Empire Selling is the world’s only true digital selling methodology created by Dan Swift one of the founding fathers of social selling at LinkedIn, LinkedIn Sales Solutions and LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
Dan helps sellers, leaders and companies survive and thrive in an increasingly digital world. Buyers have changed the way they buy. Prospecting techniques like cold calling and cold emailing are increasingly ineffective and damage your professional and corporate brand. Sales methodologies that do not seamlessly incorporate industry shifting trends like the internet, social media and mobile technologies are obsolete.
In 2012 LinkedIn recruited Dan as a member of the senior leadership teeam to hire, train and lead the Sales Solutions division at LinkedIn and bring LinkedIn Sales Navigator to market. He then launched LinkedIn Sales Navigator for Financial Services, Insurance and Banking. During his tenure, he created the LinkedIn profile optimization program ‘Resume to Reputation’. This program now forms the backbone of LinkedIn’s recommendations to members on profile best practices.
To remain relevant, you can no longer carry on with outdated sales methodologies, strategies and tactics. You need to become just as digital as your customers.
Speaker Presentations
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“Over a year and a half ago the head of field marketing at Merrill Lynch asked me to figure out how to help advisors best leverage LinkedIn for client acquisition. For months, Dan traveled the country with me, sitting side-by-side with advisors in order to understand how to best enable them to succeed. Dan made the time (sometimes at 4 am) to lead progress amidst an increasingly regulated industry. He is passionate about his cause and together we made enormous strides in helping advisors source leads and ask for introductions, resulting in millions of dollars in new assets. Dan’s work ethic and dedication are the reason we attained the results we did. The work we did together, moving prospecting into the digital age, is the professional accomplishment I am the most proud of. His vision and strategic approach make him a rare find in today’s workplace. I feel lucky to have worked so closely with him on such a meaningful project”.
Dawn Schricke, Head of Advisor Enablement, Merrill Lynch
“Infectious energy, passion, clear vision and warm leadership are the words that come to mind when I think about the time I spent working with Dan. Dan is a master of his craft, one who truly empathizes with his client and sees the world through their eyes – whether it’s a Fortune 500 CEO or a new Advisor. His thirst for creating new paths, for getting to “yes”, fuels his spirit and as a client, you can’t help but walk away feeling as though you’re the only client that matters. I am grateful to Dan for showing us how to achieve scale, how to connect the dots and how to see the dots we didn’t even know were there”.
Beth Wood, Chief Marketing Officer, Guardian Life
“I recently took Dan’s Empire Selling course and he is EXCELLENT. He greatly accelerated my learning curve and gave me gave me great tools I can use immediately. Dan is also a sincerely nice person, who is interested in whomever he is speaking with. If you have the chance to work with/learn from Dan, be sure to take it”.
Mark Ricca, President & CEO, First American International Bank
“Dan Swift has an encyclopedic knowledge of social selling that he shares with polished presentation skills. He will not let you down! Dan was the featured speaker at my company’s 2016 Digital Expo in New Jersey. His presentation provided our audience of professional insurance agents with actionable takeaways they could implement immediately. He provided agents with expert advice on optimizing their LinkedIn profiles and leveraging their networks. His energy and insights had the audience completely engaged for the entire three hour presentation. He encouraged audience questions and was adept at answering them on the spot. I highly recommend Dan for any company looking to have a social selling expert provide concrete guidance and useful insights to their audience”.
Laura Castellano, Online Marketing Manager, Plymouth Rock
A Partial List of Dan’s Clients
Preview: LinkedIn Sales Solutions for Financial Institutions
LinkedIn Sales Connect: Social Selling in Complex Environments
Dan in the News
Social Media Integration For The Wealth Management-Industry-How to Stay Compliant
Dan Swift’s career started in working capital finance in the late nineties with GE Capital in Sydney. The next 10 years were spent at Complinet leading sales organizations in both London and New York before Complinet was acquired by Thomson Reuters in 2011.
LinkedIn recruited him as a member of the senior leadership team in 2012 to hire, train and lead the Sales Solutions division at LinkedIn and bring LinkedIn Sales Navigator to market. He then launched LinkedIn Sales Navigator for Financial Services, Insurance and Banking. During his tenure, he created the LinkedIn profile optimization program ‘Resume to Reputation’. This program now forms the backbone of LinkedIn’s recommendations to members on profile best practices.
In 2013, he introduced The Challenger Sale through the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) to LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In the summer of 2014 he trained the global LinkedIn Sales Solutions division on social selling in Chicago. In the same year he hosted LinkedIn FinanceConnect and LinkedIn SalesConnect for LinkedIn Sales Solutions.
In 2015, Onalytica Research named Dan as one of the leading social selling influencers globally. In the same year he joined Sprinklr as VP Sales, a social media management software company headquartered in New York. At Sprinklr, Dan implemented the digital selling program. The company is now valued at $1.8bn.
Dan has spoken around the world at industry conferences, universities and corporate sales events.
How does it work?
Dan Swift is your virtual instructor throughout the program. He introduces a new concept or strategy from the methodology at the start of each module, quickly followed by a demonstration of the tactics to execute against the concept or strategy. Dan weaves in real-life stories throughout the program from his own experience leading and selling with digital at GE Capital, Thomson Reuters, LinkedIn and Sprinklr. Dan encourages you to pause the program to go and execute against a concept or strategy, before coming back to continue your digital selling journey.
