How to Implement Social Selling

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© 2016 Amanda Calhoun. All rights reserved
CORRECTLY
IMPLEMENT
SOCIAL SELLING
The What, Why, and How

2 © 2015 Amanda Calhoun. All rights reserved.
THE WHAT

Social Selling is the process of developing relationships as part of the sales
process
While social selling is sometimes confused with social
marketing, there are two key differences.
Social Selling:
• focuses on sales professionals, rather than marketing
professionals
• aims to create one-on-one relationships, rather than
broadcast one-to-many messages

THE WHY

5 © 2016 Amanda Calhoun. All rights reserved
Social Selling:
generates 40% more qualified leads than cold calling
allows you to build genuine connections
enables the 93% of buyers on social media to take notice of you
adapts you to the ever-changing sales process (79% of salespeople who use social media as a selling
tool outperform those who don’t
prepares you for the initial client meeting (vs. the 57% either not, or only somewhat, prepared
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leverages your social brand to fill your pipeline with the right people, insights, and relationships4

THE HOW

Establish a professional
presence on social media
outlets with a complete
profile
Prospect efficiently
with search and
research
Discover and share
valuable information
to initiate or
maintain a
relationship
Expand your network
to reach prospects
and those who can
introduce you to
prospects
Create a professional brand Find the right people Engage with insights Build strong relationships

2
Be authentic1
USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO ESTABLISH YOUR REPUTATION AND CREDIBILITY:
Showcase your sales expertise, credibility, and integrity
3 Highlight personal information (e.g., education background, personal interests,
religious affiliation, nonprofit activity, etc.) to find common ground with potential
buyers and channel partners
Create a
professional
brand

Find the right
people
2
Do your research. Monitor and/or search social networks for
signs of customer interest, immediate buying intent, or qualified
prospect status based on industry, role, geography, etc.
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USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO FIND THE RIGHT PEOPLE AT THE RIGHT TIME:
Match individuals to their target buyer profiles/personas (if
relevant)
3 Take time to understand your prospective customer, business
partner or client
Find common ground and use it as an entry point to initiate
dialogue and establish a connection. Building a relationship
with this person starts with knowing who they are
4 • Who are the key individuals within the
organization?
• Do you have any connections to them?
• What’s happening in near real-time?
• What level of engagement do you have?
• What are those customers looking for from
the business?
• What are they complaining about? What are
their problems/pains?

Engage with
insights
2
Pay attention to key events in your prospects lives (e.g., change jobs, promotions,
mentioned in the news, birthday, or work anniversary. A simple message like
congrats may not seem like a lot, but it’s better than trying to force a sale on an
unqualified, non-sales-ready prospect
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USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO ENGAGE YOUR PROSPECTS WITH VALUABLE INFO:
Share relevant blogs, articles, insights, etc.
3 Create and publish your own relevant content through posts, Slideshare, blogs, etc.
4 Take part in relevant debates, discussions, and conversations on social networks

Build strong
relationships
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Deepen your relationships – and your credibility – by building trust. People want to
invest in, work for and partner with professionals they know and trust.
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USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO NURTURE RELATIONSHIPS WITH PROSPECTS AND CLIENTS:
Don’t seek transactions. Engage people to create authentic and genuine
connections. Nurturing relationships takes time and calls for authenticity at all
times.
3 Focus on communication and feedback via Social CRM. Social Relationship Management
tactics include listening and responding to customer feedback online, and re-posting user-
generated content regarding company. Remember to directly engaging with stakeholders
online
4
Advocate for your company. Leverage your own social presence to share positive news,
stories, and insights about the company with your network

In many sales situations, the competitive differentiators are so small
that any advantage can be the difference between success and
failure.
Typically, you wouldn’t see a competitor’s strategy until their new
marketing campaign is live. But the reality is, these initiatives are
generally the results of months of planning and market testing first.
Social tools can give you advanced notice to positioning shifts:
IT DOESN’T END THERE THOUGH… KEEP TRACK OF YOUR COMPETITION
6 Ways to Monitor Competitor Social
Media
• Set up Google Alerts for competitor terms
(brand names, products, key people)
• Join key customer groups on LinkedIn to
see what they are saying
• Monitor Slideshare, Scribd, etc. for new
presentations or documents created by the
competition, their partners or events they
are attending
• Follow customers, competitors, and
thought leaders on Twitter to see what
they are saying
• Look at Q&A sites like Quora for additional
insights
• Use connectors like in SFDC’s App
Exchange to integrate all these into your
social profiles
Monitor what your competitors are saying (including comments)1
Spot competitive movements (positioning shifts, messaging, etc.)2
3 React to these changes earlier to stay ahead of the competition

On average, companies lose 50% of their customers every five years. Few
customers leave on a whim though – moving a business to usually costs significant
time and money and is marked months of debate about what’s going wrong and
research into a better solution (especially in B2B)
Peer recommendations are the #1 trusted source of information for any business
decision (and have always been). And social networks have become the binding
force, making it easier than ever for people to share information and solicit
recommendations about services and suppliers… and most are public:
IT DOESN’T END THERE THOUGH… PREVENT CUSTOMER DEFLECTION While you can learn a lot by watching
and listening to what customers say
online, sentiment tracking solutions
can help you delve deeper.
You can automatically analyze what is
the sentiment of the discussions… and
help mine for new opportunities
Obtain insights into your customers by using e the same tools used to monitor the competition1
Delve into any areas you may be failing to spot or issues your customers are having2
3 Take action to address these issues before they need to a costly break-up

• Determine goals and
KPIs
• Measure social selling
and its effectiveness
• LinkedIn’s SSI (Social
Selling Index)
• Klout
• Revenue Attribution
(most complex)
• Optimize based upon
results
• Capture social profiles for
deeper insight
• Share thoughts on customer
needs and problems
• Identify buyers and build out
your audience personas
• Share marketing plans and
calendars
• Share tools (e.g., templates,
scripts, guidelines, content
examples, and customizable
emails)
• Join the conversation
• Collect content ideas,
periodically review and
determine what’s will best
meet customer needs
• Create content engine
2Content1 Collaboration 3 KPIs and Measurement
WHAT ELSE IS NEEDED

SO?

The success of the social-
centered selling depends on
adoption of program – a
structured approach is a must.
The 3 phases of social selling
framework can, if followed
properly, assure the maximum
out of the social selling program
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PRE LAUNCH: all planning activities related to the program launch
including:
• defining the key performance indicators
(KPIs) of the program
• understanding and bench marking the digital
presence of audience
• creating the buzz around the program to
excite the participants
• enabling the CRM system to track the leads
generated from social selling which will help
measure the ROI of the program
• communicating benefits of program to
participants
EXECUTION: on-boarding participants to social platforms by:
• enabling creation of their profiles
• coaching the participants on publishing
content
• identifying prospect
• approaching / engaging with prospects
POST LAUNCH: all activities to support participants adopt the
program by:
• providing relevant content and queries
resolution
• tracking the benefits of the program by
reporting the leads generated from social
selling
•
• evaluating KPIs defined in the prelaunch
phase and
• communicating these benefits to the
management

How to Implement Social Selling

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