The Social Selling Trick Most Companies Miss. Guest post by Amar Sheth

Social selling isn’t rocket science — but in many ways it’s treated like it is. There is definitely a right way and a wrong way of doing it. There are places you shouldn’t have sales professionals waste their time. There are shortcuts and social selling tips and “tricks” that can help accelerate results quickly.

But, despite this, the ability of a program’s success rests on your corporate culture.

When it comes to reinforcing social selling training, there’s a trick that everyone forgets and/or ignores, in hopes of a silver bullet/miracle solution.

TIME IS THE ANSWER

Companies want instant results from social selling and attribute a lack of results to this new way of selling, not the person applying it.

Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? It’s like me blaming my workout routine – not that I’ve not taken the time to work out more often or seek help.

Do we attribute a lack of desired results to the source or the self?

Here’s the reality: social selling, like all sales activities, takes time. It also takes executive sponsorship and the desire and ability to drive behavioral changes.

That ongoing reinforcement means you’ll need to invest time. And that’s the part I think most aren’t willing to do. They’d much rather put their teams through workshops, seminars, a few classes, etc. but when it comes time to blocking off their sales professionals calendars in order to try social selling and make a real go of it, they’re unwilling.

I’m not sure why we’re expecting results without a proper, daily investment of time.

Where did we get this notion that social selling was the miracle pill? I’m not sure, but reinforcement requires the ability for your sales leadership to devote time to social selling daily.

THE ROUTINE MATTERS

One of the best things you can have your salespeople do is practice social selling daily. Here is a routineyou can try if you’d like to practice social principles that are tied to revenue-generating activities.

Are you willing and able to dedicate 30-60 minutes/day of calendar time per sales professional? That’s what it’ll take to build momentum. The good news is that results will come in and they won’t be linear. We’ve seen tipping points happen quickly with exponential results.

It’s not unusual for a client to see 50X-100X ROI within a year if they’re willing to invest that time.

THE BOTTOM LINE

If you believe the statement that doing is the new learning, attending workshops and classes alone just won’t cut it. It’s a wonderful place to start, but expecting significant shifts in behavior is, quite frankly, a pipe dream.

This graphic from Axonify is a great example of why reinforcement is so critical. Human beings crave repetition. Repeating something helps with memory and retention of application.

Doing the work on an ongoing basis is the only thing that can radically boost the probability of success.

So that’s my recommendation to you all as you read this. Whether you’re a sales professional, sales leader, sales enablement or marketing professional, test your organization’s ability not to just train your sales teams in social selling, but to see if dedicating 30-60 minutes/day is doable post-training.

Are you practicing social selling daily already or wondering how to? Tweet me your thoughts@AmarSheth or connect with me on LinkedIn to share.

Social Selling – Basic Tools to Gain Influence and Dominate your Territory – Guest Post Timothy Hughes

I’m going to start this blog assuming you know about Social Selling already. That buyers can now cut you the seller out by using Google and other techniques. As a seller you will have already wised up to the fact you need to do something different.

Here is a quick summary of techniques and tools you can use to support your selling efforts.

There are many others tool, if you have any suggestions or “hacks” you want to share, please do in the comments.

LinkedIn: Continue to build your personal brand this has to be buyer centric. That means that if a buyer (usually in salesperson avoidance mode) came across your profile, would they avoid you, or maybe you can convince them to stop by and ask your advice. But please don’t see Linkedin as some passive “tick box” exercise, your should be using Linkedin to drive “inbound” through your profile.

Sales Navigator: Great tool to allow you to research and monitor your prospects and accounts. LinkedIn quote that for the average Enterprise sale 5.4 people are involved. The mistake that sales people often make is that it’s easier talking to somebody in your comfort zone. Often they are part of the problem and not part of the solution. Sales Navigator allows you to get broader and wider in an account to cover all the bases and lock your competition out.

Twitter: This is a great resource to allow to find and engage with people in your prospects and accounts. While this sounds like Sales Navigator, what you will find is that Changemakers will tend to use Twitter as they see it as a way to grow and connect with influence.

