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This week I spoke at a social selling conference in Moscow, virtually of course.
It was interesting as all of the other "social selling experts" were about pitching, which is actually cold calling on a social network. One person said "it’s sending something of high value and zero cost to the potential prospect first with zero expectations".
Sophisticated pitching I admit, the results from this will be very poor.
One tactic you can deploy, which will get you far more results is to start conversations or join conversations.
What is social media?
Social media is like a networking event, the difference is, all your clients are there.
Just like a networking event, all you have to do is go and have a conversation with them.
Now, of course, if you go up to somebody at a networking event and pitch you will get a response, the response will probably be that people will call security. The same response you will get on social will people being rude to you (nobody likes being sold to), or they will block you, or both.
Selling on social media is about conversations
You can sell at scale on social and at a higher level than the spammer by creating or joining the conversations.
You can join conversations by going to your timeline search on a hashtag, find somebody that you would like to talk to and leave an inspirational comment, or your expertise. There is no limit to the number of comments you leave.
Or you can start a conversation, by creating content. This blog is content I have created.
Treat the conversation just like you are at a networking event and these conversation will generate sales.
In our social selling and influence course we teach and coach people on how to create an intriguing social media profile. By making people curious about you, they will stay longer.
We train and coach you on how to have a networking, in effect have a digital territory.
And we also help you stop spamming people and start having conversations.
Conversations can come from proactive work on social, from content, from engagement, from video, you name it.
Let's not forget that social is not about messing about, every keystroke should be tied to revenue and profit and everything you do on social should be and can be measured.
So who's social selling?
In case you missed it, the Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch have banned cold calling and have moved all their people to social selling. This isn't some trendy tech company that might have decided to do this on a whim, this is a very conservative financial services company that has made a decision based on data.
But surely cold calling has a better ROI than social selling? Not according to Merrill Lynch.
"They will also be encouraged to contact prospects over LinkedIn, which has a higher hit rate than cold calling"
The CRO (chief revenue officer), Richard Eltham of Namos Solutions, of one of clients posted a comment on LinkedIn about social selling. See here.
“Social selling is not an option now it is the way of the world and you either learn and execute it or fear getting left behind”
Kevin Murray who is the Head of Sales at MacArtney Underwater Technology recently posted about his success with social selling here and wrote an article about the transformation that has happened in sales here.
Here at DLA Ignite we don't do "hints and tips sessions" we don't want you to waste your money. Our social selling and influence methodology will provide your sales team with the stable platform for growth. It is also the only social selling program based on 70:20:10 change management principles which gives your business the mindset change and habit change they need in this digital world.