executive guide to social selling success
TRANSCRIPT
The Execu)ve Guide To Social Selling Success
Sales Leadership
Sales Enablement and Learning & Development
Marke7ng Leadership
This execu3ve resource is designed to highlight the strategy and process needed for leaders interested in implemen3ng a Social Selling program in their organiza3on. With insight from dozens of world-‐class organiza3ons, this guide is first centered around the C-‐Suite, then broken down into the 3 cri3cal func3ons in the organiza3on:
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Old tac7cs don’t work: 90% of decision makers say that they never respond to cold outreach (Harvard Business Review).
Buyers use social media: 75% of B2B buyers now use social media to research vendors (IDC).
Bigger deal sizes: Buyers who use social media have larger budgets – typically 84% larger than the budgets of buyers who do not use social (IDC).
BeBer quota aBainment: Social sellers realize 66% greater quota aYainment than those using tradi3onal prospec3ng techniques (Sales Benchmark Index).
The Top 4 Reasons Why Organiza3ons Embrace Social Selling
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Skillset
Toolset
To ini3ate Social Selling in your organiza3on, three things must change:
Mindset
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Here are the changes that must occur among your salespeople.
Key Mindset Change FROM “I must pitch my product to buyers as quickly as possible.”
Key Skillset Change FROM “We must buy lists and call as many people as possible.”
Key Toolset Change FROM “I have to provide my sales team with the most effec3ve Social Selling tools.”
TO “I must spark relevant sales conversa3ons by providing insights.”
TO “We must become more digitally and socially savvy – like our buyers.”
TO “Once we have the mindset and skillset, we can invest in the right toolset for our team.”
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$5 Yielded for every $1 spent.
Educa3on and training creates a behavioral shia! For every $1 spent in Social Selling training, sales professionals are driving at least a $5 return in real revenue within six months!
Source: Sales for Life, Sample: 40,000+ learners
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Sec3ons
Sec3on 1 Execu7ve Team
Sec3on 2
Sec3on 3
Sec3on 4
CLO, Sales Enablement Leader
CSO, VP of Sales, Sales Leader
CMO, VP of Marke7ng, Marke7ng Leader
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Page 17
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Sec7on 1: Execu3ve Leader
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Is Social Selling a fit? You must be able to answer YES to both ques3ons, for Social Selling to be a fit:
Is your buyer online?
Is your sales team willing to educate digitally?
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When Social Selling is not a fit
If your buyer is unwilling to learn online or engage their social network; or if the seller is unwilling to build their network and educate buyers, then we have a break in the Social Selling paradigm.
Ensure that your buyer is online.
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Social Selling takes 7me
Immediate ROI is poor You’ve started implemen3ng Social Selling tac3cs but aren’t seeing results within the first few weeks.
It takes Hme to align your process with the modern buyer Companies “spend considerable cycles educa3ng key stakeholders on the value of social media, training the sales team on how to use their social networks, and puing the right tools and processes in place to support a social selling program that will improve the boYom line.” – Forrester, Research, Breaking Through The Hype Of Social Selling
Problem:
Opportunity: 10
If you can’t sell to your buyers online, then you need to influence the influencers. Your buyer might be learning offline, but they s3ll learn from:
Industry Analysts Trade Associa7ons Industry Forums System Integrators
Socially influence these influencers. Many of them will be Social.
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The 4 Stages in the Transforma7on Process – Across Sales, Marke3ng, and Sales Enablement
Social Selling Hierarchy of Needs Below are the organiza3onal departments that need to align in order to make Social Selling a success.
Execu7ve Sponsorship of Social Transforma7on
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Your job is to ensure that this ini3a3ve is one of the top three sales programs over the next three years. Social Selling is a paradigm shia from decades of tradi3onal sales methodologies. This transforma3on must become a priority to guarantee adop3on and success.
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Sell the Vision! Sell the vision in a town hall mee3ng to all employees! Don’t let this be a 1x message. Prepare the team for a cultural shia.
