7 Tips From My Appearance on the Quotable Sales Podcast Ep#70: The Secrets to Using Social for Sales

Originally posted on LinkedIn Nov 14, 2017:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/7-tips-from-my-appearance-quotable-sales-podcast-episode-rich-stone "The height of sophistication is simplicity." -- Clare Boothe Luce Social selling is simple, follow the golden rule. 

I was lucky enough to be invited as a guest this past week on the Salesforce Quotable podcast and had a great conversation with Kevin Micalizzi on getting started with social selling. The episode airs on Wednesday November 22nd so stay tuned for the release. When it comes to social selling it's simple, follow the golden rule of sales just as you would via traditional sales vehicles (F2F, phone, email etc.). Always provide value before you ask for value. 

Social selling is but a single arrow in the quiver of a successful sales rep as we head into the final months of 2017. That being said, it is a vital one. The biggest hesitation I hear from sales reps is that social is too hard to master, takes too much time to make an impact and is really just overwhelming. The truth is it shouldn't be, social selling is simple. 

What exactly can you accomplish with social selling?

• Brand building (the long game) – social media is a great vehicle to establish credibility in your market and help create visibility for yourself and your company.

• Researching and listening – Understand what clients / prospects care about. 

• Engagement – It is called social media for a reason!

During the podcast I promised to post 7 tips to help you get started with social selling, here they are:

1.) Create compelling profiles and expand your network

• Be yourself. Depict who you are on your profiles with a pic and bio.

• Follow companies in your patch on LinkedIn, corp. handles on twitter as well as individual clients on both. I am not a fan of the blind LinkedIn invite to connect with folks you haven’t met, but a follow is cool.

• Build lists on twitter to help organize existing customers and prospects you are looking to engage with as well as industry thought leaders, partners and competitors. 

• Link your profiles together and include them your email signature.  Start getting your brand out there.

2.) Provide value before you ask for value

• The golden rule of selling is just as important via social, always provide value before you ask for value! 

• Leverage content your marketing teams create for you and share it on your networks. 

• That said, social selling isn’t a megaphone, DO NOT exclusively blast out content about how great you and your company is post after post.  Add some flare that shows who you really are, what you care about and engage with others.  Social really enables you to build rapport digitally.   

• Re-share content from key industry players, colleagues, clients and prospects

• Create unique content. Set a cadence of quarterly blog posts right on your LinkedIn and share the posts across your networks. Write about what you know, you just might surprise yourself.

3.) Monitor active conversations and find reasons to engage

• Follow pertinent hashtags.

• Search for mentions of your company name (on twitter) to see which customers and prospects happen to share content that mentions your company, this is an easy conversation starter with a simple "thanks for sharing!"

• Listen to your prospect and customer's pain points and understand what is working for them or who they are currently partnering with.

4.) Check in on prospects for call prep and prospecting fuel

• It only takes 45 seconds to do a quick LinkedIn/twitter search to find out what your prospect cares about at that point in time.

• You would be surprised how much information people share about themselves, their companies and their key initiatives over social channels. You just have to listen.

• This is great for icebreakers and building rapport.

5.) Join the conversation

• Social selling is called social for a reason, engage with others.

• Likes and RTs are nice but the real value is derived from adding thoughtful comments. Show that you care by taking the time to read what your prospects and customers are posting and share your perspective. Do this and you are well on your way to adding value.

• Have tact. Don't say anything that you wouldn't say in a F2F intro meeting.

6.) Take it offline

• Social is the best for finding meaningful and timely reasons to engage via traditional sales vehicles (phone and email). There is no such thing as a "cold call" these days because all the information you would ever need to personalize your outreach for a warm call is right at your fingertips.

• This helps you customize your call openers and subject lines to help your conversion immensely.

7.) Rinse, optimize and repeat

• Leverage LinkedIn, twitter and/or buffer analytics to track impressions and engagement. See what types of posts and what time(s) you post perform best and optimize.

• I use the free version of buffer to help queue posts.  In order to gain an audience you need to consistently post content. I post on LinkedIn at least 1x per week and on twitter 5x/day. Schedule your posts around key times when folks are likely to be on social media (during commute hours, lunch time etc.). I personally schedule tweets for 7:07am, 12:07pm, 12:57pm, 3:57pm and 9:07pm PT.

If you have any questions or thoughts hit me up in the comments section below or on twitter (@rstone57)!