How do we measure social selling?
Timothy "Tim" Hughes 提姆·休斯 L.ISP
Should have Played Quidditch for England
I often hear people say and?podcasts ?and read on platforms like?LinkedIn , that?you cannot measure social selling.
I'm going to have to lay a marker down, if you hear anybody say that or write it,?they don't know what they are talking about.
Social selling ?is in fact a way a business can get control of their?sales ?and?marketing ?process.
In the past there was?marketing qualified leads ?(MQLs),?Sales qualified leads ?(SQLs) and the?CRM .
MQLs and SQLs were great as it meant we had a common language for what a lead is / was.?The problem is that it doesn't actually measure activity or contribution.?The CRM, we know is just full of?"hopes and dreams".?
So how as a leadership team do we get a handle on the future?revenues ?of the business?
How as a sales leader am I able to go to the?Board ?and forecast with certainty?
Social allows you to measure leading indicators
What does the modern sales team measure?
Connection requests sent?- Modern sales team will be growing their?digital ?territories and?digital ?sales teams know that each connection request is an opportunity for a?conversation .
Connection requests accepted?- This allows you to measure how many conversations your sales team has and we all know conversations create sales.?
Engaging with prospects?- How many likes and comments you have given and received.?Only the other day a?Managing Director ?of one of my target accounts invited me onto a call, because we had been interacting online.
How many social posts published?- We know that as a business, our buyers are looking for experts and content allows us to be front of mind with our clients.?If you are not publishing?content ?then you are invisible.
How much engagement are your social posts gaining??- Let's not forget we are looking for engagement from within our target accounts and from outside of our digital territory.?
Booked appointments?- conversations drive sales.?
Traffic to strategic content?- As part of out?content plan , the sales people maybe getting "air cover" from content you may be creating as part of an overall team strategy.?
As you can see, if you are using social, this clearly is a business in control, a business that knows who's contributing and who isn't.?A business that is aware of the leading indicators and how they will convert.?
Now picture this
Tomorrow, you and I are going to meet at the?lobby ?of your target customer.?
Go with me on this.
Imagine that I have a?key card ?to get into the building, we wave to?security ?and I let you through the security barriers.?Impressive eh!
We walk over to the?elevators ?and I press the button to go up to the relevant floors where we can meet with the people you need to sell to.?Now you have never met these people before so i will introduce you.?That will mean you will get to meet the people you need to meet in this target customer of yours.
Pick whatever?department ?you want, I will take you there and introduce you.?
For example, say you sell?accounting ?systems,?ERP ?systems, then I can take you and introduce you to the people in?Finance .?Or maybe you sell?human resources ?(HR) software and I take you to meet the HR people. Or maybe you sell?CRM , customer experience (CX ) and I can take you to meet all the people in?marketing ?and sales.
Now if I walked you into finance, (or any of the other departments) and?I started to introduce you to the people there one-by-one.?Now, you wouldn't hand everybody a?brochure ?and walk away, would you??
This is your chance to get into the business, meet the people, build relationships.?Kinda cool!?
As I introduce you to the people in your target department, you would hand them your business card.?You might get people to scan the?QR code ?on?LinkedIn ?so you are connected.?
Either way you would also want to be remembered.?So you might ask them a question about themsleves, maybe you spot that?Manchester United ?mug on their desk, the?Nick Saban ?bobblehead ?(doll).?The?photo ?of their family on their desk, you would start a conversation about them.?You might crack a joke.?You would start building trust.?Maybe you would ask them about the business, be curious about them and the company?
As I walk you around the department, and introduce you to more and more people, you would get to know more and more people and the department would get to know you.?In fact the whole department will know you,?just think of the?competitive advantage ?you now have.
We haven't needed to talk about product, we are connecting as humans, we are having conversations.?We are being social.?
Just through this simple way of showing you around and introducing you to people,?you are front of mind and your competition is not. This is so powerful!
I've now walked you around the whole department, they know you, you know them.?It's time to see the big boss and I take you in and introduce you.?
You look around the office and see the photos of her?fly fishing , you talk about when you had a fly fishing lesson in?Scotland ?when you visited there last.?You connect.?
One of the things we do in life is find commonality with each other, because when we do that we start to know, like and trust each other.??
You then ask her some of the business related issues you picked these pointers up from her staff you have been talking to.??
If it's finance you might ask her about how long it takes to close the month end books, if it's human resources it might be about sourcing internal talent, if it's CRM you might ask about onboarding sales people.
I could go on, but you should get the picture now.?
It does not matter if you know nobody in this company, they could even be using a competitive solution.?But by the time I've walked you around, they know you, they know you as a human, they are aware that you work for a company and you didn't even need to pitch to them.?Now it's time to start moving some of those conversations to commercial interaction.
This is social selling
Now you can stop imagining,?what I've described to you is social selling.
This is so powerful, so natural and is the killer blow you need today.?
Here at?DLA Ignite , teach and coach you, to digitally walk into companies, build influence and trust, across the whole team from the ground floor to the top floor.?From your ideal customers, to the stakeholders and the budget holders.
It could be?new business, you could be trying to?displace a competitor, it could be?"landing and expanding"?it could be part of an?account-based marketing (ABM) ?strategy.?
Either way, using social selling and influence from?DLA Ignite ?is the fastest way to success and we can get you there.?
Now Imagine .....
How about if I said,?I can take you to a place where all your prospects hang out, would you go?
I can pick you up in the?car ?tomorrow and you can hang out there, having conversations with them.
When you arrived, what would you do?
Grab a?coffee ?and go up to the first one and start a conversation??Of course you would.
Or would you walk in and say?"buy my stuff, because we are great".?Of course you wouldn't, as somebody would call security.
That's the difference.?Selling on social is ...... social.?You have conversations with people.
You don't go up to people and pitch to them as people will call security.
The great thing about social is that there is no "prime selling time (PST)", you can have as many conversations as you want.?One of my customers, does his prospecting between putting the kids to bed and when he goes to bed.
It's time to bring your demand generation into the second decade of the 21st century and it's time to?"start fishing where the fish are"?...... on social.?
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 ,?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).
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Our VP of Sales Just got 83 likes on a LinkedIn post, so that means we are social selling? No!
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So much for "dark social" Timothy!
Digital Commercial Strategist - Developing people and organisations to become leaders in their sectors - TedX Speaker - Keynote speaker, event host/compere/moderator - Artist
2 年A marketing leader told me recently that they "don't like Social because you cant measure it".....15 minutes later they were floored at the level of available metrics and measure that social selling brings - from profiles to PO's and everything in between.