Triple Alignment:
Sales Drives ac3on and accountability to the sales team
Marke7ng Develops the systems and content that creates opportuni3es for sales
Enablement Establishes the environment for con3nuous learning and development
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Centralize Accountability Each of the 3 “amigos” have to create realis3c milestones that would ul3mately achieve the desired goal. Each milestone needs to be 3ed with an ac3on required and form of measurement to gauge success in real 3me throughout the journey.
Marke7ng Increase Marke3ng Qualified Leads (MQLs) by 20% this year. Empower the sales team with relevant content to 3x engagement.
Enablement Upgrade sales skills for 50% of the organiza3on within one year.
Sales Increase the number of sales professionals that achieve annual quota by 20% YTD.
Warning: Ownership of a Social Selling program is not for one person.
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The adverse effect of misalignment.
Sales
Marke7ng
Enablement
A sales force with zero accountability to drive ac3on.
A sales force lea without content to educate buyers or tools to create new opportuni3es.
A sales force that never adapts to the new buyer and reverts to old habits.
Department Misalignment Nega7ve Effect
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Sec7on 1: Sales Enablement
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Most sales methodologies only address from first mee3ng to close. 57% of a buyer’s journey is done BEFORE that first mee3ng!
57% of the buyer’s journey is done before your sales reps, which means 57% of your current sales methodology is most likely not part of the buyer’s journey. Typical sales methodologies cover 43% of the journey from the first discovery call to closing a deal. How is your sales team addressing the crea3on of new leads and opportuni3es at the top of the funnel? And don’t forget the boYom of the funnel. Social Selling also tackles the boYom of the funnel by becoming trusted experts that lead the buying process.
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Visual
Auditory
Kinesthe7c
The best training programs address all styles of adult learning Each of your sales reps learns differently. Part of the team will need to watch best prac3ces, others will need to talk and connect with Social Selling leaders, while others will need to perform the same ac3ons repeatedly. The best training environments support all types of learning to create a behavioral change.
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Blow up the workshop!
The average student can only recall 10% of what they’ve learned in a workshop. Workshops are fantas3c for genera3ng ini3al excitement, but terrible for crea3ng behavioral change. Don’t let scaling Social Selling throughout your organiza3on be an excuse to shortcut training into workshops. Only use a workshop as a component of the overall learning experience.
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Develop a Learning Loop: a framework for teaching Social Selling
“Repe33on is the mother of all learning.” To help you understand how to build a world-‐class learning environment, feel free to use our model as a benchmark. We developed a learning system called the “Learning Loop.” This model allows a student to leverage live training, online resources, study workshops that are peer-‐to-‐peer driven, and mentoring calls with subject maYer experts. By providing every form of learning in a building block format, this loop repeats its frequency on a weekly basis. A behavioral change emerges and solidifies as part of a student sales process within 90 days.
"Training is mandatory to develop your sales team’s social media capabiliHes, but it must be ongoing and include frequent check-‐ins."
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How will you measure learning progress? Understand that your training is a leading indicator of sales success. You control the sales outcomes for 90, 180 and 365 days from now. Learning behaviors need to be 3ed to sales outcomes.
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Measure your “Leading Indicator”
Leading Current Lagging
Learning Behavior Social Ac1vity Sales Pipeline
Measure with your LMS Measure with marke1ng automa1on
Measure with CRM
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Sec7on 3: Sales Leaders
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You need to learn Social Selling yourself to provide leadership.
HELLO, I AM ACCOUNTABLE
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Accountability starts with you becoming Social yourself. You need to walk the walk. Sales professionals aspire to be like you. It’s difficult to manage by delega3ng if you don’t understand, believe, or ac3vely par3cipate in the ideas you delegate.
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The role of Sales Leaders in Social Selling The key role of sales leaders is to drive accountability for Social Selling programs. Sales execu3ves support processes suggested by marke3ng and sales enablement, and track the performance of their teams.