On Twitter you need a clear biography, most corporations will insist that you need a comment that your opinions are my own and a link to your LinkedIn Profile. Don’t link to your corporate website.

Buffer: Buffer is a web browser plugin that allows you to “buffer up” tweets. While automation should be used with care, it is “Social” Media after all, it is a way that you can Tweet and work at the same time.

Tip: Do NOT post to multiple Social Networks at the same time. This is easy to spot and will be seen by followers of yours on multiple platforms to be spammy.

How do you Increase The Visibility of your Tweets?: One tool that will allow you to do this is Crowdfire. It allows you to follow certain hashtags.

Or why not follow all your competitors followers and steal their Influence?

How as a Salesperson can you see what your customers are talking about on Social Media?

Below is the dashboard for my Twitonomy account

Twitonomy looks very much like the basic Twitter client. You can reply, retweet and favorite individual tweets.

But Twitter analytics is where the tool really shines. Once signed in, you’ll get a Twitonomy profile page that has all kinds of statistics. There is too much really to mention, sign up and have a play.

In terms of your customers it will help find them, you can see who influences them, the hashtags they are using

Want to know your customers better and be alerted in case of important information?

https://www.netvibes.com is a great application, like Google alerts on steroids this allows you to listen to prospects and customers at a micro and macro level.

Want to Create some Funky Content that will Stand Out?

Picplaypost – This app allows you to create photos and videos collages, great video on Youtube here

https://youtu.be/oHGgz0owzQc via @YouTube

Legend – This app allows you to turn text into stunning animations.
Put your words in motion. Inspire people. Make friends laugh. In just 2 taps! Perfect for Instagram, Twitter, iMessage, WhatsApp. Save video or GIF.

Conclusion: Social Media is your best friends to be visible on the market on what you do well, to be perceived as an expert by your eco system and also to have information about your customers, partners, competitors, etc

But you don’t become best friends in 5 minutes, you need to get to know each other and you can find your prospects and position yourself as being there to help.

In my book Social Selling, there is a whole chapter on technology and a practical way that people can use it to create leads and over achieve your quota quicker. It’s written to help support you both salesperson and sales leader on your Social Selling journey.

Want to know how to sell to the modern, connected buyer?

If you’re interested in a blueprint to help you in your move to digital and social then I recommend my book. “Social Selling – Techniques to Influence Buyers and Changemakers”. Written in a workbook style, it’s designed to help you implement a digital and Social strategy across Sales and Marketing.

To order follow this link to Amazon there is also a Kindle, eBook version.

About the Author

Tim Hughes is co-founder of Digital Leadership Associates a company that provides support and guidance in all areas of Social as well as Social Selling. He has been called “an innovator and pioneer” of Social Selling and in the recent Onalytica list of the most influential Social Sellers globally, Tim was named as number 1.

Tim can be contacted on Twitter @timothy_hughes where he has some 150,000 followers or tim@digitalleadershipassociates.com – You can find him at his blog The Social Selling Network

Category: Social Media, Social Selling, Strategy | No Comments »

The Periodic Table of Content Marketing

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How the New LinkedIn Inbox Helps You Get More Engagement by Brynne Tillman

As LinkedIn continues to change the UX (user experience) there are some things that have a significant impact on workflow, and this is a good one.

Over the years I have had to put hacks in place to make sure I engage with every new connection, but no longer. With the new feature in place, when someone accepts your connection request, you are notified in your inbox. This makes it is simple to send a welcome message that starts the conversation. You will see “Name has accepted your invitation” and if you have included a custom invitation, your note will appear in the messaging thread.

This feature makes it simple to reply with a welcome message. Here are two examples:

Name, Thank you for connecting with me on LinkedIn. After visiting your profile I noticed (SAY SOMETHING RELEVANT) and thought it might make sense for us to connect. If you are open to an introductory phone call, we could explore ways we may be able to work together now or in the future. To make scheduling easier, here is a link to my calendar http://ScheduleaCallwithBrynne.com – please pick a time that best works for you.

