Last week I was presenting to a leadership team. The CEO, the head of the SDR team, the head of sales enablement and the CRO.
Here at DLA Ignite, we have an introductory presentation that educates, while it tells a story.
We use the latest data (not opinions) and then walk through our case studies and show how modern digital business work.
At one point, we talk about the modern buyer and the need to have a "buyer centric profile" anyway the CRO made a comment
"I didn't know we were allowed to do that"
Here we had a business that was struggling with growth and pipeline and the team were waiting for permission to use their LinkedIn profile.
I've spoken to many a CEO and they usual comment is
"The team know what do and I'm sure they are doing it"
The things is the team is not doing what they should be doing, for many a reason
- They might not actually know what to do
- They might be scared
- They might be waiting for your permission
As leaders we know we need to empower our teams with digital and it's our responsibility that the team get to understand what they need to do and there is no drama.
Now Imagine .....
Imagine, I pick you up tomorrow in my car and drive you to a place which is full of your prospects and customers. All you have to do is go up and have a conversations with them.
In a social environment like this, walking up and pitching to somebody doesn't work, as it doesn't on a social network.
There has never been an excuse not to be connected to people within an account and in this digital age, even less so. Our social selling and influence course, will teach and coach you to be having conversations with prospects and customers at scale. Whether this is a new business or account-based marketing (ABM) approach.
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" this is about revenue, EBITDA, you winning business from the competition and having a competitive advantage.
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?
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, 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, Brentney, 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 provided by an independent qualification body (OfQual) and sponsored by the Institute of Sales Professionals (ISP).
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