webinar: transformation to social selling
DESCRIPTION
Presenters Ralf VonSosen, Head of Marketing for LinkedIn Sales Solutions and Craig Rosenberg, Industry Expert & Leader discuss what's required to make the transformation to Social Selling.TRANSCRIPT
Sales Solutions
“Transformation to Social Selling”
LinkedIn Confidential ©2013 All Rights Reserved
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
Page 6
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.
Page 7
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
Page 8
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
Page 9
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.
Page 10
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
Page 11 © 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
Page 12 © 2011 Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.
The first round of social selling: Chaos
Page 13 © 2011 Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.
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
Page 14 © 2011 Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.
Social selling does not replace sales, it
enhances it
“Many of the social selling tenets
are selling best practices” Andy Rudin, Outside Technologies
Page 15 © 2011 Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.
Social media allows sales to create
meaningful, one-to-one relationships
And you don’t need to pick up the phone every time
Page 16 © 2011 Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.
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.
Page 17 © 2011 Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.
Your social selling framework
1.Standardize
2.Self brand
3.Listen and watch
4.Deliver valuable insight
5.Find
6.Engage
Page 18 © 2011 Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.
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?
Page 19
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
Page 20
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
Page 21
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
Page 22
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
Page 23 © 2011 Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.
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
Page 24 © 2011 Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.
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
Page 25 © 2011 Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.
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
Page 26 © 2011 Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.
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
Page 27 © 2011 Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.
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
Page 28 © 2011 Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.
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
Page 29 © 2011 Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.
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/
Page 30 © 2011 Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.
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
Page 31 © 2011 Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.
Engagement
“Delivering relevant, timely, and
meaningful messages to prospects
and clients has NEVER been
easier”
Page 32 © 2011 Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.
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
Page 33 © 2011 Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.
“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
Page 34 © 2011 Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.
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
LinkedIn Confidential ©2013 All Rights Reserved
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
Sales Solutions
“Transformation to Social Selling”
LinkedIn Confidential ©2013 All Rights Reserved