Social Selling Tip #2: Understanding Communication: Engagement is more important than your SSI Score

Social Selling   

Over the last 8 years, I have been a very proactive user of LinkedIn. It was only a few years back that connecting and engaging your network was referred to as social selling. In my experience, more often than not, sales managers put too much focus on the “selling” of social selling when in reality being “social” is the key component of the term. This post is the second of a series of tips that I have found useful in mastering social selling.

Why now?

Father's Day; June 19th, 2016, didn’t go as expected, the Golden State Warriors lost Game 7 of the NBA Finals. While the loss was tough, we had a number of things to be proud of from an incredible season. The NBA Playoffs started on April 16th and at the time my SSI (Social Selling Index) score was 94; when the playoffs were over in June my score dropped to 84. Normally I would be concerned about this much of a decline, but I wasn’t, because my customer engagement was at an all-time high during this time.

Your Toolbox

In today’s society we are easily connected with each other due to increased access to more communication tools. Think about it; how many different ways did you communicate with someone 5, 10, or even 20 years ago? At the start of my sales career the communication process with a phone call to a prospective buyer, followed by an e-mail. These steps would hopefully lead to a meeting, which would hopefully lead to closing a deal. Today all forms of communication must be considered; especially social media. Calls, e-mail, etc. are all forms of communication that are a part of your toolbox to engage current and prospective customers. In my experience, I have found the best way to decipher all your communication tools is deciding what is effective indirect communication and what is effective direct communication:

Indirect

• Twitter Posts
• LinkedIn Posts
• Facebook Posts
• Instagram Posts
• Medium Blog Posts
• SnapChat
• Cold E-mails
• Media Coverage
• And many more…

Direct

• Meeting
• Phone Call
• E-mails
• Text Message
• LinkedIn Message
• FB Messenger
• Twitter Direct Message
• Instagram Message
• And many more…

The goal is that indirect communication should lead to more engaged direct communication.

Where is Cold Calling in the toolbox?

When considering the tools in our communication toolbox you may be surprised to see I didn’t put cold calling in either category. While cold calling is definitely a form of direct communication, I would argue the call has more of an indirect effect on the person receiving the call. A sales trainer once gave me an interesting comparison in regards to cold calling:

“Cold calling someone is like abruptly barging into their office and demanding their attention, immediately they’re angry with you and are trying to find out the easiest way to kick you out so they can get back to what they were doing before you interrupted them.”

This analogy gives a vivid picture of the friction that can be developed in a cold call with one glaring difference, your memory of the person. I believe most people would remember the person that barged into their office, while they are less likely to remember the person that cold called them. A cold call leaves a name, while barging into an office leaves an impression. This exemplifies how cold calling can be a form of indirect communication as the person receiving the call may not remember who reached out to them because they weren’t engaged.

The key to success is making sure you should know the difference between your direct and indirect communication. This separation is how you identify if you are influencing the people you are communicating with. I believe people making cold calls today are making very little influence on anyone directly, but more indirectly. Social selling is one of the best forms of indirect communication that can lead to engaging communication. The goal in any sales role should always be to achieve direct engaging conversation.

The Relationship

When you are presented the opportunity to engage directly with a prospective customer, it can be hard to decipher what the best form of communication is in each specific instance. In my experiences over the years I’ve found e-mail to be the most convenient communication tool for my work flow. However, if my customer is more responsive through another form of communication, then I will go that route. Regardless of what form of communication you decide on, you are already passed the hardest part in sales; you have an engaged prospect!

Once a prospect is engaged, the next form of communication can be decided by the following matrix:

ENGAGEMENT MATRIX

The above matrix can be used from the beginning of any relationship. Let’s say you have a prospect that you have no connection with, you may try to nurture the relationship with indirect communication. Once the prospect is engaged, you then have an opportunity to sell them by directly communicating with them. If this prospect becomes a purchasing customer, then you can maintain that relationship through various forms of indirect communication. At some point, you may see an opportunity to grow your business with that customer and rely on direct communication.

This matrix has been useful because I’ve found it shows the importance of how to balance your time in how you communicate. One of the best ways to authentically maintain customer relationships is through indirect communication. An interested customer is engaged because they have found relevance in what you have to say. Your indirect communication tools allow you to do that with your network in a very time efficient manner.

My realization

This post was inspired by a lengthy playoff run. While in this two month race, my main form of indirect communication during that time was media coverage, which I found lots of engagement with.

As I mentioned, by late June my SSI score went down 10 points in just over two months. My initial concern about this dip was soothed when I realized my level of indirect communication was at an all-time high. From April 14th, 2016 – June 19th, 2016, I was not having any issues with customer engagement because the main stream media was acting as my own form of indirect communication. My takeaway from this span of engagement was to focus on the level of interaction I had, try to get to a high level and maintain good positive relationships with all of those new connections.

After an exciting season I am looking forward to our upcoming 2016-17 season with new relationships and positive engagement after our most recent acquisition of Kevin Durant!

Paul Ratner has an M.A. in Sport Management from University of San Francisco and is an active speaker on the subject of best practices in Social Selling.