webinar: transformation to social selling

Sales Solutions

“Transformation to Social Selling”

LinkedIn Confidential ©2013 All Rights Reserved


Our Agenda for Today

Presenters: •Ralf VonSosen

•LinkedIn Sales Solutions, Head of Marketing

•Craig Rosenberg

•Industry Expert & Leader, Focus Expert Network

Agenda:

•Overview of Social Selling •Transformation to Social Selling •Making Social Selling Scalable •Q&A (send questions throughout)

LINKEDIN SALES SOLUTIONS LinkedIn Confidential ©2013 All Rights Reserved

What social selling is not.

How you doin?

LINKEDIN SALES SOLUTIONS LinkedIn Confidential ©2013 All Rights Reserved 4

What social selling is not.

Been out on the course lately?

Transformation to Social Selling

Craig Rosenberg

May 2011

Why social selling? Your buyers are there

175 million members in over 200 countries and territories.

As of June 30, 2012, business professionals are signing up to

join LinkedIn at a rate of approximately two new members per

second.

Why social selling? Your buyers are telling

you who they are

Never in the history of modern selling have we seen time where

prospects and customers publicly post and update information

on their roles and responsibilities

Why social selling? Your buyers are telling

you what they care about

Never in the history of modern selling have we seen time where

prospects and customers publicly post and update information

on their roles and responsibilities

AND what they care about and are working on

Why social selling? Your buyers starting the

buyer process online

75% of respondents to an IBM buyers survey

said they were likely to use social media in the

future as part of their purchasing decision.

Buyers are buying by committee

“Decisions are not made by a single person in B2B models – they are made in

a chain-of-command or committee model. “

Esteban Kolsky

http://estebankolsky.com/2012/07/question-why-are-you-in-social-channels/

Source: Marketing Sherpa B2B Marketing Benchmark Survey, August 2010

© 2011 Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.

Buyer decisions are getting longer and more

complex

time

lev

el

of

bu

ye

r a

cti

vit

y

“I’m just downloading

stuff”

“ We have a project”

“ We’ve made a decision”

“I’m just browsing”

“ We’ve shortlisted vendors”

awareness consideration purchase


The first round of social selling: Chaos


Second round of social selling: Proven

Productivity

1.We understand the goal of

social selling

1.Organizations are adopting

2.We now have a framework for

success


Social selling does not replace sales, it

enhances it

“Many of the social selling tenets

are selling best practices” Andy Rudin, Outside Technologies


Social media allows sales to create

meaningful, one-to-one relationships

And you don’t need to pick up the phone every time


Social selling: not just for breakfast anymore

1. According to Richardson/McCord Social Media in

sales 65% of businesses report using social media

in their sales efforts.

2. 1,700 IBM North America inside reps have now

been trained and enabled with tools for social

selling, and the company is preparing to extend the

initiative to overseas regions for some of its digital

brands. The inside sales team now has a total of

50,000 LinkedIn connections and has posted 20,000

tweets..

3. The IBM program drove 4x orders for product during

their pilot quarter of social selling than during the

same time the year before.


Your social selling framework

1.Standardize

2.Self brand

3.Listen and watch

4.Deliver valuable insight

5.Find

6.Engage


Three questions for every sales manager

1.Where are our customers?

2.Where will my reps be most

comfortable?

3.Where will my sales reps get the

most value?

Main platform

Create a standardized social platform

Secondary platform

In most cases, Linkedin will be the base for social operations

•It is the place where the vast majority of social business activity happens

•Unprecedented visibility into your customers and their organization

1. Designate one platform

for sales reps to “live

inside”

2. Monitor other platforms

when appropriate

The self-brand

• Buyers need to trust you

• Buyers need to know that you know the right people

• Buyers want to know you have are an expert in your

space

• Buyers want the best sales person (believe it or not)

• The most unique thing is not always the company or

the product; but it is always you

Think like a marketer: Build a credible online

presence

•Complete profile including: photo, experience, skills, honors, and

recommendations.

