“Are you implying social engagement is as valuable to our outreach efforts as phone calls and emails?”
He asked this question. I am pretty sure my response shocked him. I am not sure if he wasn’t expecting me to be so confident or maybe it was how direct I was with my response that caught him off guard. He was a skeptical prospective customer. He is a sales leader with a “C” in his title and he is responsible for revenues.
” I hope I am not implying it. I am flat out saying it.
Social engagement creates more opportunities, creates more high quality conversations with ideal customers and accelerates sales cycles”
And we have the data to demonstrate it too.
As many sales leaders are currently, he is searching for how to hit sales numbers in 2022. This article is written for him but I also the rest of my community who probably has this same question or belief on social media.
Here is another comment I received during this same phone call.
“We tried social before and it didn’t work”
This is a very common statement with most sales leaders. When asked what they mean by this statement. Usually it means one of more of the following:
- A half-day or full-day or even a full day session with a LinkedIn trainer or “expert”
- Sending social messages similar to email sequences via social media
- Posting company information and product information as social posts. Maybe even getting more members of the team to share them too beyond just their company fan pages.
- Providing Sales Navigator accounts for their team
- Social activity without a social strategy
Here are 5 reasons why your previous social or digital selling efforts did not work.
1. Only talking about yourself or your company does not create conversations with buyers.
They also train your community and the algorithms to ignore the posts.
2. Publishing social posts with links to your business pages is not social.
That is advertising or broadcasting. This is equivalent to only talking in a sales conversation and never asking questions.
3. Not engaging with other people’s posts.
Social is a 2-way conversation. As much as I liked the movie Field of Dreams, “if you build it, they will come” is not accurate for digital selling and social posts
4. No social strategy or training how to use social different than phones or emails.
Social is social. It is more like a networking event than a demo or sales conversation. A conversation at a networking event CAN lead to a sales conversation. But, it usually takes a little time before it get to a sales conversation. If the sales person moves too fast, the buyers exits the conversation.
5. Lack of humanized content and curated content.
Our research over the past 3 years shows human and curated content are the best type of content to start conversations with your customers. It is also the less likely content that your marketing department will produce or sales people consider sharing.
Want to learn what our research and case studies demonstrate for the most effective behaviors are to start conversations that lead to business opportunities? Let’s find a time to talk. I promise it will be a conversation and not a high pressure sales pitch. If you are uncertain how your team will hit their numbers.
Or, if your sales playbook for 2022 is a lot like the playbook for 2019 but with more calls, more emails and more sales reps, there is a more efficient, more effective way.
Use the chat icon in the bottom right corner and let’s have a conversation. Or, use my links above for a way to talk with me that is best for you.
