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Sales Question:
"Social Selling Isn’t Working For Me… Why?"
"I've tried using several social selling tools to make sales but I'm getting worse results than cold calling... What am I doing wrong?"
Answer:
Well for starters, when you say, “social selling isn’t working” for you, how do you mean, exactly? What were you hoping “social selling” would do for you?
What I find most inside sales reps doing is replacing their outbound sales calls with “social selling activities” and hoping to get the same or even better results, but with less effort and rejection. This isn’t going to happen if all you are doing is trying to “make connections” or become “likable”.
Social selling can be a magnificent part of your prospecting strategy however it does not mean automatic sales. One of the biggest mistakes I see salespeople make is that they think that if they connect with a prospect via social media, and work on becoming “friendly” that their sales will take off.
If you want social selling to work, you’ll need to add the key ingredient:
SME (Subject Matter Expert)
Unless you have something worthy of becoming an SME (Subject Matter Expert) to your audience, social selling will be a huge waste of time for you.
Other than being “friendly” online, why should a prospect buy from you?
Don’t misinterpret the “people buy from people they like” saying and think if they like you they will buy…
What’s more important than being “liked”? Having something of value that your prospects want.
Now combine the two and you have a formula for success.
Bonus Tip: Manage Expectations
Social selling should actually be called prospecting 2.0 in my opinion because if you’re in the B2B world, you want to use social media tools (such as LinkedIn, Blogging, Webinars, Newsletters, Articles, Tweets etc) as a way to get on your targeted prospects radar and build your profile as a value added resource.
Think of social selling as a magnet, attracting targeted prospects to you.
You can’t do that if you have nothing of value to offer.
Why should your prospect want to do business with you? And how can you use social media tools to help brand yourself as a leading expert in your field?
Those are the questions you should start with in order to implement a social selling strategy that will attract prospects to you.
Just be aware that social selling is a way to attract prospects and get them to “raise their hand” (warm lead) and not so much circumvent the sales process right into a close.
Hope this helps.
Michael Pedone
CSS: Chief Sales Scientist
SalesBuzz.com (A 2011 Sales Training Company Watch List Award Winner!)
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