OR if you don’t want a call, but would like to add value:

Name, Thank you for connecting with me on LinkedIn. I am not sure if you are using LinkedIn for sales, but if you are I want to share with you some of our LinkedIn messaging templates that can have a big impact on your business development effortshttp://sslink.co/PeopleLinxLinkedInTemplates.

Good Networking,
Brynne

BONUS: The “Keep in Touch” opportunities show up here now too!

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Three Things Your Web Presence Needs To Have Supporting It

Your web presence is one of the best ways to help your business grow to new heights. It can show you new ways to reach customers. To offer them better services than ever. To learn more about the business that you would without the reach of the internet. But you need to make sure that you’re prioritizing three aspects of it. Below, we’re going to look at the three things that need to back up the online presence of any business.

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Visibility

Perhaps the best thing that the internet has to offer to the business owner is the sheer potential of reach that it can offer. You can have your business suddenly by thousands, even millions of people it you do it right. Of course, you shouldn’t look for a lucky break. You should be working to make it easier to see at every opportunity. You should be finding the right communities and social media channels to spread your message. You should be developing the content that gives people more reasons to come visit your web page. You should be using companies like RelativitySEO.com to make it easier for your site to pop up for people browsing the internet. Always think about new ways you can make your business more visible on the internet.

Service

It’s not just about being able to reach more people, either. It’s about how you make your business a more pleasant one to interact with for each individual customer. It’s about toning the design of your site so that it’s simple and intuitive. It’s about finding better ways to offer customer service. Whether it’s live on social media, through organized email or using online chat. You want to make your customer’s experience with your company as simple for them as it can be. This is one of the most effective ways to increase the sales in online business. If you’re not doing the best to offer customer service, they’ll move to those who give them a better experience.

Learning

If they are moving to your competitors, why exactly are they doing that? You shouldn’t be content to keep doing things the way you are. You need to learn better methods. One of the ways you can do that is by better watching your competitors. Seeing what they’re doing right and what they’re doing wrong. Adapting your approach so they don’t offer anything you don’t. Similarly, you should be looking at the data behind every online interaction you have. Whether it’s how successful your social media posts are or how many people visit your site. Marketingland.com makes it clear that the data driven approach to social media can be the most successful. Learn from your failures and your successes to continuously reiterate and improve.

Having a website and a social media presence isn’t enough. You need to work to make it reach more people than before. You need to use it to make it easier for your customers to choose you. Most importantly, you need to learn. You need to collect data and use it to constantly improve.

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Social Media: The Perfect Testing Ground For New Products?

If you have a new product idea – software or physical – then you should consider using social media as a testing ground. It’s a great way to gauge reaction, and it can help you build an enormous buzz to build up to launch day. In this guide, I’m going to take you through several ways you can use social media to test the water on your new product’s popularity. Read on to find out more.

The basics

First of all, make sure you have a product to talk about. In an ideal world, you will have everything ready to send out or sell straight away. But, prototypes from a plastic injection moulding company or beta software can often be a great pull, too. You also need to concentrate on priming your audience for some big news. People love to be ahead of the game and will take a lot more interest in your product if they believe they are getting insider knowledge or exclusive info.

Teaser shots

Next, use the good old art of photography to share teaser shots with your followers. If you are creating a physical product, it is worth hiring a professional photographer to make your images as striking as possible. They will be able to create moody lighting, and give your photos a lot more impact. For software on online products, a screenshot can work in your favour. Again, just give a little glimpse of what people can expect, without revealing too much. The idea is to build excitement and to keep people coming back for more and sharing your news on their feeds.

Take notes

Make sure you are taking notes of any reactions that your audience is giving you. You might find some interesting ideas that you can apply to your product, or it could even open up a market that you hadn’t considered before.

Offer opportunity

Once you have created a little buzz about your product, consider offering your audience the chance to get their hands on it. You can do this via a competition, or a draw where you put the name of everyone that shares your page with others into a hat. It’s a great way to build up even more of an audience and get more eyes on your product.

