIn We are often called into companies and what they say to us is the following:- We are operating in increasingly challenging market, suffering from declining pipe and increased pressure on margin. Previous strategies that relied heavily on our insta

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

The Five Cornerstones of Social Selling
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July 09, 2020
by Tim Hughes | @Timothy_Hughes | LinkedIn When, Adam, Alex and I set up the business coming up to four years ago, we never thought that we would ever make so much impact to so many companies.  There were a number of foundations to Social media that we decided on and still keep to:- All..

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

The Importance Of Salespeople Blogging in Times of Adversity
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June 20, 2020
by Tim Hughes | @Timothy_Hughes | LinkedIn I watched Alex Low going a presentation today for the Association of Professional Sales (APS) it always amazes me how Alex can turn what is a “complex” piece of software like Sales Navigator and can break it down, so it looks so easy to use.

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

How Covid19 Changed The Modern Buyer and Changed Sales and Marketing
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June 08, 2020
by Tim Hughes | @Timothy_Hughes | LinkedIn I’m doing a webinar on Thursday and I’ve just got off a practice call. It’s partly, to test the technology, (ironically a person from Huawei, couldn’t connect as they use an old version of Microsoft Internet Explorer), it was a

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

Why This Management Consultancy Chose Social Selling
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May 29, 2020
by Tim Hughes | @Timothy_Hughes | LinkedIn In the Tweet that has been circulating, the question is asked “who lead the digital transformation of your company?” The choices being A) CEO, B) CTO and C) Covid-19 With Covid19 being circled. There is an irony about this that is very true. P

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

Why You Need to Make Your Product Strategic In These Difficult Times
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May 18, 2020
by Tim Hughes | @Timothy_Hughes | LinkedIn I bet you are wondering why this article isn’t about working from home, managing people who work from home, new sales plans etc. Why would I write about making your product strategic? Well actually, it might mean the difference between selling a

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

Covid19 – So What Are You Going To Do to Get Out of This Mess?
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May 13, 2020
by Tim Hughes | @Timothy_Hughes | LinkedIn I’m amazed how quickly the world has changed, I’m trying to get a meeting with a friend of mine and he said he would be free, after three in the afternoon. Strange, I though, because I had a pre-covid19 mindset. Dave has children, surely he wo

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

Covid19 – Why You Shouldn’t Furlough Your Sales People
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May 04, 2020
by Tim Hughes | @Timothy_Hughes | LinkedIn A friend of mine, in sales has just contacted me, he’s been furloughed. I’m totally baffled why a company would do this, as I am, why a company has furloughed a marketing friend of mine. Sales and Marketing is the engine room of a company and

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

Covid19 – Investing in People During the Coronavirus
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May 01, 2020
by Tim Hughes | @Timothy_Hughes | LinkedIn Just off the phone from a Senior VP and he shared some really interesting insight. Research shows that 70 – 95% of people are now working from home and his view was that with Covid19 we have “re-imagine work”. He joked that maybe we need

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

Why You Need Opinion Not Thought Leadership in Turbulent Times
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April 28, 2020
by Tim Hughes | @Timothy_Hughes | LinkedIn One of my team recently posted something on LinkedIn. A friend of mine said “that should split opinion”. It did, and that was a good thing.  We shouldn’t be afraid of polarising opinion, the people that agree with you, will buy from you, th

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

Social Media Has Grown Up - But Have We Noticed?
linkedin
January 28, 2020
Social media has changed society and its changed business. Just think, the Arab spring, the ALS Ice Bucket challenge and turn on the TV News and it will be about who has tweeted. You may not like the freedoms that social media gives us in society, but the genie is out of the bottle.

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Tags: Social, Leadership, Future of Work

Agent of Change? - It's Your Time
linkedin
January 20, 2020
Here at DLA Ignite we believe that Social Media has had a transformative impact on both society and commerce.

This is evidenced by the fact that we switch on the TV at night and the News is about who has tweeted this and tweeted that. In fact the news is often about what has been going on in social media, rather than actual journalism. As a person you may not like this, but it is the way that mobile, the internet and social media has changed the world.

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

11 Leadership Books to Start Your New Year
linkedin
January 14, 2020
Here are reviews of the last ten books I’ve read, I hope this blog enables you to make choices on some of the amazing books out there.

