The Six Cornerstones of Social Selling

When, Adam, Alex and I set up the business coming up to four years ago, we never thought that we would ever make so much impact to so many companies.  

There were a number of foundations to Social media that we decided on and still keep to:

1. All we do is social – We focus totally on social, we don’t do cold calling training or help you with sales compensation.  We spotted that there we too many companies that were a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none.  We believe that every mine somebody is focused on “something else” they are not focused on social.  This has meant that we have built up a raft of case studies and research to fine tune for you, what will work and what wont.
2. Social is strategic – Many people see social as a tactic, you post something and hope it turns into something.  We run our business on social, we don’t advertise, we don’t cold call and we don’t send emails. We have bet our business on social, so you can too.
3. Transformation – We are all about mindset change and habit change of your sales team.  I need to lose weight, which means I need to go to the gym and change my diet, forever.  If I went and spent a day at the gym it wouldn’t make that much of an impact of me, in fact it would be down right dangerous.  This is why we don’t do “masterclasses” and “hint and tips” sessions.  Social is about a new way of working in this new new digital world.

So what about these 6 cornerstones of Social Selling?

1. Process – Social selling is a process as is all of sales.  We often hear people saying that social selling is “just’ prospecting or social marketing.  While finding opportunities on social is a part, in fact we will coach you in using social throughout the sales process.  From finding opportunities, to accelerating them through the pipe, to using social to close deals.  It’s how we sell and we teach you and your teams, how to sell like we do.  This provides your teams with a framework, so as a leader you will know exactly where they are.
2. Methodology – As well as being a process, we have created a full methodology for social selling.  This isn’t about spammy templates, this is a structure.  It has been built to either provide your sales team with a structure or to provide a social wrap around your existing sales methodology. 
3. Coaching – Learning social selling does not invalidate your existing sales skills, what we do it coach you so we get the mindset change and the habit change you would expect in dealing with the new, digital buyer.  Training isn’t the right world for it, coaching is where we provide individual support and guidance. 
4. Sales Culture – The iPhone, Internet  and Social Media has changed sales and as well it has changed the way people buy and sell.  As sellers we need to tune into simple psychology to understand our buyer and the way we need to react.  There are also simple efficiencies that digital provides that we need to get our teams to plug into.  There are, after all, only 200 selling dates a year and we need to use them the best we can to over achieve our number.
5. Accountability – Measuring sales is simple, you just measure how much people sell.  That once the case but now there are indicators to show if we are only selling to the people who will buy from us, using our social profiles efficiently so we get inbound and using social as a mechanism to drive sales through the pipeline and using social to de-risk deals and then close them.
6. Laws of the Jungle – Keeping up-to-date is critical in the current buying world.

Related: The Importance Of Salespeople Blogging in Times of Adversity