Send out the first batch

Now you have a bunch of people who want to use your product, take down their details and send it to them. As part of the T&Cs, you can ask them to share their thoughts with you on your social media page, or their personal blogs. Again, it’s a great chance for you to spread the word even further. And, given the product is free for the recipient, they are likely to be more positive with their opinions.

Use video

You can also create a video about your product – they are popular, and give people a more in-depth look at what you are trying to do. If your video – and product – is good enough, you can almost guarantee it will spread like wildfire.

As you can see, social media is a fantastic tool for testing out the marketability of a new product. Make sure you are using some of these tips – and let me know the results!

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How You Can Persuade New People To Visit Your Website

Persuading new people to come to your website could be the difference between success and failure. Your website has to have the ability to appeal to people outside your core group of fans and followers. Here are some tips to help you with that.

Guest Blog

Guest blogging is something that is still very valuable, no matter what other people tell you. If you can secure a guest blogging spot on a good site, your own website will receive a massive boost. As long as you make sure that it’s easy for people to follow a link back to your website, it’s definitely worth it. Creating spam content is not going to go down well though, so make sure that you’re creating good content. It should encourage people to read more of your writing. And you should also be sure to ask other reputable bloggers to write guest blog posts for your own website.

Get Advice and Help from the Best

You can’t do it all by yourself when it comes to directing more people towards your website. You really need to get the right support from everyone around you if you can. What you really need is help and advice from the best professionals. So, talk to people who know about improving traffic and conversion rates. If you don’t already know anyone with those kinds of skills, you should hire a company to do the work for you. There are many companies out there that focus on things like conversion rate optimisation. They can be the ones to increase the number of people who visit your website and become customers.

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Post Content to LinkedIn

LinkedIn is one of the very best platforms for businesses these days. It’s a site that you should definitely be taking advantage of. It’s like the social media platform for business leaders and professionals. And these are people with influence. If they like the kind of thing that you post on your website, they could share it on other platforms too. This can massively boost the amount of traffic coming towards your site. Of course, the content will need to be good in the first place if you are going to make this happen. So, the quality should come first. But once that’s covered, share it on LinkedIn and see what happens.

Make the Site Fast

People won’t give your site a chance if it’s not fast. They will leave and head to a competitor before the page has even had the chance to load properly. If speed is an issue for you, you should think about what is making your site so slow. It might be the case that your web host is letting you down. If that’s true, then you should find an alternative as quickly as possible. There’s nothing worse than having to put up with a host that doesn’t do what you’re paying for. Third-party plug-ins and things like that can also have an impact on the speed of your website. Whatever it takes, make your website faster.

Category: Blogging, SEO | No Comments »

4 Advanced SEO Techniques That Will Increase Your Traffic

The more you can increase traffic to your site, the more sales you will make. The best way to have your product get higher rankings on Amazon is by hiring a trustworthy amazon seo agency that understands the needs of its clients. The sales should lead to higher revenue streams, which will lead to more profit. Finally, you should be well on the road to running a successful business. As you can see, traffic is essential for any and every business. But, it isn’t possible with SEO. Sure, you will see some traffic even if you don’t bother with links or keywords. Yet, it will be minimal. To get big amounts of people visiting your site, you need to use advanced techniques. Here are a few that work very nicely.

#1: The Wisdom Of Crowds

The wisdom of crowds is a theory that states the best place to find information is from a large group of people. That is because a large group has a diversified range of thoughts and opinions. In your case, that group of people is your customer base. And, what they say is what should drive your site. They are the people that you want to impress and accommodate as they are the ones that spend money. So, it is vital that you give them what they desire. To do that, mine the information they give you from sources such as social media posts and surveys. Everything they say on these platforms is a piece of constructive criticism that you can use to your advantage.

#2: White Label SEO

There are many forms of search engine optimization, but white label SEO is one of the most effective. In basic terms, it is where two companies come together for the good of the cause. In more basic terms, it is where two companies piggyback off each other’s success. Both provide a part of SEO, and then both reap the rewards of the partnership. The trick is to find a business that targets the same market, but that isn’t a direct competitor. Or, you can use agencies that specialize in white label services.

