Serendipity rarely seems to happen in sales, when it does it seems like magic.

A friend (at the match) was telling me about a huge sales win her company had  just got, and only a few months after she had joined.

She was excited because the deal from start to finish closed in just under 2 weeks (including legals) she said ‘I was the closer’.

“That’s awesome” I said and we went on to watch the match (we lost) and then went for a drink to discuss her BIG win, who they were, what they do and the size of the deal.

I asked her how often this happens and she told me it was their first, she can't believe how lucky she was as she had only started at the company a couple of months ago, she said the board couldn't  be praising her enough. 

I asked her if they had done anything radically different since she had joined, she said she didn't think so, but for me her answer was very telling;

"Well when I arrived they didn't really have a cohesive social media strategy, everything was being done haphazard and in a tactical 'spray & pray' siloed way. 

She says, I simply asked them to think about it in a different way. 

I asked each department - if you could have a one on one conversation with a potential client, what would you say about us and why we are different to our competitors"

She had written down the answers, went away and crafted them as stories for social media, we finished our drinks and went our different ways.

I’m a firm believer of a concept I term ‘curious intent’, this is based on something that Google call ‘moments’, it’s when you want to find out more about someone, or something, and then act on it - this for me sums up ‘curious intent’.

Take a look at the volume of search terms for your brand/business, you will find there are literally thousands & in some cases millions - maybe your not as 'unique' as you would like to think.

Better still, type in your name into LinkedIn and see how many 'Mary Smith' Sales professionals there are.

So, how do you stand out in a very noisy digital world, because shouting louder than the next girl or guy doesn't work?

'Selling Socially' is founded on the basic principles with that 'curious intent' behaviour very much front and centre.

Any 'Social Media' strategy should be focused on an enterprise wide aligned plan for understanding what we call the 'social buying stages'. 

It's about making sure your brand/business is in the ‘research zone’ when ‘curiosity with intent’ kicks in, and its about being seen to be authentic to your potential customers with what we call 'social proof.

Getting front of mind has always been about intrusive outbound messaging, you know, cold calling, mail drops, e-mail and advertising. 

However, a lot of those traditional habits and activities have rapidly changed, today's prospect are more likely to be doing their own due diligence on you, your company, and it's employees - most of it via social channels. 

68% of the research has already been done before any direct contact has been made - think about it.

There are 8-10 stakeholders (client side) involved in the decision.....and

They will have invested over 40+ hours in that research stage.

Serendipity.....I don’t think so!

We work with a number of Global organisations who want to be the 'Change Makers' in their sector. We don't do retainers, we don't create copy/content, and we don't 'sell' advertising. 

What do is to teach you, your colleagues and leadership teams how to unleash the real power of 'Social Media' and process that can weaponise your business and provide you with a huge global competitive advantage.

Are you curious?

If so, contact the author for a conversation.