The New Sales ToolkitEverything you need to know about social selling

Sales Solutions

Top sellers use LinkedIn a minimum of 6 hours per week - Do you? Jill Konrath

84% of B2B decision makers begin their buying process with a referral. Edelman Trust Barometer

75% of customers say they use social media as part of the buying process IBM

2

Introduction

Why read this eBook?

The buyer has changed.

Cold calls dont get the response you need.

Buyers use the web and social media to research products and define decision making criteria.

But in light of all of this change, the change of how your buyer makes purchasing decisions, sales methodologists remain static.

How many have heard the demand of more dials, more prospecting, more business? The problem is that they way we did business before the Internet does not translate to business today. The reason? The customer has evolved.

In this eBook well be diving into the new sales methodology, that of social selling. This is the methodology of how we move from the analog world, where meetings were held on the golf course to the digital. These are dialogues, held without your consent but that effect your ability to do your job.

The solution though is simple. Take what you do face to face - online. Its that simple.

To help, The stories in this eBook explain how to use social media to increase their revenue potential, exceed quota, prospect more effectively, and strengthen professional relationships.

How to get away from cold calls

Tips on how to avoid a social sales pitch

Social selling success stories from enterprise

companies

The future of sales for B2B companies

How to create your professional brand

online

In this eBook youll learn:

90% of decision makers say they never respond to a cold outreachHarvard Business Review

The average sales cycle has increased 22% over the past 5 years due to more decision makers being involved in the buying process.Sirius Decisions

3

Contents

How do we define social selling?

What is the value of social selling?

Personal branding and customer relationships

Using social media to build and close pipe

The future of social selling

4How do we define social selling? The simple answer - Helping social buyers become customers For a more definitive description, LinkedIns Koka Sexton proposes:

Leveraging your professional brand to fill your pipeline with the right people, insights, and relationships.

For Sexton, who Forbes ranked number 1 in their top 30 most influential social sales professionals online, he first realized the power of social selling during his days in inside sales. He had no way of getting to know prospects in the same way as traditional field reps, he never went to their offices and saw the golf trophies on the wall. All I had was a name, phone number and title

Who are social buyers? We use the term social buyers but read knowledgeable buyers. Its commonly said that the B2B buyer has completed two thirds of their purchasing decision before they reach out to a sales person. That means they are searching for content online, carrying out internal assessments and listening to peers on social media.

In this new buyer centric sales process, sales professionals are turning into fulfillment managers, making it difficult to affect purchasing decisions, even if the solution would be better for the customer.

Social selling is effective as it gives sales access to prospects earlier in the buying cycle, allowing them to engage with content, positioning themselves as a peer rather than a vendor.

But you need to re-tool to be most effective

Social Media As a Channel For Sales

77% of buyers wont speak with sales until they have done their own research.Engage Early, DemandGen Report

Social buying is... Leveraging professional networks for buying support to increase confidence in decision making.IDC

90% of consumers trust peer recommendations but only 14% trust ads.Nielsen

By 2020, customers will manage 85% of their interaction with the enterprise without interacting with a human.Gartner

5Weve already established that the buyer has changed and sales professionals who dont adapt will miss out on new opportunities.

Finding your buyer 97% of your target market is currently not buying - finding a buyer therefore means finding a prospect at the right point in their purchase path. However, compared to the pre-social era, companies are far more open with their intentions as they ask for recommendations and solutions from their peers.

Social media allows sales teams to keep track of target accounts, uncovering trigger phrases and behaviour on LinkedIn.

This is why professionals using social selling tactics are outperforming their peers. They are engaging with prospects earlier in the purchase cycle, offering solutions to their problems rather than products.

The Value of Social Selling

76% of B2B buyers leverage their personal and professional networks for guidance and adviceLinkedIn professional content consumption report

73% of sales pros that used social selling outperformed their peers as well as exceeding sales quotas by 23%Aberdeen research

More likely to smash sales quotas

More likely to be promoted to VP from Director

more likely to exceed sales quotas

51% 3x1.6x

Sales professionals who use LinkedIn for social selling are:

6A Social Success Story3000% ROI and a 25% shorter sales cycle

About the company More than 5.5 million Australian consumers rely on PayPal when transacting online or on a mobile device. PayPals digital wallet enables consumers to purchase with security, flexibility and convenience. PayPal is now accepted by most of Australias large retail websites and the company is striving for PayPal to be a payment option for consumers, anywhere, anytime and any way they choose to transact.

