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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 270
Influencer 290
Speaker 0
Entrepreneur 20
Total 580

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 31.82
Digital Disruption
Digital Transformation 30.05
Digital Twins 30.38
Diversity and Inclusion
Ecosystems
Emerging Technology
Entrepreneurship
ERP
Future of Work 30.05
HR
Innovation
Leadership 30.11
Management
Marketing 36.56
Mergers and Acquisitions
Metaverse
Privacy 30.08
Procurement 30.04
Sales 59.50
Social 64.18
Startups
Supply Chain
Personal Branding 42.60

Industry Experience

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

Publications

91 Article/Blogs
Talking to your parents about artificial intelligence (AI)
Linkedln
March 27, 2024
So let's take a step back for a moment. How about if I could pick you up tomorrow and I drive you to a place which is full of your prospects? All you have to do is grab a coffee or a tea and go up and talk to them. You can stay as long as you like.

See publication

Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

78% of the time, buyers have already established their requirements, including budget and capabilities, by the time they engage sellers
Linkedln
March 26, 2024
78% of the time, buyers have already established their requirements, including budget and capabilities, by the time they engage sellers. That means sellers have already lost most of their chance to shape the ultimate deal, or to convince the buyer to consider alternate means to hit their goals.

See publication

Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

Who would you like to do business with?
Linkedln
March 21, 2024
This salesperson knew everything there is to know about sports shoes, how they support the foot, how often you should change them. He didn't pitch to me. We had a conversation.

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

Every company knows it needs to be on social, it's then down to your execution
Linkedln
March 21, 2024
Every company I talk to knows they need to be on social.
The data is in and the arguments are over, for business it's then down to how they execute.
Being on social is all about pipeline, and revenue creation.

See publication

Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

Remember, if you are using research to inform your sales and marketing strategy, it's like driving forward, while looking through the rear view mirror
Linkedln
March 20, 2024
One of our clients hired a new Chief marketing officer (CMO), so they went to the market and hired a CMO with “20 years digital marketing experience”. Only to realise that meant the person's experience was …. 20 years old.

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

CEOs on social media secure greater investment; 20% more investment on Linkedin and 5.4% more investment on Twitter
Linkedln
March 14, 2024
"Steve Forbes once said that “Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business”. And in today’s world of digital media, that advice extends to a company’s founder too." Nice.

See publication

Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

How one of our new starters got 8 customer meetings in 3 hours with our social selling methodology
Linkedln
March 13, 2024
So let's take a step back for a moment. How about if I could pick you up tomorrow and I drive you to a place which is full of your prospects? All you have to do is grab a coffee or a tea and go up and talk to them. You can stay as long as you like.

See publication

Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

More conversations = more proposals = more revenue
Linkedln
March 12, 2024
I bet, every sale you have made has come off the back of a conversation?
I think we can pretty much say that conversations create more sales.
How about if we could create more conversations for your sales team?

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

82% of business decision-makers consider B2B content boring
Linkedln
March 08, 2024
In 2023, The Power of Provocation discovered that a staggering 82% of business decision-makers considered B2B marketing monotonous and repetitive.

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

The difference between relying on luck on LinkedIn (which is what you are doing now) and a social selling methodology
Linkedln
March 06, 2024
We see a lot of people on LinkedIn giving advice on what to do to get meetings.

See publication

Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

Why you are scaling the wrong thing on LinkedIn, you need to scale the intimacy of the conversation
Linkedln
March 01, 2024
I will cold call you and you will think wow what you sell is amazing and will buy one.

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

10 Leadership books to keep you mentally sharp this quarter
Linkedln
February 28, 2024
The book How Big Things get done – The surprising factors behind every success project, from home renovations to space exploration” by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner is a book about, as it says in the title, big projects.

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

Do you know how much you are wasting on sales tech every month?
Linkedln
February 21, 2024
“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

If I create a really great brochure and send it out to a lot of people, they will come and buy from me .... really?
Linkedln
February 16, 2024
If anything needed to have relationships it would be buying (and selling) AWS and of course, nobody buys from a brochure. Especially for any business selling something high-value, strategic or complex.

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

Have we resolved the issue of burn out in SDRs?
Linkedln
February 13, 2024
The World Health Organization (WHO) officially classified burnout as a medical diagnosis, including the condition in the International Classification of Diseases: “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”"

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

Casinos never arrest the first person they catch using a new cheating system - What that means for your use of that illegal Linkedin app
Linkedln
February 13, 2024
When Casinos catch somebody cheating with a new trick, they never arrest the first person they spot using this new cheating system. In fact they leave it 6 months.

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

I have a new account list and cannot get any of my new prospects to talk to me
Linkedln
February 09, 2024
I got a call from a friend of mine who has spent that last few weeks trying to get through to his new account list and they won't talk to him.

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

Last year you changed the logo, updated your messaging and website & still you have no pipeline - what are you going to do differently in 2024?
Linkedln
February 08, 2024
I was talking to a business at the end of 2023 and they told me they had
Updated the messaging
Changed the website
Created new cold calling scripts and changed the BDR team
Took out a whole bunch of ads
Attended a number of trade shows

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

Last year you trained everybody on Meddic or Challenger, now what?
Linkedln
February 07, 2024
This is great, sales is a process and working to with a sales methodology will mean you should win more sales pursuits, which will increase your revenues.

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

All of our salespeople have to get an SSI of 70 ... really?
Linkedln
February 06, 2024
I was talking to a sales leader last week and they said “we are social selling, all of our sales people have to get an SSI of 70”.

