You are at a party, it's pre-covid, and you are in the kitchen and having a conversation with a couple of people you have never met before. Let's call it a discussion, rather than a conversation.
Anyway you are deep in discussion when somebody swaggers into the kitchen and shouts at the top of their voice
"My name is Stan and I sell double glazing and in fact we have 30% off this week".
(Apologies to anybody called Stan!)
What do you think would happen? Of course, it would annoy people, here we are having a nice discussion and we get interrupted. Whether we know, them or not, we don't care about double glazing as we already have it.
I would also suggest that Stan would be told to "shut up and go away" and I'm being polite. In fact, we know that behaviour is rude and we know we would get kicked out; "taxi for Stan!" and you wouldn't be asked back again.
So why, if you know this isn't what you should do in normal life ...
why do you think it's OK to do it on social?
Let's put it another way, there is NO .... I will say that again, No, excuse for cold outreach on social.
In this article, I will share with you, ways you can generate meetings, leads and closed deals on social. In fact, so many meetings, your biggest problem will be finding time for the meetings .... but more on that in a bit. First a history lesson on why people think it's OK to spam on social. (It's not.)
Marketing In The Past
I realise that marketing in the past was all about interruption and broadcast. Advertising, cold calling and email marketing is all based on this principle. I interrupt you and I broadcast a message.
Marketing Now
Marketing does not work on interruption any more, it's deemed rude, it makes you and your company look desperate and will annoy more people than those that will "let you off". You only have to look at the figures from Hubspot on how email marketing does not work anymore.
Getting Blocked on LinkedIn
I know many people that report all "pitches" over Linkedin to Linkedin. I know many people that will block you if you pitch to them over Linkedin. So what? Linkedin has access to all the message you send and if you start getting blocked and reported they will investigate you.
They will then remove you from Linkedin. You lose your Linkedin profile, forever, there is no arbitration. All of the network you have built up over time will be lost.
What About Getting Your Linkedin Profile Done For You?
The LinkedIn terms of service have been updated and this new line appears.
This means that all “done for you” services or if you run a Linkedin account for an employee, you are in direct contravention of LinkedIn’s terms of service.
What Does This Mean?
This means that if you have a PR company, a Marketing Agency, a Linkedin "Done for you service" or even you own marketing team running your Linkedin profile, this, according to LinkedIn is illegal.
What Are the Consequences?
If you are caught, Linkedin will close your account. Forever.
There is no aburtration, there is nobody you can appeal to, it's closed and all of the network you have built up over time is lost. You will also have to explain to the person(s) the truth that you have being doing something illegal.
Shifting Buyer Preferences
We have seen shifting buyer work as everybody is online, in this October (2020) report by Simon Kemp outlines the extent that social media has become part of our lives.
Worldwide social media users: 4.14 billion - 53% of the world's population use social media in other words, more people use social media than don't use it.
Simon says that "two thirds of the working population in the world is now active on social media." This obviously now has to impact on the way that sales people work as their territory is online. But I guess, this is just one report, what does everybody else say?
Research From All These Companies Back This up
Mckinsey say so, Gartner say so, Hootsuite and We Are Social say so, Hubspot say so, Google say so, MIT say so, Trustradius say so Twilio say so ....
This is also driving Gartner's third point in their recent CSO research for Q4 2020 which is "increased customer expectations of digital learning and buying channels."
The research is overwhelming that buyers are online.
What can you as a business do about this, let's switch back to the Hubspot research.
How Should You Behave on Linkedin and Get Sales?
Case Study 1.
In this case study, Danielle Guzman, talks about how Mercer, empower their employees to talk on social. The ROI (return on investment)? Danielle explains how Mercer as a brand will develop the business a certain amount of business, because they are well known in certain markets. She also confirms in this video how empowering people on social and giving them personal brands gives Mercer 4 times more revenue than the brand.
Case Study 2
This is Eric, he's one of the team at DLA Ignite here is a post that he put up, it only took him 10 minutes to create. We have all seen posts like this, we see them everyday, but people treat social tactically. You post, because you think you have to or somebody tells you you should and walk away. Let's talk about this post.
Eric's post of his 16 year old son, Austin, on his Birthday got 8,000 views and 165 likes?
But better still, he got 6 - C-Level meetings from this post? How?
Because, all of Eric's post are strategic. He knows exactly why he is posting it and knows how to monetise it.
He doesn't always post "humanised" content, I'm using this as an example. But an example of why you need to get your employees and sales team on social, just think of the $ impact to your business. Especially if you scaled this across your business.
How does Eric do this? He builds relationships with prospects and customers and because they have a relationship with a human, not a brand, people are happy to engage. Eric is also able to cut through the myrmid of noise that brands keep putting out. If you are a buyer, where will you spend your time? Reading an advert that says "buy my product because it's great" or look for the insight and educational content that people like Eric is putting out?
The Microsoft Azure sales team actively use this as part of their sales strategy on accounts. They find "changemakers" who will take this insight and share within their businesses. This is how businesses are actively engaging with and influencing business and sales.
This is a sales approach, what about getting your your employees online?
It's Time to Stop Being Analogue and Transform to Digital Sales
A CEO Just Said to Me
"there is a race on. First we need to shock people into understanding that the world has changed. Second, we need to give them the skills to work in the changing world."
He went onto say "By giving my team(s) “new world” skills will gives us a competitive advantage."
Interesting that he finished by saying
"The thing is there is a “burning bridge” and we need to make sure we are over that bridge."
Where Do We Go From Here?
Just give me, or one of the DLA Ignite team and hour of your time and we can walk you through what we are doing for other companies. No hard sell, just take you through what other companies are doing to transform.
Please contact me here or one of the DLA Ignite team here, so please pick one of our industry experts or one of our experts in your geographical locality. Our website is here.
Performance marketers seeking new leads know there are many ways to connect with potential customers. Prospect lists from specialists and inbound leads from content marketing are just a couple of ways to acquire new leads.
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