Social Selling – The Evolution of Sales

What is social selling?

Social Selling is use of social media platforms to listen, relate, engage and identify opportunities for engagement at the right time.

A social seller is someone who demonstrates the ability to blend digital technology, innovative web and social media to increase reach, depth, leads and expedite the sales cycle.

Why is Social Selling important?
The average company can access twenty times more information about you and your competition than they could five years ago. Sales people today are at a huge disadvantage, if the statistics are right, customers are not interested in picking up the phone until after they have scoped solutions. How can the salesperson reach them early and then keep their attention.

Isn’t this Social Marketing?
Social Media Marketing is the use of social networks to create awareness and broadcast a brand message. Social Selling leverages  social networks to build relationships. A marketing team will handle a brand account versus a salesperson will handle a personal individual account to create engagement.

Social Selling vs Traditional Selling
The good news is that Social Selling is not a break from traditional selling practices. In fact the use of ABC (Always Be Closing) is now ABC (Always Be Connecting). Social Sellers do not and should not abandon email, phone or face to face methods. In fact a deliberate use of social media will make these traditional methods far more productive. The customer becomes a warm contact, so if anything Social Selling will eliminate the wasteful parts of a sales process such as cold calling.

I said earlier that the sales people of today are at a disadvantage, so let me quickly mention the Social Buyer.
The huge amount of online data gives the seller an opportunity to create value for the buyers. Buyers may well be incredibly informed but they are desperate to shorten their purchasing cycles. The more data they have to process and the more stake holders they must consult, the longer it takes for them to make a buying decision.
If salespeople could deliver insights to buyers at the right times, they could bring purchasing times down and then everybody is happy. You may read this content to better understand customer buying behaviors which may help improve your company’s sales.

The Evolution of a Salesperson
We as a species are social creatures, we always have been and that will not change. Social media has exploded into this era because of technology, the fastest adoption of technology in human history in fact. Your customers being on a social platform is just the tip of the iceberg. Smart devices are allowing us to be social 24/7. As younger generations step up the career ladder and become your customer, are you ready to communicate directly into their pockets? Salespeople may improve their skills by reading some sales tips on this page, https://about.crunchbase.com/blog/10-verbal-and-nonverbal-sales-buying-signals/.

I will leave you with this last question:

Will the traditional 9-5 sales role be replaced with a 24/7 seller? I look forward to the conversation.

Category: LinkedIn, Sales, Social Business, Social Media | No Comments »

How to build a social business [Infographic]

Social business adoption is expected to increase to 57% by the year 2017. Companies will need to better incorporate social business processes into how they communicate, engage and interact with employees if they want to innovate more, grow more and be more successful overall.

How to build a Social Business

If you noticed, the ten steps listed above include many references to people and process, further emphasizing the significance of the employee experience. Your social business strategy will be only as good as how well engaged and connected your employees feel to the company.

 

Category: CEO, Sales, Social Business | No Comments »

Unleashing the Power of Social Media on B2B Sales Enablement [Video]

This is a great video from The Aberdeen Group focusing on Social Selling, if you want to become a best in class company, I strongly recommend spending twelve minutes listening to this video.

Social Selling:

  • Enables collaboration, listening and contribution
  • Helps sales identify prospects
  • Facilitates relationship development
  • Allows demonstration of industry sector knowledge
  • Close more deals effectively

Category: Sales, Social Media | 1 Comment »

LinkedIn Profile Blueprint – Your Digital Brand in the Social Landscape

How to start building the perfect LinkedIn Profile:

2013 LinkedIn Profile Character Limits

Knowing the space with which you can work in your LinkedIn profile is key to helping you build your perfect social brand! Here are your character limits:

  • Headline – 120 characters to fill with keywords, answer the question, “What do you do and the outcome you will provide?”
  • Summary – 2,000  characters to tell the story or YOU with keywords and  accomplishments. How have you helped others and their results they achieved from you.
  • Experience/Position Title – 100 characters to sum up your official experience in a title, or something more creative with keywords
  • Experience/Position Description – 2,000 characters to use keywords to sum up your role and your one to three key accomplishments. Make sure to format this area to make sure it is easy to read!
  • Skills & Expertise – 61 characters for the 50 skills you can list
  • Status updates – 700 characters for an unlimited times per day, however, I recommend only one or two per day. And you can include a hyperlink if you need more room!
  • Groups – 50 groups is your limit, so pick them wisely to show others with whom you are keeping company!
  • Education/Degree – 100 characters to explain your degree to include relevant keyword phrases
  • Education/Activities & Societies – 500 characters to give an overview that can tie into your career
  • Education Description – 1,000 characters to offer an overview of what you studied and how it is relevant to your career
  • Additional Info/Interests – 1,000 characters to further explain your background and show how interesting you really are!
  • Honors & Awards – 1,000 characters to shine the spotlight on YOU! Even if you won a sales award, it’s a great accomplishment to list!
  • Videos and Content – You are now able to add videos or other content such as pdf’s or powerpoints under several sections – Summary, Experience and Education. So get adding! As for your profile picture, if you want to manifest professionalism, you can utilize the help of photographers, like the Corporate Photographers in London.

