The Secrets of Social Selling - a guide for everyone (week 1)

I have decided that I am going to do a newsletter. I know that is hardly groundbreaking, but it seems to me that most people use newsletters to try and pitch their products or to share stuff that, frankly, is of little interest to anyone so I wanted to do something a little bit different.

I’m going to publish a newsletter every week which will walk you through everything you need to do in order to be successful and influential in your target areas and I will try to make it as inclusive as possible so EVERYONE can do this, irrespective of their experience and knowledge. So some of the technical bits about where to click or how to save may not be relevant to you as you may already have experience of doing this (which is great) but hang in there because some of the things may be a good refresher or even entirely new.

Sometimes it will be easy and you’ll be able to do the task in a matter of moments. Sometimes it will be much more challenging…but stick with me on this because I promise you it’ll be worth it in the end.

This week, we are going to start off with something easy (and quick).

If you get stuck at any point, ping me a message and I'll help if I can.

Your profile photo

This seems pretty straightforward but often isn’t.

We all want to look at our best, but is this what our profile really needs? Do you want to go to the hair and makeup department to look as stunning as possible or do you want a shot that actually looks like you?

Obviously, you want to have a shot that is eye-catching but it also needs to look like you so when we arrange to meet in a coffee shot for the first time we know who we are supposed to be meeting.

So here are some do's and don'ts.

Don't use filters.

Not only is this rather disingenuous it's quite easy to see that the image has been manipulated in most cases and frankly it's not a good look (this one particularly).

Use a recent shot

Some years ago Tim and I were meeting someone in a coffee shop and the only thing we had to go on was this person's shot from their LinkedIn profile. After sitting waiting for some time Tim said "erm... I think that could be them" and it was. The profile shot made them look like a model, the reality was rather different...separated by 25 years or more!

Be sensible (but not dull)

This is more difficult to determine because one person's dignified is another person's boring. However, silly faces and poses are not generally a good idea (unless you are a stand-up comic).

Be clearly you

Sometimes we have photos of use doing exciting things, perhaps on an adventure or climbing a mountain...but they probably won't make a good profile shot.

Quality

The last thing is to pick a shot which is well lit and in focus, not grainy or shaky or poorly composed...

If you stick to all of those rules you should be off to a good start.

Then all you need to do it add it to your profile and sit back and wait for the adoration (and business) to roll-in! (just kidding).

For those of you who are thinking that "add it to your profile" seems a little daunting, read on...

Adding the new profile photo.

Click here (the little thumbnail of yourself or blank circle if you haven't added one before).

Click here (the "view profile"button)

When your profile page opens, click the picture of yourself...

...or the blank circle if you've never uploaded one.

You will now be presented with either a black box (if you have previously uploaded a photo) or a white box (if you haven't). If you have uploaded a photo before you will need to delete it (to get a white box) then you can click "upload photo."

Once you have done this you will have the opportunity to crop/edit the photo.

Then the only thing you need to do is decide how visible you want the photo to be.

Generally we would suggest that you set this to "everyone" because I may be more comfortable engaging with someone I have "seen" or I might be unsure if you are 'that person I worked with in 2003." Whatever you decide, you can always change it at a later stage if you want to.

Well done. You've managed the task for the week

(or if you haven't...drop me a line)

If you would like to find out more about our team or individual training programmes please drop me a message or an email to [email protected] for a no obligation chat.

Typically Social Sellers have a much greater ability to start conversations with their ideal customers and as a result have a more robust and dependable pipeline and typically close more business than their noon-social counterparts.

#socialselling #pipeline #digitalselling #salestransformation #sales?