•Stream of updates to relevant content

•Membership in relevant groups

•Connections

Always be connecting

•Create a core

competency and

process in your sales

team around building

their networks

•Sales managers

should monitor and

reward network building


Sales Person PI: Watch and listen

1.Know your customer and their

organization

2.Follow them

3.Watch them interact

“Effective use of sales intelligence increases revenue

productivity per sales rep by 17%” CSO Insights


Account planning has gone virtual

Old Days Today

Day long account planning sessions Minutes-long account planning

“Sell high” Triangulate

Manual account investigations to

determine relevant decision makers

Real-time visibility into organizations

Cold calls Referrals


Listen and learn

1. Follow companies

2. Look for personal updates, profile changes, and updates

3. Watch them interact in groups

and forums

"At the rep level, social media is less about

tweeting than it is about listening, reading

and knowing what people are talking

about. That's what lets them better tailor

their contributions to the discussion.”

Douglas Hannan, IBM

http://chiefmarketer.com/social/ibms-social-selling-computer-giant-finds-

b2b-leads-social-media?page=1


Deliver valuable insight

Answer the following question: Why

would a buyer follow you?

The answer is NOT: “Because they

can’t wait for you to hard-sell them”

Provide value to their day-to-day

challenges


Four ways to deliver insight

1. Status updates with content

2. Personal content deliveries via

Inmail (“Jim, I thought of

you when I read this”)

1. Offer to make connections

2. Group conversations

3. Use the “like” feature


How to scale content with sales

1. Provide them with content

• Marketing should provide content

• Self-tools like RSS feeds

2. Allow them to and encourage adding their own spin

3. Manage and optimize their insights


Four rules to sales insight

1. Don’t talk about yourself

2. Don’t pitch

3. Help and provide value

4. If you build it, they will

come

“I really think of myself as that information concierge and really have become a content connoisseur in really

understanding what is required from an education perspective to get that future advocate to purchase and to

become an advocate of our company, our product and my personal brand as well.” Jill Rowley, Eloqua sales

and social selling expert

http://www.heinzmarketing.com/2012/06/social-selling-in-action-qa-with-eloquas-top-salesperson-part-1-of-5/


Opportunity generation

Old Days Today

Purchased lists Ability to find the right people with the

right role with the right challenges

Calling the admin and asking around Advanced search techniques allow you

to find the people you want to talk to

“Columbo-style” interrogations of

prospects

Unprecedented pre-call sales

intelligence

Open with pitch about you Open with pitch about them

Seek and find people needing help Buyers publicly asking for help in

Groups, Forums, and Q/A

"If we didn't do this kind of social listening, we wouldn't know about a lot of these

opportunities until it was too late to get considered. Social media let us engage

earlier with our clients—hopefully, earlier than our competition.“ Hannan, IBM

http://chiefmarketer.com/social/ibms-social-selling-computer-giant-finds-b2b-leads-social-media?page=4


Engagement

“Delivering relevant, timely, and

meaningful messages to prospects

and clients has NEVER been

easier”


Pre-call research: How sales manager teach

today’s social sales person

1. Study contacts and

companies

2. Read their blogs, Linkedin

updates, Twitter feeds

3. Search for business

problems aka don’t ask

them about the golf trip with

their buddies

4. Use playbooks based on

buying personas


“Someone you don’t know has a problem”

1. Via listening, the sales rep finds a person

with a challenge

2. Deliver valuable content or help make a

connection.

3. Content playbooks tell sales reps what

internal content should be passed along

4. Two paths:

• Early in sales cycle: connect and nurture

• Late in sales cycle: engage directly


Social Selling 2.0

1. Institutionalize it

2. Train sales

3. Build for scale

4. Share success stories

5. Make it part of day-to-day life sales life

6. Optimize

We really wanted to make social selling part of the basic way we sell. We didn't

want our reps spending five minutes a day tweeting and then going back to

their 'real' job.“ Douglas Hannan, IBM

http://chiefmarketer.com/social/ibms-social-selling-computer-giant-finds-b2b-leads-social-media?page=1


Thank You!

•Craig Rosenberg •Funnelholic.com

•@Funnelholic •http://www.linkedin.com/craigrosenberg

•Ralf VonSosen •[email protected] •@rvonsosen

•Linkedn Sales Solutions, Head of Marketing

•LinkedIn Sales Solutions •Website: http://sales.linkedin.com •Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/linkedin-sales-solutions •@LinkedInSelling

•LinkedIn Group: LinkedIn Sales Solutions

http://www.linkedin.com/craigrosenberg

mailto:[email protected]

http://sales.linkedin.com/

http://www.slideshare.net/linkedin-sales-solutions





Sales Solutions

“Transformation to Social Selling”


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