What is social selling and what it isn't?, Tim Hughes

Thought it was worth clearing up what is social selling and what it isn't.

Let's start with what social selling isn't

Social selling is not selling on social.
Social selling is not sending inmails, sending inmails is spam.
Social selling is not getting a company to send spam connection requests out on your behalf, that in case you didn't know is illegal under LinkedIn standard terms and conditions. See here.
Social selling is not connecting to people and then pitching.
Social selling is not posting and hoping.

What is social selling?

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

Remember that social selling is about creating revenue and EBITDA for your business. If you post anything, there needs to be a strategy and you need to ask yourself two questions.

How many meetings or leads can you create with your activity on social media?
How much revenue have you created from your activity on social media?

How do you social sell?

Social selling is the ideal vehicle for originating and selling deals.

Why? Because it allows you to sell higher and wider than legacy sales methods, it also gets resonance with people higher in organisations.

But you are here to find out how to sell deals, so let's walk you through it.

1. Buyer centric profile - The first thing you need is a buyer-centric social media profile. This is a profile, that when your target accounts look at you, they see you as the expert you are, they see you say a human being that can help them, they see you as that sherpa, that helper, the person that can solve their business issues. Don't forget, that they don't know they have the business issue that you are going to solve. Well they don't know, yet. Let's not forget this company has zero understanding about what your business does. Hold that thought.

The last thing you you want is your LinkedIn profile to look like is a CV, it means you are looking for a job, or maybe you look like just another salesperson? These is revenue to be had here, this is the big prize, invest some time. Don't forget, you need to look different, like an expert and look human.

2. Build your digital network - Then taking your buyer centric profile, you start building your network, that is connecting with the people you want to influence and sell to in these global accounts.

There is a tip here, don't sell. Yes I know you have an amazing solution and you are passionate about it, (after all it pays your mortgage) but I don't know that. Yes I know it's called "social selling". But simple psychology tells us all that we all hate being sold to. So don't. It's your job is to get me into a conversation.

People buy from people they know, like and trust. We don't buy from people who turn up and pitch to us on social.

Don't worry we train and coach you on how to create a buyer centric profile and how to create a digital territory at scale as part of your social selling and influence course.

3. Content - The final thing you need is content.

Please forget the brochures that marketing create, nobody reads them.

I would suggest you flip articles from an app like Flipboard or better still, create your own blogs, like this. Let's not forget in this blog, I'm not telling you "buy my product, because we are great" I'm giving you insight, I'm showing you I'm an expert, I'm explaining how to sell with social selling. You need to create insight about what you do.

This is what you need to be doing, with your content.

Explain the business issue(s) one at a time.

Post everyday, don't forget if you don't post you are invisible.

We will take you through how to create content as part of our social selling and influence course.

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.

I don't believe you Tim!

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.

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