With social media changing how companies sell, social media consultancy Social Centered Selling unveils how to monetise the phenomena.
1. The sales landscape has changed
Right now, your prospects are reading about your products and services on blogs and in forums. They are scanning YouTube videos, your LinkedIn profile, Focus forums, Tweets and searching on Google for information about what they want to buy and from whom; they are ignoring the text on your website.
Now that social media has arrived on the scene, the classic formula of selling has been disrupted. Buyer 2.0 does not need you to educate them. Using the web and social tools, they are well educated on the features, functionality and pricing of available solutions long before they have their first conversation with sales.
Consider these facts:
Studies by Experian Marketing Services indicate that social networking now accounts for 15% of internet visits:
2. What buyers want you to know
For sales organisations to succeed in today’s social business environment, they must first accept that buyer behaviour has changed! Buyer 2.0 is web savvy, informed and probably knows more about you than you know about them. In this new world, buyers start the sales process without you, which means that sellers must shift from a transactional approach to the sales process to a solution oriented, value-focused, and socially-connected approach.
These days, most buying decisions now start, move forward, and are very often closed online or over the phone without a single face-to-face meeting. That’s a frightening thought for the sales professional who has long believed that the only way to “close a deal” is to be sitting across the table from the prospect.
In addition to great people and sales skills, salespeople must also demonstrate that they are social media savvy and have strong business acumen. In Selling to the C-Suite, authors Stephen J. Bistritz, Ed.D. and Nicholas A.C. Read conducted extensive research on what buyers want salespeople to know. The question posed was: What has to happen in meetings with salespeople for the executive to feel it was effective?
The answer:
Your prospect expects you to understand their business and with social networking tools like LinkedIn and Twitter, and business intelligence tools like InsideView, there is just no excuse for not having done your homework. We’ll get into that in more detail, but for now what you need to understand is that the days of walking in the door blind to your prospect’s issues are over. During the meeting is not the time to ask questions that you should already know the answers to. Meeting preparation is not optional.
3. Understand the technology
There is often confusion about the difference between LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook and how each applies to the sales process. In a nutshell, here is how these platforms fit.
LinkedIn is your business networking tool and aids salespeople on the front-end of the sales cycle. Networking, lead generation, opportunity qualification, securing referrals and establishing business credibility in your field are just a few of the ways that you can use LinkedIn to your advantage.
Facebook is more conversational and personal in nature. For business, a Facebook fan page is often used by marketers to create customer loyalty and retention on the back-end of the sales cycle. By cultivating fans, marketing helps to ensure that your company remains front and centre in people’s minds.
Twitter is a micro-blogging tool and the real-time nature of the information being shared is a gold mine of business intelligence. You can follow your competitors to see what kinds of messages they are sending out. Or, follow the company that your prospect works for and stay on top of what kind of information they are sharing, what questions they are asking and the vendors they may be recommending.
4. The social selling approach
Social selling has risks, but sitting on the sidelines is the greatest risk of all!
You have been selling successfully for some time, so you may be asking, why do I need to worry about social media? The answer should be obvious. Your prospects are there! They are checking out what you offer and what your competitors offer. Who do you want them to choose?
Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Sales approaches that worked five or 10 years ago are just not effective; it is time to let them go. Yes, it will take a little upfront work to establish your foundation, but it is not as complicated as you may think.
Positioning yourself to succeed in a social selling world includes these elements:
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5. Traits of a social salesperson
In addition to being relationship oriented and committed to serving the customer, the social salesperson is, well... social. They understand that a give-first-before-expecting- an-immediate-return mindset is what sets them apart from the majority of their competitors.
People still buy from people and they need to trust you. Trust takes time. Just because you have connected with someone on LinkedIn does not mean that you have earned trust in their eyes. Creating a perception of trust does not have to be difficult thanks to social media. By using LinkedIn or Twitter you can share content that has value, like white papers, case studies, presentations, industry information and more.
Social salespeople listen before engaging. Their goal is to help to solve problems rather than pitching what they have to sell. Impatient salespeople have found out the hard way what happens when they use social media to sell. For example, you connect with someone on LinkedIn and then turn right around and send them a sales spam email. In the mildest of repercussions, you are merely removed as a connection. But annoy the wrong person and you just might find that ill-conceived sales spam is blasted to the online world for everyone to see.
Key traits:
6. Your online presence must rock!
There are lots of tools available for managing your social networks but HootSuite is our favourite!
With HootSuite you can monitor and post to multiple social networks, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, from a single dashboard. You can also schedule messages to reach your followers when they're most likely to be logged in.
Remember that buyers are doing their homework and looking for solutions to their business problems. They search Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and anything else that they can fi nd. If your ideal buyer lands on your LinkedIn page, you need to stand out.
Your profile must be compelling enough for your prospect to want to know more. Make the time to clean up your profile and then commit to keeping it fresh with content that you update on a regular basis. You may have only one shot at capturing the attention of your prospect, so make the content on your profile count.
7. Intelligence is key
As we use tools like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, the number of people that we maintain some degree of one-to-one contact and connection with via-peer networks and groups has dramatically increased in the past few years. Social salespeople will use these tools to become more adept at what you know about successfully navigating the first few critical phases of the sales process: investigate and early qualify.
Better information leads to better qualification of sales opportunities. And, used effectively, social networking shrinks the physical time it takes to move the opportunity to close. Social selling is about recognising that the buying process is controlled by a better informed and more connected customer.
While sales remains a relationship-driven business, the power of "who you know" is trumped by "what you know about who you know." The new social customer is demanding relevance from salespeople, expecting them to know about them, their companies, and their needs before engaging.
Before you decide to engage with your prospect, do your homework and leverage the information in a way that leads to building rapport. How you do this makes the difference between being perceived as someone who is paying attention and one who is stalking people.
8. The ROI: Make it matter
Use social media to research, target, and connect with your ideal (pre-qualified, most likely to buy) prospects. Then track social interactions along with phone and email. Using social media in conjunction with phone and email can increase sales cycle conversion metrics such as the critical connect rate. Busy people (a category that almost unanimously includes every business executive) are less likely to engage with salespeople than ever before.
According to Insideview, 92% of executives said they would not respond to a cold call or email from someone that they did not know.
Create a target list of the right companies and the right prospects for you. Know which companies and titles your offering is most likely to entice, and then connect with them through personal, customised, and relevant messages rather than generic scripts.
9. Managing time
There are lots of tools available for managing your social networks but HootSuite is our favourite! With HootSuite you can monitor and post to multiple social networks, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, from a single dashboard. You can also schedule messages to reach your followers when they're most likely to be logged in.
Social Centered Selling is a consultancy focused on bringing sales and social media capabilities to sales organisations. Its website is: www.scs-connect.com.
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