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

5 Leadership Books to Sharpen Your Leadership Skills
linkedin
November 11, 2019
If you are a new manager, want to be a manager, or just want to deal with people "better" this is the book for you. Julis is no "management guru" there are no rules or laws, this is just simple, straight forward advice based on her experiences at Instagram / facebook. One of the things I like is her honesty, she does not make out she is some management superhero. We all make mistakes, right? She shares with you her mistakes and what she learned. I'm already implementing a number of her recommendations and suggestions.

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

3 Author Newsletters
Why the marketing plan you've written for 2024 is already obsolete
LinkedIn
October 03, 2023
In this article, it explains the transformation that is taking place in sales and marketing today because of artificial intelligence (AI).
Have you ever used ChatGPT? Link here.
The title for this blog was going to be
"Why AI killed SEO and your website and if your not optimizing for artificial intelligence algorithms, you're already behind"

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Tags: Digital Transformation, Marketing, Sales

Research: What do buyers want from content?
LinkedIn
September 21, 2023
In this new report by Sprout Social, Inc. it looks at evolving customer expectations of social media marketing and therefore content. What we find, probably does not surprise any of us, customers want authentic, non promotional content, customers want original content, customers want brands to engage with them, customers expect brands to have an online presence. After all, we all know that all brochures and literature, says the same thing "buy my product because we are great" and of course we ignore it.

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Tags: Sales

Digital sales transformation, are we there yet?
LinkedIn
June 01, 2023
When Adam Gray and I started DLA Ignite 6 and half years ago we assumed with digital and social media so prevalent, even then we thought we had a 18 month window before everybody "got" the subject of sales transformation with digital.

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Tags: Digital Transformation, Leadership, Sales

1 Book
Social Selling Techniques to Influence Buyers and Changemakers
Kogan Page
February 03, 2020
As the digital landscape has changed buyers' habits, it's increasingly difficult to reach them early enough in their decision-making process using traditional sales methods. Developing relationships with decision-makers through social networks has become an increasingly critical skill - enabling sales professionals to engage early on and 'hack' the buying process. Social Selling provides a practical, step-by-step blueprint for harnessing these specific and proven techniques including:

- How to use networks purposefully to build social trust and create a high quality community
- How to develop real influence and authority in your subject area and connect with change-makers
- How to scale the social selling strategy across an organization including maturity and investment models, risk and governance, and technology platforms.

Written by Tim Hughes, a thought-leader and renowned practitioner in social selling, and Matt Reynolds, one of the UK's leading technology sociologists, this is essential reading for sales professionals, digital sales directors and SMEs who want to embrace the power of social selling in their organisation. The book is also supported by eight bonus 'how-to' articles, giving more depth on how to run the processes discussed in the book.

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Tags: Customer Experience, Social, Sales, Personal Branding

1 Founder
Co-Founder and CEO at DLA Ignite
DLA Ignite
July 01, 2016
Our Story: Building a Global Organisation

Tim and Adam formed DLAignite when they saw the effect that social media could have and realised that in the future social media would probably play a crucial role in the effectiveness of all organisations. They founded DLAIgnite in September 2016 and were almost immediately joined by Alex. As the business and clients grew they decided that, rather than recruit more and more staff, they would turn their consulting, sales and training expertise in to a series of programmes that could be delivered by associates and partners. This offered the ability to quickly scale and to offer local language/cultural versions of proven methods around the world.

We have a series of acknowledged experts in industry verticals as well as social disciplines and these resources are spread across the world so we can offer our clients deep sector expertise as well as implementation expertise.

To date through our associate and partner networks we operate in territories covering well over 40% of the world’s population and are constantly expanding this.

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

2 Media Interviews
2 Common Social Selling Objections and Mistakes(part 1 with Tim Hughes)
Credibility Marketing
April 08, 2022
For sales reps that invest in social media, 64% hit their team quota—compared to only 49% of reps hitting their team quota that don’t use social media

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

"Social Selling and Referral Selling is all you need" Tim Hughes (TALKING SALES 247)
Sales Leader Forums
February 12, 2019
Tim Hughes is challenging our thinking in this series of discussions.
In this one he says we don't need to be doing anything except leveraging social selling and referral selling to fill our pipeline.

