Can my ignorance about social selling be a reason why we are losing deals?, Tim Hughes

There is a lot written about social selling, there is also a lot of ignorance.

There was a post (in German), where one business in Germany said they could make people millionaires in six months with social selling. It might surprise you that they soon after disappeared, with their clients money, I assume.

Every week we see a "get rich quick" scheme on LinkedIn.

As with so many things in life, if something is too good to be true, it probably is.

Don't for get the barrier to entry to be "an expert" on Linkedin is low to non-existent.

What is social selling?

How about tomorrow, I pick you up in my car and I take you to a place where all your prospects hang out?

When you arrive at this place with all your prospects what would you do?

Grab a coffee and go up to the first one and start a conversation? Yes?

"Have you travelled far?" "How did you get here?" you would find areas of commonality, yes?

As sales people, we all know why.

Because people will know us, like us and trust us.

It used to be called building rapport.

If we find commonality in people .... that we know, like and trust, they are more likely to buy from us. Which is good.

The other great thing about having a room full of our prospects is that ..... it's a room full of our prospects.

Now that would be great, wouldn't?

Don't forget there is no time limit on how long you spend there, you can have conversations with your prospects all day.

Now, how about it if I tell you this happens to be LinkedIn.

This is exactly how a social network works. We have conversations.

Conversations lead to commercial interactions. Simple as.

Now we wouldn't walk into a a room with our prospects and ...

Now you wouldn't walk into that room with all your prospects and go

"I'm Tim Hughes and roll up, roll up and buy some social selling and the first 5 people in a line will get a discount".

Of course you wouldn't as somebody would call security.

Also .....

Sending inmails does not create conversations.

Send pitches as connection requests does not create conversations.

Sending connection requests and then a week later a pitch does not create conversations.

Being spammy or manipulative on social media does not create conversations.

None of these methods are social selling in fact they are cold calling on a social network. Now you wouldn't "cold call" at a networking event, so why are you doing on social media? After all, it makes you and your company look like jerks.

How do people learn?

We see company after company and guru after guru make the assumption that .... if I tell you something and it's good for you, you will do it.

There is also the assumption, that if I give you a loads of power points, somehow you will remember them.

The other mistake sales gurus make is that they assume that knowing and doing are the same thing. They are not.

This is why our social selling program has been chosen by the institute of sales professionals (ISP) to be the only social selling qualification in the world.

It's a qualification, just like you get at school or at college, that gives you the theory and practical knowledge on how to put digital, front and centre to your sales activities. Now think about the competitive advantage that would give you, your team and your company.

Or put it another way, think of the disadvantage, you, your team and your company have, if you don't do it.

Not understanding social selling is OK

As it stands today, not understanding social selling is OK, but as social selling has now become the norm, even the Institute of professional sales (ISP) the global sales trade body offer a qualification on it.

Not understanding social selling is going to a major disadvantage to you, your business and your career.

Can your ignorance about social selling be exploited so you lose deals, by other sales people?

You bet!

But the answer is simple

Now Imagine .....

How about if I said, I can take you to a place where all your prospects hang out, would you go?

I can pick you up in the car tomorrow and you can hang out there having conversations with them.

When you arrived, what would you do?

Grab a coffee and go up to the first one and start a conversation? Of course you would.

Or would you walk in and say "buy my stuff, because we are great". Of course you wouldn't, as somebody would call security.

That's the difference. Selling on social is ...... social. You have conversations with people.

You don't go up to people and pitch to them as people will call security.

The great thing about social is that there is no "prime selling time (PST)", you can have as many conversations as you want. One of my customers, does his prospecting between putting the kids to bed and when he goes to bed.

It's time to bring your demand generation into the second decade of the 21st century and it's time to "start fishing where the fish are" ...... on social.

What is social selling?

Here at DLA Ignite, we define social selling as

"Using your presence and behavior on Social Media to build influence,
make connections, grow relationships and trust, which leads to
conversation and commercial interaction."

It's not witchcraft, it's enabling your salespeople to work from home, (or the office) and create conversations with prospects and customers. Conversations on social media and conversations that convert.

The problem with the name "social selling" is that people think that this is selling on social. All these pitches that you get on social are not social selling, they are spam.

The other thing you need to know about social selling is that this isn't about "putting out some videos" or "putting flowers on your profile" or "going viral". Here at DLA Ignite, engagement is important but we are about driving revenue, EBITDA, for your business using social media. This is about you winning business from the competition and having a competitive advantage.

Social is about having a strategy and there are two key drivers

With anything you do on social there are two questions you need to ask

1. How many leads / meetings / conversations will I get from this post / blog / activity?

2. How much revenue / EBITDA am I getting as a business?

Posting and hoping or posting random stuff is not a strategy, in fact I doubt it's driving anything for your business.

So who's social selling?

In case you missed it, the Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch have banned cold calling and have moved all their people to social selling. This isn't some trendy tech company that might have decided to do this on a whim, this is a very conservative financial services company that has made a decision based on data.

But surely cold calling has a better ROI than social selling? Not according to Merrill Lynch.

"They will also be encouraged to contact prospects over LinkedIn, which has a higher hit rate than cold calling"

The CRO (chief revenue officer), Richard Eltham of Namos Solutions, of one of clients posted a comment on LinkedIn about social selling. See here.

“Social selling is not an option now it is the way of the world and you either learn and execute it or fear getting left behind”

Kevin Murray who is the Head of Sales at MacArtney Underwater Technology recently posted about his success with social selling here and wrote an article about the transformation that has happened in sales here.

Andrew Ferrier who is the CEO of Display Technology Ltd and in this article it talks about why Display Technology have adopted social selling. His team have also created a social media strategy with help from our partner, Crux.

Their social media mission statement is

“We want to position ourselves as a forward-thinking, knowledgeable team of individuals who are all experts in our own right, therefore, collectively awesome!”

Andrew also says in that post

"Adopting this (social selling) strategy has taken all of us well outside of our comfort zones but the rewards we have seen in a short period of time have created an excitement within the business development team (new term for sales team).

Because of the nature of social media, quite often you can get instant results. Even if that is just a comment left on your post, or a like, or someone taking the time to want to connect with you.

The excitement around the sales team is infectious, it’s no longer a chore to reach out to the market place because the results can be instant and are there, right in front of you."

What sort of results can you expect?

If you check out this video of Chris Mason CEO at Oracle reseller Namos, and DLA Ignite customer, fast forward to 19 minutes 55 seconds. Chris talks about a $2.6 million win from being on social, after completing the DLA Ignite social selling and influence course.

What happened? They buyer was on social media looking for a solution to their problem, spotted one of the Namos salespeople, who had a buyer-centric profile and asked if the salesperson could help them. That turned into a $2.6 million deal.

Contact any of the DLA Ignite team, Eric, Adam, Nick, Vanessa, Lorena, Priscilla, Lenwood, Alex and they will be more than happy to help.

Go and look at their LinkedIn profiles .... look how they can have digital conversations, create insightful content. This could be your company!

We are the only social selling and influence company in the world to offer a certificate in social selling sponsored by the Institute of Sales Professionals (ISP).

Other articles you might be interested in ....

Would you buy social selling training course from somebody that doesn't use social selling?

How to create budget and build a business case for your social selling project