Can I get the most from my sales navigator licenses with social selling?, Tim Hughes

I was on a call today with a sales leader and he was sharing with me his journey with regards to social selling and it's fairly typical to what we hear day in and day out.

The sales navigator investment

First, the business invested in Sales Navigator, which is probably the best, no, I'm wrong, it's the best, lead generation tool on the market today. And well worth the price. Please note, we are not paid by LinkedIn to say that, we have no affiliation with LinkedIn, it generally is the best lead generation tool out there.

And for those of you that are currently thinking

"We purchased sales navigator and it did nothing".

"We purchased sales navigator and canned it the next year"

"We use sales navigator and it's OK, I would say it's the best"

"we use sales navigator all the time"

If you are any of those people, then this blog is for you, because I can assure you, that you can get more from sales navigator.

Back to my story..

This sales leader explained to me that they used sales navigator to find people and then what ....

They found that connecting to people saying "I'm your local sales person and would like to talk to you about the products I sell" didn't work. In fact, it often meant they would be get abuse, just like you do when you cold call people, they would get blocked, or people would just ignore them and not accept the connect request.

And if people did accept the connect request .... well what exactly happens next?

Starting with a pitch isn't a conversation. And as well know, sales come from conversations. So how can we create conversations on social?

First you need to learn what it means to be social

I recall having a meeting with a very large waste management company a few years ago and they told the story of buying Sales Navigator and giving it to the salespeople and ...... nothing happened.

I understand that things have got a bit better, LinkedIn (I'm told) now provide some online training, but for this sales leader it wasn't giving the team what they needed. We have all heard the saying "a fool with a tool, is still a fool".

What do you mean you need to learn how to be social?

Here at DLA Ignite, we have created a methodology and framework, that walks sales people, technical people, in fact any employee, through the steps they need to be social.

Social selling, isn't about a tool, it's a way of working, as well as understanding the psychology of the modern buyer, so let's talk quickly about what it takes to be social.

1. Your profile

The number one mistake salespeople make about social media is they think this is all about them. It's not. This is about your buyer. Buyers hate salespeople, so the more you write on your LinkedIn profile about your conquests, the more you are hated.

Let's also not forget, that nobody is interested in your products, services and company, until they know about them. In the past, the only way we got people to know about them was ringing them up and annoying them.

To get people to like your products and services means somehow you have to tell them about your products and services. There is a "chicken and egg" situation here.

The first thing you need is a "buyer centric profile". The first session you attend as part of our social selling methodology we walk you through how to create a profile that is attractive to buyers. In fact, you will find that buyers will actually walk towards you.

This is transformation.

2. Your network

The second thing you need is a network, take your analogue territory and move it online. A CEO just said to me

"Salespeople today, need to be connected into their accounts and having conversations"

It's as simple as that.

The second session in our social selling methodology training is to enable you to connect and have conversations. It is at this session that, the business starts to get leads and meetings, we would expect that you will start filling that pipeline.

3. Content

What is all the fuss about content?

We all know that the modern buyer is on social media looking for insight, they are looking to be educated. This is content. BUT, did you notice I didn't say, they are looking for brochures and they are certainly not looking for corporate content. Why do I know that? Nobody goes onto social to look for a document that tells us how great your company and its products are. We know you are going to say that. In fact our research shows that using corporate content is now bad for your brand. It shows you don't understand the modern buyer and is an insult.

The sales leader I was talking to today, had experimented and had come to the same conclusion.

I was able to assure him that our social selling methodology has a session on teaching people how to create content, the good behaviour and the bad behaviors associated with content.

While on the subject of content, one of the things, that I loved about the meeting with this sales leader today was that he quoted my content back to me.

Just think how powerful that is for your sales team(s) to be influencing their territory.

Yes Tim, but you will have cold called this sales leader to get this meeting

No. This sales leader interacted with my content, in fact the whole of his sales team did. This is how I got the meeting.

And it's worth saying that in the 5 years we have been running DLA Ignite we have not spent a single $ on advertising, we have not sent a single email, (we deleted our email list in 2018 to comply with GDPR) and we have not made a single cold call. And if you want a successful business it's time to stop all of that and switch the budget to where your clients and prospects really are ..... on social.

How can you get the most from sales navigator?

First you need to be social and then you will find that sales navigator is a money making machine!

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