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

Don't get suckered by bad advice on LinkedIn
Linkedln
February 02, 2024
One of the interesting things about social media is that the barrier to entry to being an “expert” isn't very high, in fact it's zero

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

You do realise that spam written by ChatGPT is still spam?
Linkedln
January 26, 2024
They started with a spam message and you trained ChatGPT your writing style, you put in the business issues of your client, (assuming you know them) and out spat ….. a spam message.

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

Can you sell cars with social selling?
Linkedln
January 24, 2024
It's fun and enjoyable to do. Zero cost (other than time) and you build your own relevant audience to generate a pipeline of great clients.

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

70% of the buying journey is spent conducting research by buyers within the dark funnel
Linkedln
January 19, 2024
The 70% of the buying journey spent conducting research within The Dark Funnel is consistent, regardless of the length of the journey. If buyers take 10 months to buy, they’ll spend seven months in the Dark Funnel. If they take 20 months to buy, they’ll research anonymously for 14 months.

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

Layoffs are a symptom of poor sales and marketing
Linkedln
January 18, 2024
It stands to reason, if you are not selling enough and not making enough revenue you will lay people off

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

11 Author Newsletters
How your prospects and customers have been educated to be happy buying on social, and why your sales people and employees need to be there to
LinkedIn
March 29, 2024
When we bought the house we live in 9 years ago the estate agent (Realtor) told me I didn’t understand the market, nobody used social media to look for houses.

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

If you're interested in resolving burnout in your salespeople, read on...
LinkedIn
March 15, 2024
Where as the data shows that the DLA Ignite social selling selling methodology, reduces burnout, installs purpose into the sales team and has exponentially higher results than cold calling and sending email spam.

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

When your sales team are at a conference or event are they shopkeepers or networkers?
Linkedln
February 29, 2024
When I wasn't speaking I thought I would walk around the exhibition and talk to the vendors. It seems to be the style today that everybody dresses in a corporate polo shirt so you cannot tell people apart.

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

84% of deals are won by the first vendor that a buyer contacts
LinkedIn
February 22, 2024
In this 6sense's 2023 B2B Buyer Report. It's a must-read for B2B marketers. One of the key insights from the report is 84% of deals are won by the first vendor that a buyer contacts. This indicates that buyers have usually picked a winner and are merely conducting due diligence when speaking with other vendors.

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

What did we learn from the advertising at this years superbowl and what does this mean for your business going forward?
LinkedIn
February 15, 2024
This year at the superbowl brands paid millions for adverts and once again something played out like it does every year. In fact with every advert.

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

Why you don't need personalization you need relevance
LinkedIn
February 01, 2024
The other day there was an article on LinkedIn that talked about using ChatGPT to personalise a message

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Tags: Marketing, Social

When a buyer gets 70% through the buyer's journey, they have made up their mind and nothing is going to change it. Here's why
Linkedln
January 04, 2024
The 70% mark in the buyer journey
In an 11-month buying journey (the average cited in this study), most buyers only engage with the vendor once they hit the 70% mark (in this case, eight months). What Cunningham finds surprising is that it didn't matter who the person was - what role they played on the buying team or what level they were at in the company - that 70% didn't change.

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

Happy 2024! What have we learned in 2023
LinkedIn
December 29, 2023
Thought I would take some time out to share what we have learned in 2023 and give some look into the future

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

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

36 Podcasts
How to create a LinkedinLive
Import from youtube.com
March 08, 2024

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – The innovated seller with Jake Dunlap
Import from youtube.com
March 06, 2024

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – How to create a community that drives revenue with Derek E. Weeks
Import from youtube.com
February 29, 2024

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – How to build a community in a noisy world with Phil Aston
Import from youtube.com
February 27, 2024

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – Using AI in your sales team with Rob Durant
Import from youtube.com
February 15, 2024

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk - Why relationships and networks are critical in business today with David Nour
Import from youtube.com
February 13, 2024

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk - 50 challenges for 50 years inspired by cancer heroes with Jonathan Sharp
Timothy Hughes
February 08, 2024
With Jonathan turning 50, he decided that he wanted to something in his 50th year that was a little out of the ordinary and he wanted to do something for cancer research

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Tags: Marketing, Sales, Social

#TimTalk – The buying process is almost over before you know it with Kerry Cunningham
Import from youtube.com
February 07, 2024

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – Storytelling for the masses with Karen Eber
Import from youtube.com
January 31, 2024

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – Why you should obsess about customer pain with Richard Blundell
Import from youtube.com
December 05, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – Outbound is dead, oh no its not with Amanda Wilde
Import from youtube.com
December 01, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – Collaboration is the new competition with .Priscilla McKinney.
Import from youtube.com
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
Import from youtube.com
November 07, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – Measuring what matters in sales with Alex Abbott
Import from youtube.com
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
Import from youtube.com
October 16, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk - Asking the right questions to get the best outcomes with Deb Calvert
Import from youtube.com
October 11, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – Why social selling is perfect for B2B with Robert Lis
Import from youtube.com
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
Import from youtube.com
September 07, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – How to create a social media strategy with Dhariana Lozano
Import from youtube.com
August 24, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – The power of connection for non-for-profits with Nicole Porter
Import from youtube.com
August 22, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – Leading sales transformation in difficult times with Eric Stine
Import from youtube.com
June 26, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – Selling without selling with Sharon Zehavi
Import from youtube.com
June 16, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

How to sell better by selling less?
Import from youtube.com
May 23, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk - Walking digital corridors and having digital conversations Alex Abbott
Import from youtube.com
May 19, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

#TimTalk – How to start a Rev-Ops Process with Daniel Hall
Import from youtube.com
April 11, 2023

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Tags: Social, Marketing, Sales

Thinkers360 Credentials

8 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.

See Radar

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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Timothy (Tim) Hughes

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London, United Kingdom


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