Stop selling. Start reducing risk.
For sales leaders and teams who know the old playbook stopped working.
Buyers decide before you call
By the time a buyer replies to you, they’ve already looked you up. They read your profile, they saw what you post, and they asked around. Half the decision is made before the first call, and you weren’t there for any of it.
So the old playbook stopped working. You can send more calls and more emails and pile on the pressure, but buyers have learned to tune all of it out. The sellers who win now are the ones the buyer already knew and trusted before there was anything to sell.
What social selling is
Social selling has a bad name because most people do it like door-to-door selling with a keyboard. That version deserves to fail.
Real social selling is being useful and visible to the right buyers long before they’re ready to buy, so that when the moment comes, you’re the name they already trust. You chase less, because buyers come to you.
What you get out of it
When your team works this way, a few things change:
Warmer conversations
No more cold opens to strangers. Your people talk to buyers who already know them, so the guard is down from the first message.
A shorter path to yes
When the trust is built early, you’re not spending the whole cycle proving you’re safe to buy from. That’s behind you before you start.
Opportunities that come to you
Instead of hunting every deal, your team becomes the one buyers reach out to first when the problem shows up.
Less rejection, more energy
Selling stops feeling like pushing, and your best people stop burning out on it.
What most sales teams get wrong
I’ve worked with hundreds of sales teams, and the problem is almost never skill. It’s these three things, and I see them everywhere.
Presence
Your people are invisible to the buyers who matter. If the right person never sees them, they can’t be the one who gets called.
Method
They rely on volume and luck, more outreach, hope something sticks. That worked ten years ago, and buyers have wised up since.
Timing
They ask for the meeting before they’ve earned it, before the buyer trusts them enough to listen, so it feels like an interruption instead of a conversation.
The safest choice wins
Every B2B deal is a risk transfer. The buyer hands over money, time, and their own reputation inside their company, and all they get back is a promise.
So when two sellers offer a similar solution, the buyer doesn’t pick the better pitch. They pick the one that feels safest to say yes to. Lower the risk of choosing you, and you stop having to out-sell anyone. You’ve already won before the pitch starts.
The PROVE method
I turn all of that into a repeatable process instead of hoping it happens by luck. Five steps that build on each other. I call it PROVE.
Position · your presence
Build a presence that shows your value, not just your job history, so the right buyers see why you’re worth listening to.
Recognise · real buying signals
Spot the buyers showing real signs of intent, a new role, a growing team, people reacting to what you share, instead of guessing who might care.
Open · warm the relationship
Warm up the relationship before you need it. Be useful, be around, become a familiar name rather than a stranger with an ask.
Validate · stay visible
Stay visible and helpful after you connect, so when the buyer is finally ready, you’re the one they think of.
Earn · the right moment
Read the moment when the relationship is ready, and move from peer to partner without breaking the trust you built. By then you’re not pitching a stranger, you’re confirming a decision they already made.
How I help
Depending on where your team is, I help in three ways:
Insights
A keynote or masterclass that shows the team why the old playbook stopped working.
Strategy
I map your buyers and your team, and give you a plan for where presence turns into pipeline.
Skills
I train and coach your sellers through PROVE in small groups, until it’s a habit and not a one-off push.
For team-wide programs I run this with my team at Just Connecting.
Martijn is a real hands-on social selling specialist. He breaks the complexity down into clear actions, and gets people moving.
Jeroen Gijzen · Director of Business Development, Wireless Logic
Start a conversation
Tell me where your sales team is stuck, and I’ll tell you straight if I can help, and how. And I only want to keep going if you see the value. Partway in, we stop and look at where we are.