Effective Social Selling

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Buyers now are 60 percent of the way through the buying process before engaging with a salesperson – Corporate Executive Board

Today’s selling environment is very challenging. Clients are tired of old-fashioned sales techniques, often know more about our solutions than we do and are using technology to avoid us. And while a more informed customer isn’t bad, it has made them less responsive because they’re doing significant research before calling a sales rep.

There is a better way to sales success, and it’s called social selling. It’s not making digital small talk. Rather, it’s engaging with your prospect directly, on their terms, and then positioning yourself as someone of value.

But you can’t just jump in and sell.

Social selling is about recognizing that the buying process is controlled by a better informed and more connected customer.

Your clients buy from you because they trust you understand both their business and the problems they are trying to solve. With social selling, you become, in your client’s eyes, the “best salesperson”. And what client doesn’t want to deal with the best?

Only social sellers stand a chance by building their personal brand, connecting with more prospects and using technology to close deals faster.

Effective social selling involves many things, including:

  • Building your personal brand. Achieve 100% completeness of your social profiles. Professional photos are a must!
  • Building your network. Connect and follow peers, co-workers, clients (all both current and former), as these are the connections who can endorse your abilities, make referrals and share information. Continue to build connections on a regular basis.
  • Liking, commenting and sharing. Dramatically increase your overall activity on social networks. Comment on things others share. Like posts you read. And share informative articles, blog posts and other media directly with your connections. Think of yourself as an information concierge, curating and sharing relevant information, rather than going for a hard sell or boasting. Show people you care.
  • Creating and publishing content. Post new information on your blog or website as well as on websites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Everything you create is content, and there’s always a place to share it.
  • Finding new leads. Research, organize and mine user-generated content to learn more about the people and companies you’re selling to will clearly set you apart from your competitors.

Social selling success doesn’t happen overnight. However, it’s here to stay, creating win-win scenarios for both buyers and sellers. And it won’t replace true sales skills. So use the technology – don’t hide behind it. Never forget that face-to-face was the original form of social selling.

Dale Carnegie once said “you can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years trying to get other people interested in you.”

I’d argue that with social selling, you’ll make more connections, more referrals and more sales by following the steps above. Work hard and stay social!

If your compensation is based upon your performance, then we need to talk.

Contact us for further insights on how you and your sales team can use social selling to improve your sales results.