Ten Commandments of Social Selling

1ENTERPRISE SALES MEETUP | @ENTERPRISE_SALE

THE TENCOMMANDMENTS OFSOCIAL SELLING


Introduction• This presentation walks through the ten most

critical aspects of social selling

• It is common to see many salespeople and sales teams make the same mistakes when social selling

• With increasing noise across all channels of communications, greater competitive challenges, and more content available to buyers, social becomes more important

• Despite the negativity and haters, social selling is not going to go away quietly


Some caveats…


Social Selling is a bunch of…


Questions you must ask

• Who exactly are you targeting?

• Are your prospects really on social?

• Does what you sell translate to social?

• Is your industry an adopter of social?

• Have your competitors gone social?


What social selling can’t do?

• Substitute for real life conversations

• Automatically generate qualified leads

• Take prospects from interest to desire

• Negotiate and close your deals

• Be your one sole sales method


What can social selling do?

• Support marketing advocacy = clicks

• Improve prospecting results = meetings

• Nurture existing deals = wins


The Ten Commandments of Social Selling

1. You shall have no other ways before sales2. You shall not worship any one method3. You shall not have any goals in vain4. You shall remember your plan5. You shall honor your brand6. You shall target your outreach7. You shall measure your activity8. You shall operationalize your process9. You shall not give false hype10. You shall not copy another’s playbook


No other ways before sales• Social Selling = Sales AND Sales is Social• Have the fundamentals in place before

rushing off to the social selling gold rush• Own your training & development in

sales and always be learningPRACTICAL TIP

Commit to reading one book about sales per quarter or dedicating 15 minutes per day reading sales blog posts

SALES


Recommended resources• Books

– Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount– Snap Selling by Jill Konrath– The Sales Development Playbook by Trish Bertuzzi– New Sales Simplified by Mike Weinberg

• Blogs– A Sales Guy by Keenan– The Sales Blog by Ian Narino– Partners in Excellence by David Brock– HubSpot Sales Blog

• Training– Kurlan & Associates– Richardson Training– Sandler Training– VorsightBP

MANY OTHER SOURCES, BE CURIOUS

SALES


Don’t worship any one method• Social selling is not something to use

exclusively outside of other approaches• Mix and match different channels and

tools to increase your productivity

PRACTICAL TIP

The secret is to incorporate social into what you are already doing today, so start with a broader methodology + your own process

MODEL


Plenty of sales methodologies…• Miller-Heiman Strategic Selling• Target Account Selling• Solution Selling• Sandler Selling System• MEDDIC• The Challenger Sale• SNAP Selling• Baseline Selling• Value Selling Framework• CustomerCentric Selling• Insight Selling• And many, many more vendor specific approaches…

ADJUST AND CUSTOMIZE AS NEEDED

MODEL


Don’t have any goals in vain• Before using social selling, define your

why, your what, and your how• Goals should be Specific, Measurable,

Achievable, Relevant & Time-bound

PRACTICAL TIP

Find people in your industry that are active on social channels, observe what they do, then reach out and ask them about THEIR goals

FOCUS


Examples of social sales goals• A smart goal– Generate 5 substantive conversations with

CMO / VP Marketing level executive per week that leads to at least 3 new deals per quarter

• A dumb goal– Get to 5,000 connections LinkedIn and

10,000 followers on Twitter and get a bunch of likes and shares and retweets

FOCUS


• Like any approach, it needs to become as regular and automatic as a habit

• If it is not on your schedule, you never make time and it never happens

Remember your plan

PRACTICAL TIP

Set 10 minutes before the workday and 10 minutes towards the end of the workday for specific “social activities” on your calendar & add alerts

COMMIT


Ideas for social activities

• Scan your feed of news / blogs (use newsreader like Feedly, Newsblur or Inoreader)

• Peruse tweets of a handful of people* you follow on Twitter & LinkedIn

• Share one post you like on Twitter & LinkedIn, retweet or like a few posts

• Send a few personalized LinkedIn connection requests to potentially interesting people