I would love to know if you have a tip or trick with the way you use LinkedIn! If you do, please comment. You can also follow me on Twitter @Social_Ben

Credit for content: MarketingThink.Com

Category: LinkedIn | 1 Comment »

The ROI of Social Media (Is social media marketing effective) Infographic

Is social media marketing effective? That’s the question being asked as more and more businesses are investing in increasing amounts of social media marketing.  With no standard means of measurement, there’s a wide variety of goals and metrics used to define the ROI of social strategies. Fortunately, this enlightening infographic, developed by MDG Advertising, helps clear up the confusion by outlining the objectives, benefits and factors that affect the success of social media marketing.

Category: Social Media | 2 Comments »

20 Things You Should Share On Social Media

20 Things You Should Share On Social Media

(excerpt taken from Jeff Bullas article)

YouTube Videos reviewing products or showing how to construct a product for DIY
Photos of events, exhibitions and post them on Flickr
If you are a creative business and create images and art also put them on Flickr or other social media sharing sites
Audio recordings of your online videos put them on your website or blog
PDF documents of offline archived information that is appropriate to put online
Slideshare presentations
Graphs
Infographics Webinars Podcasts
Music if you are a musician
Text format of your video blog posts
Microsoft Office Documents
Notes displaying keypoints from your power point presentations Newsletters
Press releases about your brand
News items about your company
Your Bookmarking such as Delicious, Stumbleupon and Digg Competitions shouldn’t be just advertised on traditional Mass Media but shared via social media ..have a look at Ford’s Fiesta competition
Share your humour.. mix up your serious content with some humorous photo’s, articles and even cartoons

Every one of these different types of content or “digital assets” can be published on multiple social media channels that are appropriate to leverage your content by world of mouth.

via 20 Things You Should Share On Social Media | Jeffbullas’s Blog.

What content are you sharing on social media and can you do it better?

Category: Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

Why B2B Businesses Should Leverage the Potential of Social Media in 2013

There is nothing better than facts and figures to get an idea about the immense potential of social media and how B2B marketers are tapping into its potential. This B2B social media infographic from Real Business Rescue lays out the case as to why B2B companies should be leveraging the opportunities that social media and social networking offer.

Are you using social media in your sales strategy? What works for you? Which platform yields the best results?

Ben Martin

Category: Sales, Social Media | No Comments »

IT Purchasing Goes Social plus Infographic

The New Buying Process
Information gives modern B2B buyers an enormous advantage over their counterparts in sales. In late 2010, international agency OgilvyOne Worldwide interviewed 1,000 salespeople in the U.S., U.K., China and Brazil. More than two-thirds of respondents in all four countries believed the buying process is changing faster than sales organizations are responding.
Purchasing has gone through a major revolution in the past two decades to emerge as a vibrant strategic force in business. Social media, has only accelerated the revolution. The biggest question now is how and when people on the sales side will react.
The average company today can access 20 times as much information about you and your competitors as they could access five years ago.
So you are no longer dealing with a customer where ignorance is a factor. Sophistication is the nature of customers today, and you need a sophisticated salesperson to be able to handle that.
Buyers receive an average of 6 phone calls and 14 emails per day from vendors. Since they’re inundated with data and sales pitches, it’s not surprising that they rarely return calls. Now that these informed buyers can thoroughly research their own options, a call from a new sales representative can be more of a nuisance than a service.

If salespeople could deliver insights to buyers at the right times, they could bring purchasing times down and make everybody happy. But if the statistics show that customers aren’t interested in picking up the phone until after they’ve scoped solutions, how can salespeople reach them early and then keep their attention?

The answer is social selling.
• Sellers can use social media to relate to customers and identify opportunities for engagement at the right time: while they’re still conceptualizing their needs.
• Social media is asynchronous and noninterruptive, which makes it perfect for reaching buyers who are still kicking tires.
• Social networks help salespeople establish authenticity and credibility online, so customers consult with them instead of deleting their voicemails.
• Continuous participation within relevant social groups allows salespeople to stay visible and valuable throughout their customers’  winding,non-linear buying journeys.

 

Connect with me on Twitter : Ben Martin

Category: LinkedIn, Sales, Social Media | No Comments »