We bought sales navigator, so that means we are social selling - I'm sorry but no, far from it!, Tim Hughes

It was Grady Booch the American software engineer who said

"a fool with a tool is still a fool"

What's the best lead generation tool in the world?

This week I was on a LinkedIn webinar, of course if you are on a Linkedin webinar it's going to try and sell you Sales Navigator. After all, if I was on one of your webinars, you would try and sell me your product or service.

The speaker from LinkedIn is telling us how amazing LinkedIn sales navigator (sales nav) is and in the chat somebody comments, that they had "tried sales nav and it was rubbish".

I should point out that I am not paid by LinkedIn, or Microsoft and I am not on any commission. But, by far, LinkedIn sales navigator IS the best lead generation tool on the market.

But only if you know how to use it

What I mean by "know how to use it" is you need to know what it's takes to be social, otherwise you can become the world's most advanced spammer.

Think of Sales nav as a Formula 1 car. I've been driving for years on normal roads, but I would crash a F1 car at the first bend, because it's a highly sophisticated tool. You and I would expect to be trained on driving a F1 car first. Yes? The same with Sales Nav.

A fool with a tool is still a fool

Checking out the Linkedin profile of the person who said it was rubbish, her Linkedin profile was rubbish. Her summary title was in capitals, which made it look like she was shouting, she had little to no network and she hadn't posted any content. From a Linkedin prospective, she didn't have a pulse. No wonder she didn't find it any use.

If you got any message from her you would assume she was a spammer.

For Sales Navigator to work for you, you have to know what it means to be social, otherwise, you are wasting your time and your money. This has always been Linkedin's problem with selling Sales Navigator, they sell you how to use the tool, but not what it means to be social.

It's about like me teaching you how a car engine works and then telling you to drive a car. One is being trained on the technicalities of using the tool, the other is the process of using the tool in real life.

The same, same

We have a client that uses an employee advocacy tool, which is a great tool, but again, people are being trained how to use the tool, but not why. We have data that shows that the people that use this tool get nothing from it. But, actually if you use this tool properly, you would get a massive response from it. It's actually so simple (which is good) and so powerful.

So why sales tech?

My advice on any sales teach is to understand what you want to achieve, sales tech for sales tech sake will just mean you spending money and getting no benefit.

My advice, before you invest in any sales tech is to make sure your people are empowered to be digital, be able to walk digital corridors and understand what it means to be social.

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.

Remember, social media is, social media. In the past you interrupted somebody with a cold call or an email and pitched your services. As social media is being social on media, interrupting and pitching does not work.

If I walked up to you at a social event and pitched, you would make your excuses and go and talk to somebody else.

So how about tomorrow, I pick you up in my car and we go to a place where all your prospects are hanging out. You can stay as long as you want. All you have to do is have a conversation with them. It's that simple, if you are interested, read on.

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).

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