• Respond to interactions with your followers, connection requests & social activities you receive

* These are your targeted prospects and industry influencers

COMMIT


Automation used wisely

Technology is not a substitute for thinking, but can multiply your efforts

– Scheduled Posting – Buffer, Hootsuite, Twitter Ads, Sprout Social

– Follower Growth – GrowthChamp, Followerwonk, Manage Flitter

– Advanced Workflows – IFTTT, Zapier, App-to-App integrations

COMMIT


Honor your brand• Most salespeople neglect taking time

to build their professional image• Credibility is built when prospects

can see your authentic POV (point of view)PRACTICAL TIP

Build an online folder & spreadsheet of content that can be used (your own, your company, other sources) that align to your POV

REAL


Doing a quick social makeoverLINKEDIN

Avoid the resume approach High quality profile picture Fill-in your profile and make

sure its current Use a catchy tagline rather than

your company & title Get handful of

recommendations Use the summary to describe

your value and expertise to clients

Share relevant posts & content that you collected

Make your profile public Add your contact information

TWITTER

Use your name & a professional handle

High quality profile picture (same as LinkedIn)

Fill-in your bio and include a company handle / hashtag

Add location and website Schedule a series of relevant

tweets Start to follow more people

you want to target (watch your follow ratio)

Make your profile public Get alerts for certain targeted

profiles

REAL


The perfect social profile Not simply a resume

Professional headshot

Personalized LinkedIn URL

Complete profile

Quickly understand value she provides

Shares some relevant content

Summary speaks to her “why”

Good number of connections


Target your outreach• Define your audience, find prospects

& learn what they care most about• Personalization is critical, remember

that content without context is spam

PRACTICAL TIP

Use tools such as Nimble, Full Contact, Rapportive, Clearbit, etc. to find social profiles of targeted prospects & reach out using across those channels

TARGET


What social spammers do• Refuse to customize LinkedIn connect requests• Send LinkedIn connect request, then message you

immediately with a pitch• Use automated messaging like Twitter Direct Messages

when connecting• Like, retweet, favorite everything without reading or

providing intelligent comments• Send out the same low-grade, non-personalized content

over and over again• Do not engage in meaningful conversations other than to

pitch their stuff

DON’T BE A NOISE GENERATOR

TARGET


What social winners do• After having a conversation with prospect, send

personalized LinkedIn connection request• Post a relevant and high quality post on LinkedIn that

speaks to your prospect’s need / pain point• Follow company on LinkedIn and Twitter, observe stuff

company talks about and shares• Visit a few other executive and mid-level employee

LinkedIn profiles and follow the more active ones• Have a touch plan that incorporates LinkedIn & Twitter

outreach and share content that reflects need / pain point

BE A VALUE GENERATOR!

TARGET


Secrets of a LinkedIn power userWHAT TO DO MORE INFOUpload your contacts This expands your 1st level connections, creating many more 2nd level connections

that are easier to reach

Viewers of this profile… When connecting to a prospect, use this section to see other relevant contacts, then create the prospect org chart

Advanced search Find prospects by title, company, location, keyword, company size, seniority level, groups, etc. (some of these require paid account)

Ways to keep in touch Respond to changes / updates of your contacts 1) let’s you know important contact updates 2) puts you top of mind w/ contacts

Join groups Another access point to relevant prospects to connect to & discussions can lead to reasons for making a connection

Follow companies Provides updates & content from companies to use in your outreach

Deep prospect research Lots of useful info; contact info & links, posts & media, work & schools, interests, volunteer work, recommendations, groups, how to contact, etc.

