There's a lot of information you can find online about social selling. But MOST people who implement a "social selling" program will be unsuccessful.
Why?
Because there's a critical ingredient that most people and businesses are forgetting...
Being ON Social vs. BEING Social
So often, people and businesses think about "social" selling as:
The act of selling on social media
But that's just a little TOO simplistic.
It makes us think that we can just take our in-person sales activities and just do those things online instead.
But those activities are good at building relationships in-person ONLY.
And fight it as you might, people build relationships DIFFERENTLY online than they do face-to-face.
So, just taking all the things you've done before to build your sales funnel and moving them online doesn't work. I've seen it happen enough times to know.
We need to find ways for our team to BE social online...BEFORE we think about selling.
The In-Your-Face Sell
We've all experienced this, right? Someone slides into our DM's only to tell us that what they are selling is exactly what we need to solve our problems...
Problems they know nothing about because they didn't bother to get to know me at all.
This is what happens when you take your old-school brochure and forcefully hand it out to people online. Their most likely response?
Block.
Because you weren't being social, you were just trying to sell me something.
And I'm not buying.
Consumers are TOO smart these days to skip the pleasantries that create the foundation of a relationship...
You know...the things that ACTUALLY lead to someone buying from you.
The Secret Ingredient
One of the key ingredients to making sales work for you online is...
Caring about the person you're helping enough to:
- Get to know them and their problems and
- Offer to help them (because now it makes sense)
It all comes down to caring...
Not about yourself, your sales numbers and what YOU have to give.
But caring enough about what you're selling to only sell it to people who need it.
And, to find that out, you HAVE to invest the time.
This is why quantity only KPI's fail...
This is the primary reason why companies who ONLY invest in KPI's like "number of sales calls made" fail, specifically when selling online.
Because all the salesperson's time goes toward making calls and NOT investing the time to learn about people, businesses and their problems...and then providing a solution.
It all comes down to two things:
- Helping your salespeople (whoever they are) get connected to the purpose behind your company's products and services, and
- Helping them find ways that feel authentic for them to connect with people online to break through the sales clutter and see the real person on the other side.
Of course, you have to show up and DO things...
You'll never actually sell anything (anywhere) if you don't show up and share with people how you can help them.
BUT...
You need to balance that with purpose, caring and strategy to make the calls-to-action actually work for you.
I've known sales people who make 125 calls a week and book NO appointments.
I've know sales people who make 8 calls a week and book 3 appointments.
That was the SAME sales person.
With and without the authority to build relationships his way.
When people CARE about what they're doing, and can feel GOOD about how they're doing it. they DO it at a different level.
Without taking this into consideration, you may be transitioning your sales activities online, but you WON'T be optimizing your online sales experience.
And it takes an optimized sales experience - in fact a total brand experience - to stand out in the market.
Your business brand experience is the sum of ALL the experiences people have with your brand; including the ones that happen online.
What are yours saying about you?
It's time to rethink your digital brand.
unknownx500