What will you learn?
Modern buying behavior and the impact on traditional sales outreach. Time is our most important commodity and we must spend it on activities that will have the biggest ROI.
Creating a digital customer-first professional identity (on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter) positioning yourself as a trusted advisor to your buyers. If your outreach is good enough, and your buyer is intrigued, the natural human reaction is to see who sent it. Without a robust digital presence, that does not elevate you from typical salesperson to trusted advisor, oftentimes the prospect’s interest stops here.
Building and nurturing your online professional and personal networks for warm introductions and new business opportunities. Why keep knocking on a closed door when an existing client, friend, colleague or family member could simply walk you in the door?
What else?
Executing a digital content strategy to generate net new leads. Not every buyer is in buying mode all the time. You must be ever present in their minds to develop their understanding of how you can solve issues, that in some instance they might not even know they have, and when they are ready to buy, they come to you and not your competitor.
Achieving industry thought leader status elevating you to the C-Suite to have true business conversations with budget owners. You get relegated to whom you sound. You stay at the C-Suite if you talk and share content that adds value at their level.
Finding and testing coaches, champions and economic buyers to fast-track sales cycles. You need a go-to-market approach for account planning, relationship mapping, and engagement plan… and then you need to execute. There are 6.8 people in the average B2B buying decision making process and 28 others that influence them. Are your sellers identifying them, building relationships with them, turning them into champions and creating a ground swell of need at all levels and areas of the ‘must-win’ accounts?
What else do I get?
You are automatically entered into an active online global community of forward-thinking digital sales professionals hosted on LinkedIn. Real time discussion around each component of the methodology allows you to ask questions of your peers. The group is moderated by Dan.
Anything else?
Leveraging digital insights to relate with buyers in a human way. People buy from people. Are your sellers selling in a human way and differentiating themselves from the competition or are they giving your competition the edge with in-human outreach that does not align to changing buyer behavior?
Leveraging digital insights to engage the right buyers to teach, tailor and take control of the sales process. Buyers are desperate to learn from sales professionals but sadly are experiencing seller and vendor fatigue. Sellers are not adding value to the buyer’s journey. This is your opportunity to win mindshare.
Executing effective multi-threading into target accounts to control the consensus purchase. Too often sellers get stuck talking to one person within an account who goes quiet and sales stall or die. It is critical for salespeople to multi-thread effectively at all levels within a target account and for success professionals to do the same to hunt for net new opportunities.
Partnering with procurement to close with precision, and much, much more
More?
Yes. You also gain access to monthly webinars hosted by Dan. He interviews top performing sales professionals and sales leaders from his network who are already successfully leveraging the Empire Selling Methodology.
That has got to be it, right?
Nope. You will also receive access to our weekly newsletter Empire Selling Weekly packed with tips and tricks to support you on your digital selling journey.
Today, it’s much more difficult for companies to get customers’ attention, build relationships with them and create and sustain brand loyalty. And that translates into less-certain revenue and a much higher cost of sales. Sales organizations risk getting left behind as buyers become more self-sufficient in seeking out information via online resources to educate themselves; shorten and streamline the sales process by purchasing directly via digital self-service channels; and turn to salespeople for help with only their most complex purchasing decisions.
It is critical for sales organizations to enthusiastically embrace digital. As buyers continue to turn to digital channels to learn about and purchase solutions, traditional sales tools and approaches grow ever closer to being obsolete. Without a concerted effort to infuse digital into sales operations, companies risk drifting further away from buyers and ceding customers and revenue to more digitally savvy enterprises.
Corporate programs include:
CURRICULUM
Empire Selling is a modern sales methodology containing strategies and tactics from working with leading global corporations. It includes tracks for executives, sales departments, customer success functions and marketing teams. The most effective programs are cross-company with executive sponsorship.
ONLINE VIDEO TRAINING
Learners are supported throughout the program via a library of online video training courses. We introduce a topic, strategy, tactic or initiative via the platform before a classroom training session to ensure learners come to the classroom session ready to hit the ground running and maximize your investment. The same platform is used post classroom training to reinforce behaviors.
CLASSROOM TRAINING
Dan Swift has trained thousands of professionals around the world during his tenure as Director of Social Selling at LinkedIn, VP Sales at Sprinklr and now CEO and Lead Trainer at Empire Selling. Our training is delivered via a patented learning framework combining behavioral change with situational competency.
INSTRUCTOR-LED WEB TRAINING
Learners are supported throughout the year with monthly webinar training and Q&A sessions. We also provide options to infuse learning opportunities into QBRs.
CUSTOMIZATION
We partner closely with all our customers to ensure the curriculum is tailored to the company, target market, industry and competitive landscape. Training must be relevant for learners to engage, absorb, implement and succeed.
Forward thinking executives and sales leaders must learn how to leverage the power of social media, the broader web and mobile technologies to drive revenue and remain relevant to their employees and their companies.
Dan Swift has coached hundreds of executives and sales leaders around the world across all industries. He teaches with compassion tailoring the content to the digital maturity of his audiences and industry.
Dan either works 1-on-1 with executives and sales leaders, or together with their teams, to ensure they understand the power of digital for business.