Does your CEO need the ROI of social selling to be revenue or likes and shares?
Timothy "Tim" Hughes 提姆·休斯 L.ISP
Should have Played Quidditch for England
I so often see posts on?LinkedIn?and?social media?that talk about "likes and shares".
Here at?DLA Ignite,?we meet many senior people,?CEOs,?CROs,?CMOs,?CFOs, and they all tell us they don't care about likes and shares, it's all about?revenue?and?EBITDA.
In fact one of our team,?Rob Durant, put it succinctly in an internal meeting this week he said
"Our (as in?DLA Ignite's) ROI is in revenue creation and not likes and shares.?Because that's all what a CEO cares about."
How very true.?
He also went on to compare us with other sales methodologies and pointed out that while they all say there is a social media element, they are not modern.?They are not part of the modern social landscape and don't have social at their core.
Our social selling program is an strategic approach to social and not about tactical likes, comments and shares.?We teach all our candidates that they need to approach social strategically.
For example
1. What will this action do on social to drive me leads, meeting and proposals, and then
2. How will this drive revenue?
We have also added the fact that the international sales trade body?Institute of Sales Professionals?has chosen us to provide the digital sales best practice to their global members. This takes the form of a?social selling?qualification, the only one in the world.
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".?Here at?DLA Ignite, engagement is important but we are about driving?revenue,?EBITDA, for your business using social media.?This is about you winning business from the competition and having a competitive advantage.?
Social is about having a strategy and there are two key drivers
With anything you do on social there are two questions you need to ask
2. How much revenue / EBITDA am I getting as a business?
Posting and hoping or posting random stuff is not a strategy, in fact I doubt it's driving anything for your 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, and?DLA Ignite?customer, 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,?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 sponsored by the?Institute of Sales Professionals?(ISP).
Other articles you might be interested in ....
Articles for the CEO
Articles for Sales leadership
领英推荐
Can programmatic social selling sort my pipeline issues?
Articles to support sales people - sales process and sales tips
Can I use prospect sequencing with social selling?
Articles to support channel and third party selling
Articles to support Account Based Marketing / Account Based Selling - ABM - ABS
Articles about Employee advocacy
Articles for Marketing
Our VP of Sales Just got 83 likes on a LinkedIn post, so that means we are social selling? No!
Independent Digital Non-Executive Director, C-Suite Executive, Serial Business Advisor for Growth-Phase Tech Companies, and Best Selling Author
2 年Great post Timothy (Tim) Hughes 提姆·休斯 some major thoughts here. Leadership has a responsibility to proactively establish, manage to, and reinforce their desired culture at multiple levels. While this is not new “news” to CEOs and CHROs, their ability to quickly and effectively build a winning culture is being directly challenged. They’re facing intense external competition for their workforce, employee expectations regarding the workplace and hybrid/remote flexibility, and a marketplace rich with growth opportunities for organizations that adjust and respond swiftly. Is social selling a part of company culture, can the ceo and management show ROI across storytelling via social networks, is the company strong in philosophy and values to its employees? Great days and great things lie ahead for companies that make deliberate choices on the path leading toward a better future, supported by a strong, positive culture.
Thought this was a mickey take question. Even more worrying is that there may be businesses out there that really don’t have a scooby about what really makes the world turn!!
At my core, I am a teacher. I'm great at the middle of conversations. I'm not as athletic as I remember being.
2 年I learned very early in my career Timothy, regardless of your role in the organization (at the time I was in customer service), if you can prove that your contribution to the organization vis-à-vis revenue exceeds the cost to keep you around, you are more likely to keep your job. Money may not be the only thing that matters, but there's no denying that it's important.
The Business Growth Locksmith | A Global Community Driven Relocation Marketplace
2 年One is vanity, the other sanity just like a P&L Timothy (Tim) Hughes 提姆·休斯 - great post