#3: Optimize Landing Pages

Sure, your homepage is an important part of luring people to your site. But, a landing page is a more effective tool. That is because landing pages are normally the pages that the customer wants to look at first. So, instead of going through your site, you want them to land on the right page at the first time of asking. To do that, you need as many landing pages as possible. For every marketing campaign that you set up, you want a specialized page with a strong value proposition. Why? It is because it makes your site more ‘clickable’ to browsers.

#4: Target Mobile Users

The internet isn’t about desktop users anymore. Mobile users are taking over, and you need to adapt to the change. Tablet and smartphone users are a huge percentage of your base, and you can’t afford to dismiss them. With that in mind, create mobile sites that are easy to navigate. Your customers will notice the change, and they will thank you with their time. An app is also a great idea if you can create one for a reasonable price.

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Are Infographics Being Overused on the Web?

Infographics are becoming more prevalent on the the web than ever before. Even if you have never heard of one, you’re likely to have seen one. An infographic is a way of summarising information in a more visual way with, minimum amount of text. They can be beneficial to both readers and businesses alike. For readers, they can simplify a complicated issue or process with the minimal use of text. Visual imagery can be less intimidating and has even been shown to make information more memorable. For businesses, it can be a great way to summarise a point or story that would otherwise take a long time in text. Perhaps you want to tell the story of the history of your company or summarise your mission statement. Whatever their purpose, infographics can be an artistic, visually striking way to convey information. They can also promote engagement by include links and share features. But have these relatively new internet features already overstayed their welcome? Read on the discover the debate on whether infographics are now being overused on the website.

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Argument: They Are Being Overused

One of the main reasons that infographics have been successful is that they are eye-catching and original. At least at first! One argument claims that infographics have now become so prevalent and familiar that they have lost all of their original appeal. Infographics are now likely to be a common feature on many websites. As a result, they have become the latest thing that readers skip, in the same way that they would a larger body of text. It has also been argued that, in a bid to outdo each other, infographics are no longer concise. Infographics originally aiming to create maximum impact with minimum text. They rarely extended half a page to a page, and could be taken in all at once. For some people, current infographics have just become an exercise in style over substance. They are created for an artistic “wow factor” rather than to effectively convey information. Many designs have now become lazy and the text used is becoming denser. The use of infographics needs to go down, not up, if they are going to continue to have a genuine impact.

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Argument: They Are Not Being Overused

Infographics have undoubtedly increased in number. But this must be testament to their popularity and success. If people did not find them engaging or helpful, then many people argue that their use would have gone down. Their frequent use simply shows that they are a viable way of communicating lots of information. They communicate both concisely and approachably. Many argue that the increased use of infographics means that infographics have to work harder than ever before to be notice. But that this is a good thing. There is renewed competition for excellent art work and disciplined text. Audiences are becoming savvier and more familiar with the feature, and so have higher expectations. With social media, instant messenger, and more, many believe that the average attention span is shortening. There are many times when conveying important information is crucial. Infographics can provide a fast, engaging way to ensure that people are well-informed. There have also been indications that visual aids can engage younger demographics too. A chief argument here is that the use of infographics is increasing. But that it is encouraging and suggests the platform is successful. Infographics are especially appropriate for certain needs. By making use of excellent advice like this post by Fat Joe or other reliable sites, we can ensure only the best Infographics are created.

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In Summary
Infographics have become an increasingly popular way to engage readers that may otherwise avoid dense text. They can convey a large amount of information in a small space and concise manner. When a page needs to remain uncluttered, or a whole story needs to be told in sequence, they can be particularly successful. They can be a visually striking and memorable way to engage with information that may otherwise be complex and forgettable. However, if infographics are allowed to become lazy or overused, they will lose their impact. A chief benefit of infographics is their novelty and visual appeal. Care must be taken to ensure that an audience does not become too accustomed to these features, or the purpose will be lost. The use of text must also remain minimal and disciplined, no matter how complex the topic. Research is always needed and a variety of methods can be employed. But with careful consideration, infographics can be a valuable asset for conveying information.

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