10 reasons you get social selling all wrong, Tim Hughes

Social selling has transformed business today, there was a day when there were no case studies, not anymore.

Here at DLA Ignite, as a global business, working across many verticals we have extensive experience, data and case studies on how social selling is outperforming the old legacy modes of selling.

Let's not forget, from our own experiences, social media has changed the world, it has changed society and it's changed business. It is somewhat ironic that even cold calling gurus now use social to sell their wares.

Adam Gray (my co-founder of DLA Ignite) and I were gave a workshop the other week for a company's leadership team away day. They came up with a number of points about social selling where they clearly didn't understand what it was about. That was why we were there of course. I thought I would share them with you these points.

To give you some idea what we walked into, this was 5 business issues that they explained they were facing

Our sales funnel has been declining and is now empty.
Our traditional “analogue” selling is evidentially no longer able to create the opportunity pipe needed to meet our sales targets.
We need new logos and organic growth to create success around the sales funnel.
We are increasingly engaging too late in the sales cycle and are not able to exert adequate control or influence on the outcome, resulting in poor conversion rates.
Doing nothing will not deliver commercial success.

1. Social selling is selling on social

Today, I opened up by LinkedIn and there were two pitches from companies. This isn't social selling, it's spam. We define social selling as

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

2. We post on social when marketing tells us to

This means you treat social media as a tactic, like this, I doubt you will get any response. This is a random act of social. Social has to be a strategy, there has to be a clear methodology in your business on how to use social, it is only this way that you will connect social media and revenue.

3. Our focus is winning business not being on social

I understand that "being on social" is often seen by the uninitiated as a waste of time.

I've written before and showed in the presentation, an example post of how one of the DLA Ignite team got 6 x C-Level meetings , 2 proposals and 1 purchase order from one post on social media that took 10 minutes. If you are reading this and would like me to explain this to you, then get in touch.

We see business wasting time and budget making cold calls, placing adverts and sending emails, which everybody knows does not work. There is a clear choice opened up, sending time on social creating pipeline or wasting time using legacy sales methods that create nothing.

4. Our customers don't want to be sold to

Totally agree with this, that's why social is not pitching to people on social OR connecting and pitching. That's spam. Simple as.

5. We need to build trust with our clients before they buy

100%. In B2B enterprise where we work, all our clients need to build trust and the best way to do this is to be where your clients are on social. As I said before, don't spam. Be yourself and start conversations.

In our social selling and influence course and coaching we take the students through how to have a great profile on Linkedin. Rather than customers avoiding you, they will actually walk towards you.

If you check out this video of Chris Mason CEO at Oracle reseller Namos, 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. This business was gained by a client contacting Namos, not the other way round. Don't believe me, listen to the video.

In our social selling and influence course and coaching we take the students through how to connect with people to create conversations, not by being spammy, but by being social. Let's not forget, it's conversations that create sales.

In our social selling and influence course and coaching we take the students through how to create content to demonstrate your insight and expertise.

All three of these pillars will enable you to create trust.

6. We need to be visible to our clients

In 5. we explain how we will empower your team(s) to create content, this is how you will be visible to your clients. Let's not forget, if you don't post, you are invisible to your clients.

Clearly you need to choose between being visible and invisible.

7. We need to sell new logos and get renewals

Social selling supports you throughout the sales process, from prospects, right through the sales process and into supporting the client so you get the renewal.

As I explained in 5. your sales team need to look like people that customers want to work with, your salespeople need to be connected and have relationships with the people you want to influence and sell to. Your salespeople need to be empowered to create content your clients want to consume.

Note: Clients don't want to consume brochures and white papers. Clients want insight. They want to be told something they don't know and they want to be entertained.

8. One of the reason why I work for the company are the reviews on glassdoor

Don't forget, that social selling is not just LinkedIn. LinkedIn is only 30% of your social graph.

There are many aspects of social where you need to be as a salesperson and a business. Which is why LinkedIn training is no use to you, understanding social will.

We talk to so many companies who say things like "we are all about our company culture" but they say nothing about the company culture on social. It's time to share your culture and how great it is .... on social.

9. There's been a shift in conversations from face-to-face to online

Agree with this. Let's not forget, social isn't about selling, it's about conversations.

In our social selling and influence course and coaching we get the sales team to stop pitching and to start having conversations. After all, conversations drive sales.

10. People are scared to change their profile on LinkedIn

I remember having a call with a CEO of a software company and I remember him say, "my people know what to do to be social, they will just do it". They won't.

People are scared of social, they are scared they will get fired, leadership need to give people permission and to lead themselves.

So who's social selling?

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.

I don't believe you Tim!

This is not my opinion, there is data to back this up.

I recently wrote about how social selling was increasing the conversation rate on Director level calls by 42%. Again, not my opinion, this is all data backed. I agree, that we can only increase the conversion rate on rank and file people by 25% but either way scaled across your business this will make transformational difference to your revenue, profit and EBITDA.

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.

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