Category: #S4LSocial

Confidence is a personality trait all successful sales professionals inherently possess. But, what happens when confidence morphs into entitlement and narcissism?

At Sales for Life, we teach the importance of building your personal brand as an integral component of our 12 step social selling routine.

Over time, your audience will look to you for opinions, information, and answers to their complex business challenges.

That’s powerful.

However, as LinkedIn networks grow, Twitter followers accumulate, and Klout scores increase, sales professionals are tempted to become a Brandito.

A Brandito is not a social seller. A Brandito is consumed with building his/her personal brand at the expense of all others, including the buyer.

Why does sales need content marketing, and how do you determine if your content/messaging is working for you?

At Sales for Life, we constantly teach sales professionals about providing value to potential prospects and buyers during all stages of their buying journey.

What makes a great professional network and how do you develop powerful, lasting connections?

The American religious leader and public speaker William J.H. Boetcker once said that “a man is judged by the company he keeps.”

In social media circles, influence is both a powerful and somewhat alarming quality. Would you rather be loved or feared? Would you rather be a leader or a follower?

One of the stated advantages of technology, in general, and social media, in particular, is that it allows sales professionals to become more productive.

Sales tasks that once required days or weeks – making connections, for example – can be distilled to mere hours, or minutes, or seconds through the use of essential social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter.

As the Social Selling revolution continues to captivate the sales industry, the most successful and forward-thinking sales representatives utilize social media to connect and capture more business than ever previously imagined.

According to an oft-quoted statistic from Jim Keenan, a whopping 78 percent of sales people using social media outsell their peers who aren’t using social.

Think about that.

But the real question to ask is, “How is this accomplished?” If your primary goal is to use social media merely as a means to an end – a “connect and close” mentality – in all likelihood you probably don’t reside among the top-performing 78th percentile.

With more than 500 million tweets sent each day from an average active monthly user base of 250 million people, Twitter can seem a bit daunting, even for long-time users.

But, as the largest source of third-party content in the world, can you afford NOT to join the party?

Although the business card has yet to disappear, your LinkedIn profile serves as the de facto digital paper equivalent.

What does your LinkedIn profile say about you? More importantly, what does it say to your buyers?

If your target buyer persona acts like a vampire exposed to sunlight at the sight of your profile, it’s time for a change.

Do you wish for a magic solution that would convert buyers to choose your product or service every time? Perhaps your value proposition is lacking an essential component: value.

My colleague Amar Sheth agrees, writing this about the value conversation: Social Selling actually delivers on the long-held and correct belief that buyers purchase from those who add the most value.

During a recent conversation with a veteran sales representative, the issue of cold calling arose. “It’s just not working anymore,” the sales rep said with frustration. “There’s got to be a better way.”

There IS a better way. Learn great tips how to leverage Social Selling and come in from the cold during our weekly #S4LSocial Twitter chat, which continues every Wednesday at 12 p.m. ET.