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We know that social media has changed the world. It's changed society and it's changed the way we do business. You only have to turn on the TV and the news will be about who has Tweeted what, all of us, as a minimum, look up people on LinkedIn before we have a meeting.
Social media is embedded in our lives.
All of us now live in both the physical world and the digital world.
One minute you are feeding the cat or walking the dog, this is the physical world. The next minute you are in LinkedIn, or on Facebook, this is the digital world.
The digital world has become the normal for all of us, often accessed through the desktop and mobile.
I do get there are "flat earthers" out there that wish for a time before social media. I've had somebody leave a comment on a LinkedIn post yesterday (the irony was not lost) and he said that he didn't think the world had got any better from 1970s. Many of you reading this won't even have been born in the 1970s.
We have walked through a door into a room, which is the digital world, that door has closed behind us and we are not going back.
Social media has changed the world and it has changed the world of business
The modern buyer
The modern buyer is a thing, it's not just a figment of the minds of some analysts at Gartner. If you want to buy something, what do you do? You reach for your mobile and you search, we are all modern buyers now!
In fact the truth is, if you have not empowered your sales team and your employees to walk digital corridors and have digital conversations. Then you are losing deals and your leaving money on the table from those digitally empowered buyers. Period
The modern job hunter
The modern job hunter is the same, they get on their mobiles and search. They check out your website, for sure, but they also check out your leadership team on social. They check out your diversity policy on social, they check out your ESG (environmental, social and governance) policy online. Your not telling people about it on social? Oh well, you lost that person as a future employee. You are losing employing future digitally empowered employees.
You’re facing an important decision and if you don’t act quickly someone else will decide for you
I totally get that maybe you don't really understand what this means. We've all been there in our lives as technology changes.
When I first started work, I worked for the only UK computer company called ICL, (now owned by Fujitsu). They were a mainframe company. When the PC was introduced, it was dismissed. Why on earth would people want a stand alone computer on their desk? When they could access a mainframe and all its power, through a low cost terminal?
The rest is history.
At some point your leadership team will want to know what you are doing about social and your strategy to exploit it. If it's not you, it will be your successor.
They are going to want to know, how many leads and meetings you get per week through social and how much revenue you get through social.
Just so you know, we have an introduction to social media presentation, where we can walk you through the data and case studies so you can see for yourself, businesses that are already using social media and social selling in their business.
Let me just say, this isn't about sending spam message, this is about having a strategy, a modern digital methodology that will put back on track. One of clients already has a 6 to 1 return on their pilot and they haven't finished the training yet. They also have been able to put a $0.5 billion (billion not million) deal in the CRM through social selling, not bad for a $300 million turnover business.
Let me explain more.
Imagine ...
Tomorrow, you and I are going to meet at the lobby of your target customer.
Imagine that I have a key card to get into the building, we wave to security and I let you through the security barriers. Impressive eh!
We walk over to the elevators and I press the button to go up to the relevant floors where we can meet with the people you need to sell to. Now you have never met these people before so i will introduce you. That will mean you will get to meet the people you need to meet in this target customer of yours.
Pick whatever department you want, I will take you there and introduce you.
For example, say you sell accounting systems, ERP systems, then I can take you and introduce you to the people in Finance. Or maybe you sell human resources (HR) software and I take you to meet the HR people. Or maybe you sell CRM, customer experience (CX) and I can take you to meet all the people in marketing and sales.
Now if I walked you into finance, (or any of the other departments) and I started to introduce you to the people there one-by-one. Now, you wouldn't hand everybody a brochure and walk away, would you?
This is your chance to get into the business, meet the people, build relationships. Kinda cool!
As I introduce you to the people in your target department, you would hand them your business card. You might get people to scan the QR code on LinkedIn so you are connected.
