Our VP of Sales Just got 83 likes on a LinkedIn post, so that means we are social selling? No!, Tim Hughes

Like all salespeople, I prospect.

One of the companies that I have been targeting tell me they social sell when they don't. What do I mean?

Let's look at what social selling means

Firstly as a business the amount of business that you get from social media, will be measured as profit, revenue, EBITDA and will be known at the Board level. All modern Boards members today can recite the business they make from social in $s or whatever currency you use.

The amount of business you drive from social is reported at Board level.

There will be a clear strategy, set by the Board that social is critical to the business and not just a nice to have. I often hear in business "we tried a social campaign and it didn't work" - I bet it didn't, tactics don't.

One of our clients has taken our advice on digital dominance to heart and has totally whipped out the competition. Can you imagine, being in a position where you totally dominate the market?

This Sales VP with 83 likes won't be generating anything from social, I can see from their management team isn't on social and neither is the sales team. This will be marketing saying we need to be on social, it will be just another tactic and having no strategy in fact this is just a random act of social.

Yes, but my VP of sales got 83 likes on a Linkedin post

OK, great, but how many of those likes lead to conversations and meetings?

How many of these meetings lead to proposals?

How many proposals lead to business?

After all, that's why we are here as a business isn't?

We are here to generate business and if we are posting on social and getting nothing from it, then that is a cost, not a profit to the business.

I would suggest that you business needs a methodology, after all sales is a process.

Let's have a look at that post

I had a look at the post that had 83 likes and it was people in your company, people in a partner company and friends.

Nobody in the accounts the Sales VP was trying to influence, no prospects and no net new logo people.

The sales VP is talking in an echo chamber.

I would bet, like I said before, this person is getting no commercial interactions from this post.

What's the competition doing?

The competition has been on our social selling and influence course. All of the management team, sales and marketing team have buyer centric profiles.

They have networks in the accounts they are trying to influence and sell to.

They are posting authentic content that makes them look human, they are sharing insight that makes them look professional.

So much so that buyers walk towards them. One buyer walked towards them and said "can you help us?", that turned into a $2.6 million deal.

The sales VP with the 83 likes above Linkedin profile, looks like all Sales VPs, you wouldn't trust them as far as you could throw them.

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.

Here at DLA Ignite we don't do "hints and tips sessions" we don't want you to waste your money. Our social selling and influence methodology will provide your sales team with the stable platform for growth. It is also the only social selling program based on 70:20:10 change management principles which gives your business the mindset change and habit change they need in this digital world.

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