Connect requests Personalize invite and use the 300 characters to 1) talk about them 2) why they should connect 3) call to action

InMails Last rung of outreach, note that any response to an InMail within 90 days (even not interested) returns your credit

TARGET


Secrets of a Twitter power userWHAT TO DO MORE INFOUpload your contacts Increases your number of connections, growing your credibility and more

importantly the reach of your tweets

Who to follow Recommendations on like accounts to build your network; also note the “You might want to follow these similar accounts” right after following someone

Advanced search Can use https://twitter.com/search-advanced to find similar users or users interested in similar topics

Hashtags Three ways to leverage 1) add one relevant hashtag to your bio 2) add one or two hashtags to enhance visibility of your tweets 3) follow hashtags for discussions

Build lists Build a few lists to capture 1) industry leaders 2) prospects – both people and companies 3) industry / profession tips & tricks

Follow lists Lists provide a way to follow a curated set of users, look out for lists created by industry leaders / influencers

Deep prospect research Read through tweets of active prospects and see who they follow, what hashtags they follow, and which lists they joined

Like and retweets Use these as icebreakers a couple of days before OR after following a user you have targeted; avoid creepy, but continue to do so sparingly

Direct messaging Can be effective if not used as pitch, apply same rules as LinkedIn InMails or direct emails; best way is to share useful content like a post or webinar

TARGET

https://twitter.com/search-advanced


Measure your activity• Remember the point about goals is

that they need to be measurable• Avoid vanity metrics and things that

do not have a line of sight to revenue

PRACTICAL TIP

Track social engagement in your CRM / sales tool, have designated activities & tasks for different social channels

MEASURE


Tracking social to revenue

• What is your return on investment using social? More than source!– Lead source is not enough, track task level and identify the

CHANNEL of engagement– Use automation to capture LinkedIn & Twitter activities in the

CRM / sales tool

• What does not lead to revenue…– SSI – LinkedIn’s Social Selling Index– Klout and Kred scores– Number of connections / followers

MEASURE

MONEY METRICS MATTER MOST


Operationalize your process• New approaches take time to refine

and become comfortable with• Once you have learned and adjusted

the approach, begin to scale out to teamPRACTICAL TIP

Compare social activities in CRM sales tool vs. each other & phone / email outreach. Look for # of activities, # of deals, deal size, length of sales cycle.

LEARN


Building repeatability

• A/B test your messaging for connection requests, tweets, LinkedIn posts, LinkedIn shares

• Test different touch plans, time between touches, and number of overall touches

• Build templates for messaging and centralize all templates for easy access

• Create standard process and setup within CRM / sales tool

• Add automation and alerts where applicable to ensure compliance and discipline of social selling habits

LEARNING BEGETS SUCCESS

TARGET


Don't give false hype• Easy to put on the “Happy Ears” and

base results on anecdotal evidence• Ask hard questions and do not

support activities and effort without resultsPRACTICAL TIP

Set goal of one or more deal reviews per quarter with sales team that originated from social activity.

RESULTS


Sharing is caring (and winning)

• Story telling is core sale skill, create case studies that show social selling success

• Create a Slack channel (or other app) to continuously share tips across team

• Incorporate social as a category on sales analytics dashboards and share with team

• Support each other’s social selling activities with retweets, share & likes

• Add an MBO (management by objectives) to quarterly bonuses for documenting social selling successes

BUILD ON SOCIAL SUCCESSES

RESULTS


Don't covet another’s playbook• There is no one-size-fits-all approach

or strategy in sales• Hone in on the unique model that

works for you and for your team

PRACTICAL TIP

Your sales playbook should have social engagement plays and have your repeatable social activities incorporated

UNIQUE


Let’s Talk• Follow me and send a tweet

@marksbirch• Connect over LinkedIn and mention this

presentation https://www.linkedin.com/in/marksbirch

• If you sell to enterprises, join us for the Enterprise Sales Meetup http://enterprisesalesmeetup.com/

• If you are focused on prospecting, join us for the Sales Development Meetup

http://www.meetup.com/Sales-Development-Meetup/

https://twitter.com/marksbirch

https://twitter.com/marksbirch

https://www.linkedin.com/in/marksbirch

http://enterprisesalesmeetup.com/blog/




THANK YOU!

Ten Commandments of Social Selling

Sales

Transcript of Ten Commandments of Social Selling