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Your CRM is your Social Selling BIBLE But remember, it’s only a Lagging Indicator
Sources • AA-‐ISP 3% • Channel Partner 10% • Client Project Expansion 17% • Client Referral 9% • Email Discussion 1% • External Referral 11% • LinkedIn 16% • Net Results Campaign 5% • Past S4L Client 1% • Professional Network 6% • Prospect Referral 1% • Referral Partner 6% • Tradeshow 4% • Webinar 4% • Website Hits 3%
Account Sources
Opportunity Sources
You can track ROI for Social Selling with your exisHng CRM. However, tracking your Social Selling through your CRM is only one part of measuring a Social Selling strategy. There are actually three indicators you need to be looking at. Learn more here.
Lead Sources
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How can you create a culture of Social that rewards teamwork?
How will your sales reps be rewarded for driving sales opportuni3es that influence deals outside of their territory? Thinking through this challenge will help determine the culture at which sales reps work together to pass opportuni3es.
Problem: Sales professional territory. It’s not in my territory so I don’t care.
Vision: Have a sales professional look beyond their next quarter.
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Does your territory model present sales opportuni7es to the op3mum sales rep?
Ignoring sales territories for a moment, does your latest sales opportunity truly make sense for your assigned sales rep, or do others in your organiza3on have a stronger “Social Proximity”? Social Proximity is assigning a sales opportunity to the sales rep that has the strongest rela3onship with contacts in an organiza3on, giving your company a higher probability to access the organiza3on.
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Tradi7onal territories vs. Social Proximity
In a tradi3onal sales organiza3on, a sales opportunity is passed to a sales rep because they’ve been assigned that territory. The model has a fundamental flaw – your assigned sales rep many not be the ideal person in your organiza3on to work the client account. In a Social Proximity model, sales reps are assigned to assist in accounts because their internal connec3ons can provide to be a valuable resource.
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Sec7on 4: Marke3ng
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Do I really understand the buyer?
And does the sales team have the same defini5on? Sales and marke5ng typically have different defini5ons of who their buyers are and the problems they need to solve. Build a buyer persona that’s so accurate, your sales team pictures their future client. You as an individual have the power to arm your sales team.
More social content = More visibility = More MQLs
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Help your sales team understand how to use content. Here are 3 things salespeople must keep in mind:
1 2 3
Content is a must-‐have on social media. Content is the basis for how people interact and build rela?onships.
Don’t commit random acts of content. Share content that is relevant to buyers and helps them rethink their situa?on.
Mix other people’s content with company-‐created content. If sellers share only company created content, they run the risk of looking biased.
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Who?
Most opportuni+es are passed to sales FAR TOO LATE!
Opportuni1es are too late!
of the buying journey is typically done before the client is engaging your sales team. -‐ CEB If your sales team is wai=ng for the ideal lead, they’re too late.
of buyers are choosing the provider that is FIRST to provide sights. – Corporate Visions, Marke=ng Messenger
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Conversion Funnel
Content Library Marke7ng Automa7on 1
Get the right tools in place
Lead Scoring & Dashboard
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Make sure every sales professional understands that their content sharing drives buyers into the conversion funnel.
Your role is to teach the correla3on between content and pipeline growth.
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Master the conversion funnel!
The conversion funnel is the pipeline of marke3ng assets that walk a buyer through their educa3on journey. The purpose of the conversion funnel is to connect these assets together in a system to drive both posi3ve conclusions for the buyer, and ideal leads for your sales team.
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Ensuring Social Selling Success
As we’ve seen, there are a lot of moving elements to a successful Social Selling program. However, if you follow the processes described over the course of this ebook, you will find a framework for successful deployment. From the CEO, to Sales, Marke3ng, and Enablement teams, if you can align all these departments, you will founda3onally be ready for all of your content marke3ng, social sharing, and pipeline growth plans to be a success. Organiza3ons that have this see a massive spike in all of these areas.
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About Trapit
Trapit is the platorm for authen:c social selling and employee advocacy. Our technology empowers your employees on social with content that is proven to spark engagement and drive sales. We are dedicated to helping brands connect their employees, customers and prospects with authen:c conversa:ons inspired by high quality, relevant content. Our customers rely on our technology to power innova:ve campaigns that consistently deliver ROI.
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