Either way you would also want to be remembered. So you might ask them a question about themsleves, maybe you spot that Manchester United mug on their desk, the Nick Saban bobblehead (doll). The photo of their family on their desk, you would start a conversation about them. You might crack a joke. You would start building trust. Maybe you would ask them about the business, be curious about them and the company?
As I walk you around the department, and introduce you to more and more people, you would get to know more and more people and the department would get to know you. In fact the whole department will know you, just think of the competitive advantage you now have.
We haven't needed to talk about product, we are connecting as humans, we are having conversations. We are being social.
Just through this simple way of showing you around and introducing you to people, you are front of mind and your competition is not. This is so powerful!
I've now walked you around the whole department, they know you, you know them. It's time to see the big boss and I take you in and introduce you.
You look around the office and see the photos of her fly fishing, you talk about when you had a fly fishing lesson in Scotland when you visited there last. You connect, you have a conversation.
One of the things we do in life is find commonality with each other, because when we do that we start to know, like and trust each other.
You then ask her some of the business related issues you picked these pointers up from her staff you have been talking to.
If it's finance you might ask her about how long it takes to close the month end books, if it's human resources it might be about sourcing internal talent, if it's CRM you might ask about onboarding sales people.
I could go on, but you should get the picture now.
It does not matter if you know nobody in this company, they could even be using a competitive solution. But by the time I've walked you around, they know you, they know you as a human, they are aware that you work for a company and you didn't even need to pitch to them. Now it's time to start moving some of those conversations to commercial interaction.
This is social selling
Now you can stop imagining, what I've described to you is social selling.
This is so powerful, so natural and is the killer blow you need today.
Here at DLA Ignite, teach and coach you, to digitally walk into companies, build influence and trust, across the whole team from the ground floor to the top floor. From your ideal customers, to the stakeholders and the budget holders.
It could be new business, you could be trying to displace a competitor, it could be "landing and expanding" it could be part of an account-based marketing (ABM) strategy.
Either way, using social selling and influence from DLA Ignite is the fastest way to success and we can get you there.
On to the second story.
Now Imagine .....
How about if I said, I can take you to a place where all your prospects hang out, would you go?
I can pick you up in the car tomorrow and you can hang out there, having conversations with them.
When you arrived, what would you do?
Grab a coffee and go up to the first one and start a conversation? Of course you would.
Or would you walk in and say "buy my stuff, because we are great". Of course you wouldn't, as somebody would call security.
That's the difference. Selling on social is ...... social. You have conversations with people.
You don't go up to people and pitch to them as people will call security.
The great thing about social is that there is no "prime selling time (PST)", you can have as many conversations as you want. One of my customers, does his prospecting between putting the kids to bed and when he goes to bed.
It's time to bring your demand generation into the second decade of the 21st century and it's time to "start fishing where the fish are" ...... on social.
The third story is about how you can bring all this together
One of the benefits of getting all you team(s) to social sell is that you as a business will start getting what we call digital dominance. So what on earth is that?
Imagine this
You are at a conference and there are a drinks event that evening where all the people from the conference are invited.
You have a conference call which makes you late for the drinks.
You arrive and everybody is there.
As you look around the room, you realise that the people in the room are your prospects and customers. Which is great news. Each of these prospects and customers are talking to somebody, they have a drink in hand and they are laughing and joking.
The question is this, these prospects and customers, are they talking to people from your business or are they talking to the competition?
If they are talking to your people, that's going to be great and make you feel great, if they are all talking to the competition, you are going to feel a sickness in the stomach.
Now think about this in a digital landscape, LinkedIn, Twitter, all the research shows that your customers are hanging out on digital somewhere. Where these prospects and customers hangout, are they talking to people from your business or a competitor?
It's no different from the drinks event.
This is your challenge and also your opportunity.
It's time to stop hiding behind the phones and the brochures and be the business that is out there having conversations with your prospects and customers on digital.
Your job is to do this, before the competition does it and owns the space.
Owning your market sector or vertical, is digital dominance.
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