He is saying forget about cold calling, emailing, In-mailing and any other method of prospecting. He says they just don't work effectively any more. All you need to do is leverage social and conduct referral selling.

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

25 Podcasts
#TimTalk – Collaboration is the new competition with .Priscilla McKinney.
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November 17, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – How to use LinkedIn as part of your sales strategy with Scott Aaron
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November 07, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – Measuring what matters in sales with Alex Abbott
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October 27, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk - You own a new business and need to sell, what next? – with Carole Mahoney
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October 16, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk - Asking the right questions to get the best outcomes with Deb Calvert
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October 11, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – Why social selling is perfect for B2B with Robert Lis
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September 21, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – How to drive growth by marketing to your employees with Kerry-Ann Betton Stimpson
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September 07, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – How to create a social media strategy with Dhariana Lozano
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August 24, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – The power of connection for non-for-profits with Nicole Porter
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August 22, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – Leading sales transformation in difficult times with Eric Stine
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June 26, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – Selling without selling with Sharon Zehavi
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June 16, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

How to sell better by selling less?
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May 23, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk - Walking digital corridors and having digital conversations Alex Abbott
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May 19, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – How to start a Rev-Ops Process with Daniel Hall
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April 11, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – Whoever tells the best story wins with John Livesay
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March 08, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

What does Mark Schaefer think about "social selling - techniques to influence buyers & changemakers"
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January 16, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – How to go from zero to one for your pitch with Martin Barnes
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December 22, 2022

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – RevOps as a strategy with Rosalyn Santa Elena
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December 15, 2022

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – Converting the unresponsive prospect with Tom Stanfill
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December 01, 2022

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – Everybody and every business that can educate have something to give with Kyle Jepson
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November 15, 2022

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – How to go from SDR to CEO of a software company with Greg Reffner
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October 27, 2022

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – Sales management that works with Frank Cespedes
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October 18, 2022

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – Why content marketing is bigger and wider than we think it is with Barb Mosher Zinck
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October 13, 2022

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – Demand side sales- Stop selling and help your customers make progress with Bob Moesta
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October 06, 2022

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – Why sales people need to get a social selling qualification with Adam Gray
Timothy Hughes
May 12, 2022
Adam is the co-founder of DLA Ignite and head of their IP team

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

Thinkers360 Credentials

6 Badges

Radar

2 Predictions
The clear business case for a personal brand

Date : November 17, 2023

Personal branding came of age in 2023. Up to this point it was deemed as a nice-to-have concept.

Now there is clear research / data / science backing the business case for a personal brand.

With over 60% of the world's population active on social media, it comes no surprise to anybody that the modern buyer, your employees, your future employees and your future investors are active on social media. So as a business if you want to sell, be the employer of choice in your business or seek investment you have to be active on social media. When I mean active, a personal brand is table stakes for all employees in business today.

So what about the science?

Data shows that start-up CEOs and businesses where the leadership team have a personal brand get significantly more backing from investors. This stands to reason because the modern investor is active on social media.

Also in their book "the jolt effect", reviewing a data set of 2 million, Matthew Dixon and Ted McKenna demonstrate why a personal brand, (they call it "buyer's agent") is defacto for sales. In fact if you don't have one, it will impact your win rate the revenue your business can close.

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2024 Predictions for B2B Influencer Marketing

Date : October 30, 2023

Brands will continue to treat Influencer Marketing like paid media in 2024. That is, you pay an Influencer to say "buy my product because we are great". Over time, brands will recognise this no different to corporate propaganda and does not create digital resonance with their buyers. Brands are still grappling with the fact that as a buyer, I'm interested in my relationships with other people on social media and not interested in a brand or what it does.

2024 will be the year where brands see that Influencer Marketing is about using the Influencers Influence to create Influence for the brand. For example, joint creation of content, quotes for reports, etc. The Influencer is the expert, the brands job is to "stand next to" the influencer and hope that some of that influence rubs off.

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Blog

Opportunities

1 Keynote
Sales Kick Offs

Location: Anywhere    Date Available: April 12th, 2018     Fees: To be discussed.

Submission Date: April 12th, 2018     Service Type: Service Offered

Speak at sales kick offs on the changing world of sales. How the internet now drives the buying process and what we need to do as a salespeople to meet this buyer disfunction. Presentations can be 20 minutes, 50 minutes or I can do a 2 hour workshop.

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