Problem Head of Field Sales at PayPal Australia, Paul Weingarth, was looking for a way to provide his team with more accurate leads and a solution to reducing the sales cycle. Paul says, Time is money in our business so the longer it takes us to acquire a merchant, the greater the opportunity cost..

Solution Sales navigator, LinkedIns bespoke platform for social selling, empowered Pauls team by giving them access to LinkedIns network. This allowed them to build lead lists and track prospects behavior and activity across the LinkedIn platform.

Results At an investment of $10,000, Paul estimates that Sales Navigator brought in at least $300,000 of new business within its first year. In addition to this, the sales cycles at PayPal have been reduced by an average of 25%.

86% of IT buyers are already using social media today in their purchasing decision processIDG

PayPal have changed their mindset towards LinkedIn as Paul explains, We used to see LinkedIn as an online CV but we have realised that its a thought leadership channel and a shop front for contacts. He adds, Id absolutely recommend Sales Navigator to any sales organisation. Its a fantastic tool and its transferrable to any sales role

One piece of self-promotional material

One re-share anothers social post

Four pieces of educational content

1.1.4.

7

So social selling starts with engaging prospects early, during the research phase of the buying cycle, but what next?

Social selling does not mean simply implementing the same sales techniques learnt from the cold calling days of yesteryear. We have to remain customer first, and so being salesy is a no-no.

Social selling means offering advice and expertise, not information about a product. We are aiming to build a trusted relationship, the social seller can elevate themselves to peer instead of just a vendor.

The 4-1-1 Rule This is the social sellers blueprint for posting on social media. Popularised by Joe Pulizzi and Tippingpoint Labs, the 4-1-1 rule was first designed for Twitter but is applicable across all social platforms.

What this means is for every 1 piece of self-promotional material share 4 pieces of educational content and re-share anothers social post.

Social selling pioneers such as Sexton quickly realized the power on their professional brand.

Your prospects will be looking for people that have answers. Theyll be doing searches to find solutions related to your product, and theyll want to know youre reputable and knowledgeable before they get in touch.

Personal Branding and Customer Relationships

88% of customers believe that sales reps are knowledgeable on products whilst only 24% think they have business expertiseCorporate Visions

The 4-1-1 Rule

Connect with decision

makers at target

accounts and build

out your reach into

the decision making

unit through LinkedIns

lead recommendation

engine.

STEP 2.

Filter your news feed

to stay informed about

your target accounts

and engage with

relevant, valuable

content.

STEP 4.

Utilise the lead builder

within Sales Navigator

to search LinkedIns

entire database of

professionals to identify

a prospect list.

STEP 1.

Use TeamLink to

see your colleagues

connections to get

warm introductions to

senior decision makers.

STEP 3.

8

Use a professional headshot. Your profile picture doesnt mean stiff or formal; depending on your industry and preference, you might not even have to be wearing a suit. Avoid selfies or photos in which youre clearly at a social event.

Have a descriptive headline on your LinkedIn profile. Your headline doesnt have to be your job title. According to an award-winning Slideshare presentation from Bertuzzi, your prospects might find Customer-Centric B2B Software Sales Professional more compelling than Sales Executive.

Include a concise summary of your professional experience and work history. Your summary should explain what youve achieved for your company and customers - not what youve achieved for yourself.

Use applications such as HootSuite or Buffer to schedule and post your updates. This is a great way to stay consistently active on social media, even if you cant do so in real time. Consistent communication will increase your reputation as a reliable source of insight and information and put you in a great position to be seen as a trusted advisor.

Does it work? Matt Heinz, president of Heinz Marketing, Inc., has heard numerous stories from clients who have leveraged social as a channel for establishing trusted relationships with customers.

When sales professionals are surveyed, building a robust pipeline is always a top priority. And with tools such as LinkedIns Sales Navigator, social selling leaders consistently outperform their peers.

Top Tips for a Professional Brand

Using Social Media to Build and Close Pipe

9% YoY increase in average deal size using social selling Aberdeen research

One of the most impressive stories was when a client did a split test between cold calling and social prospecting - same pitch, same general sales process, except that half of the time, the team was still cold calling, good names and companies but otherwise smiling and dialing, and the other half of the time they were mining the social Web for buying signals and trigger events. The social selling work generated a 50 percent increase in opportunities created.

