As I watched The Wolf of Wall Street for the 18th time and got amp’ed up by the “pick up the phone and start dialing!” speech, I realized how much things have evolved in today’s marketplace of selling. The same mentality might apply but the last part needs to evolve as well. It no longer has to be “pick up the phone and start dialing!” but, “pick up the mouse, and start connecting!”
Imagine as a sales professional for one moment if your manager, or mentor, or the very successful sales colleague who you pretend to like came up to you and said, “I have found a way to find the information of any decision maker that will circumvent having to ‘grease’ a gatekeeper”. You would ask, how?! This is the art of social selling!
Still to this day, marketing only amounts at its highest to 30% of leads generated for the sales team, that means the majority of leads as a sales professional are found on your own clock.
The Stats on Social Selling
Still hugging the phone or have your headset tightly secured? Here are some stats:
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- Buyers no longer have a compelling reason to take a salesperson’s call during their research phase. A recent IBM Preference Study showed that cold calls are ineffective 97% of the time.
- According to a 2012 Corporate Executive Board report, 57% of every buying decision is already made before there is any sales rep involvement.
- Sales professionals who use social selling are 51% more likely to exceed their quota.
- By 2017, the global social network audience is expected to be more than 2.5 billion.
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The Rules of Social Selling
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t something that will eliminate the phone call, the phone is still your best tool, but this is a way to make hitting, and hopefully exceeding quota easier. Social selling needs to be leveraged as a way to educate, connect, and build trust. It has some “always” follow rules as well.
Always be:
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- Connecting
- Prospecting
- Listening
- Engaging
- Educating
- And last but not least, because I know you thought about it: CLOSING
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I will close by saying this, do not think of it as an overnight or “secret sauce” type deal, but think of it as the tastiest of sauces to compliment any dish on your gourmet sales tool menu.
If your company is looking at getting started in social selling as part of their digital marketing strategy, please reach out to us and we can show you how our marketing automation system can take it to the next level.
Also, please visit our blog and see some of the other great digital marketing topics we as Digital Giants are passionate about!
Connect with me!
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