9ROI Tip: Using your CRM to track Social to Revenue

To identify measurable results from your social selling efforts, start leveraging your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Start with these simple tips from Sales For Life founder and social selling training expert Jamie Shanks.

1. Create CRM tabs, one in Accounts and one in Opportunities. Use these tabs to monitor and measure social selling success

2. Think of LinkedIn as its own lead source. Have a tab in Accounts to track where your sales team is acquiring net new company information for the CRM (LinkedIn must be one of the choices)

3. Do the same in the Opportunities tab, but now view LinkedIn as a business-development action that results in Opportunities. LinkedIn must also be one of these actions that drive opportunities. Now, with a simple reporting dashboard, you can clearly understand the return on investing time in LinkedIn and/or any social selling platform or activity.

A Social Success Story3x more leads with a higher conversion rate

About the company Weight Watchers is the worlds leading weight loss organisation, helping millions of people to lose weight over the past 50 years. Weight Watchers is traditionally a B2C company but in the last year the brand has increased its local focus on its At Work corporate program which provides people with the convenience of taking part in the clinically-proven program in the workplace.

Problem The National Corporate Sales Manager at Weight Watchers Australasia, Duncan Ellis, explains, We had previously relied to a large extent on organic growth to drive corporate sales but we needed a more proactive approach.

Solution Weight Watchers partnered with LinkedIn, adopting Sales navigator and allowed Duncans team to have direct, high-level conversations with decision makers.

Results Duncan explains that Sales Navigator paid for itself within the first month and tripled the number of sales leads within 6 months and critically a much higher conversion rate from those leads.

Duncan continued With Sales Navigator we are able to contact decision-makers at tier 1 companies where previously the team were often struggling to connect.

10

It always comes back to the customer. They are engaging later with sales and so sales have to move to them. Its still all about relationships and providing value - that will never change. Its just that now, those relationships are online.

What is clear to Matt Heinz is that in the near future, social selling will just become selling.

Do you really want to keep cold calling? Or would you prefer to respond to buying signals and trigger events that immediately give you rapport, context, and engagement from more prospects?

The Future of Social Selling

In 2007 it took an average of 3.7 cold call attempts to reach a prospect. Today it takes 8 attemptsTelenet & Ovation Sales Group

Only 2% of cold calls result in an appointmentLeap Job

5X more likely to schedule a first meeting if you have a personal LinkedIn connection SalesBenchmark Series

When asked when the social selling tipping point will occur, Koka Sexton predicts it will be within a year and five years from now social selling will be the norm. This change will be driven from social selling leaders running rings around their competitors.

When this happens Koka predicts the following will be soon to follow: Salespeople will be hired based on their social footprint. For example, a company selling medical devices in Michigan will look for a rep with that or a closely related social identity. They wont hire a nonmedical rep from California, because he will not have the connections.

The line between sales and marketing will blur even further. As salespeople do their own micromarketing. Reps are already good at one-to-one and one-to-few communication. What happens when, instead of calling ten people on the phone, they can do four social media updates a day, reaching 15,000 people? Sexton asks.

Reps who are already responsible for about 70 percent of their leads and revenue may increase that share by becoming their own marketers. Save people who are important to you to see their updates on your homepage, Account Pages, or on their profiles, so youll always know whats going on. If you want to know the most important paper on a subject, Google will tell you, Sexton observes, but if you want to know the hottest paper today, Twitter will tell you in real time before it bubbles up a week later on Google.

11

LinkedIn Sales Solutions

About Us LinkedIn Sales Navigator makes it simple to establish and grow relationships with prospects and customers by helping you tap into the power of LinkedIn, the worlds largest professional network of 347m+ members. Designed for sales professionals, LinkedIn Sales Navigator combines LinkedIns network data, relevant news sources, and your accounts, leads, and preferences to produce customized recommendations and insights.

With LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can focus on the right people and companies, stay up-to-date on whats happening with your accounts, and build trust with your prospects and customers.

Sales Solutions

For more information, please visit our Sales Solutions site. Visit https://business.linkedin.com/sales-solutions