Category: Social Selling

Account Selection: Start Prioritizing Social Proximity

Post author By Sales for Life Admin
Post date July 6, 2021
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When entering the world of sales, account selection becomes the most important thing – and yet, it is something that is often overlooked. Both newbies and experienced salespeople tend to go after the big fish. They start planning and visualizing their account map as filled with brands and companies that they know because of their name, global impact, and popularity.

And while there is nothing wrong with this—in fact, we at Sales for Life do it too—it can cause some hindrances to your pipeline’s growth, especially if it’s all you’re going to focus on.

Here’s an excerpt from our CEO, Jamie Shanks’ book, SPEAR Selling:

When I was 16, I started a landscaping company in my small town of Manotick, Ontario, Canada. I made pink and yellow flyers that I photocopied at Mac’s Milk convenience store, and handed them out door-to-door.
Just as I was about to start my first spring lawn cutting season, my mother said to me “Jamie, if you do a great job, two people in the neighborhood will hear about you; if you do a terrible job, eight people in the neighborhood with hear about you”.
She paused, looked at me intently, and I could see what she was really saying: “The neighbors will tell me, and I’ll feel embarrassed… so don’t screw up!”
Even as a teenager, I was learning about the power of business development through social proximity and successful storytelling.

Take Advantage of Your Asymmetrical Competitive Advantages

4.2x more likely to get a sales appointment if you have a relationship than if you don’t.
Sales Benchmark Index (SBI)

So what is social proximity, and what does it have to do with account selection?

Simply put – and precisely as it sounds – it’s about utilizing your relationships, personal experiences, and customer successes (collectively known as your Asymmetrical Competitive Advantages) and placing them at the center of your pipeline efforts. You use these when creating targeted account lists, whether vertically or geographically.

This strategy is built with a solid foundation that focuses on the customers and then grows and works outwards. Instead of focusing on which accounts will get you the biggest commissions, this strategy gives you the goal of finding asymmetric competitive advantages that other people – especially your competitors – cannot possibly compete against.

Leveraging these advantages that exist around your company’s happy customers and the people working with them can open up a significant number of opportunities for you, which in effect can keep opening up new opportunities for you as you increase the number of happy customers in your care. Using social platforms, such as LinkedIn, can give you insights that paint a clearer picture of these relationships and the interrelationships between them.

Account Selection with Social Proximity in Mind

The next time you’re planning or reevaluating your goals for account selection (and acquisition), think of the people you’ve already got connections and influence with.

These people will include the following:

Employees of your current customers
Former employees of your existing customers
Your customers’ competitors
Partners and vendors that are associated with or are suppliers of your customers

And on a more personal level, you can also look to:

Family
Friends
Community and social network
Previous school alumni

Every one of the relationships you possess with these people can create various levels of asymmetrical competitive advantages for you and your pipeline. The relationships that you’ve built with them aren’t easily copied or stolen by competitors.

While still hunting for the big fish accounts, spend a considerable amount of time and energy mapping out account selection based on your social proximity. To do this and to do it well, it is crucial that you get rid of any predetermined accounts that have been handed off to you by your superiors, your company, or even by yourself.

We know that majority of companies will assign accounts to their sellers. However, you shall still be entitled to a percentage of target accounts to choose for themselves. This should also be a wake-up call to these companies when addressing their account selection strategies with their salespeople. Including social proximity must be given priority as early as the planning stage.

This strategy is a big, big help for sellers, especially those who are just starting out with their accounts, as well as those who find themselves stuck with their pipeline’s growth. And once you’ve been able to acquire accounts, thanks to your social proximity strategy, there’s no stopping you from reaching higher and going after the big fish.

Blog social content marketing Social Selling

Why Do B2B Sellers Need to Share Content on Social Media?

Post author By Sales for Life Admin
Post date June 29, 2021
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One of the questions salespeople might be asking is this: Why do I need to bother with posting and sharing content on social media? Isn’t that the marketing team’s job?

Traditionally, that makes sense. However, modern selling is changing the landscape of prospecting and closing deals.

B2B sellers have to be on social media platforms to connect with their existing customers, build relationships with new people, and establish themselves as authoritative players in their industry.

Regularly sharing relevant content can help them build and maintain rapport with their existing and potential customers and improve their company’s reputation and brand awareness.

Who Needs to Share Social Media Content?

If you have a role in sales enablement, SDR, business operations, VP of sales, or other positions similar to these, you have to share content regularly.

This is especially important if you’re in the B2B sales industry.

LinkedIn and Twitter are two of the essential social platforms for reaching out to prospects and maintaining relationships.

Here’s our COO, Amar Sheth, on why sharing content online is an absolute necessity as a B2B seller:

Why Do You – a Seller – Need to Share Content?

67% of B2B buyers are now visiting LinkedIn profiles

If you aren’t doing it yet, you are likely missing out on opportunities for sales and networking.

By sharing the right type of content and interacting with your audience consistently, you not only craft better awareness for your sales team or company—you are also keeping yourself open whenever new opportunities arise.

Did you know that the “Activity” tab is the fifth most checked-out portion on your LinkedIn profile?

This is the section where you can see what posts you’ve been sharing. It’s better to see that section filled with relevant content than not.

Different types of content can help you resonate with your target audience. Doing social media content work can help you, in the short term, get more clicks to your website, increase brand awareness, and grow your immediate network. And in the long run, it can lead to more sales conversations, deals closed, and the growth of your sales pipeline. You need to keep in mind these reasons whenever you perform social media sharing tasks (looking for content, sharing the content, and scheduling future content).

82% of buyers viewed at least five pieces of content from a winning vendor.
Forrester

95% of buyers chose vendors that provided content that helped guide them through every stage of their buying process.
Demand Gen Report

In addition to opening up opportunities for pipeline growth, there is also the obvious benefit of converting your content to actual sales. Buyers are more likely to purchase from trustworthy and reliable vendors and have established authority in their industry.

What Content Should You Share?

So you’re convinced that sharing content on social media is essential for your sales process. The next thing you need to figure out is which types of content you’re going to share.

It’s generally accepted and commonly done for salespeople to share third-party content.

This reflects content – and information – that you as an individual find interesting. It should also, of course, be relevant to your field and industry. This type of content is something that you should actively seek out and share regularly.

Marketing teams follow a general 80-20 rule in content sharing. This means they share 80% third-party content and 20% promotional or company content. In B2B, however, these ratios can differ depending on how much high-level educational or professional content your company produces.

Sellers, in particular, need to be vigilant about sharing data, products, and even sales pitches. What you need to do instead is to provide content from outside sources regularly. This gives your audiences and target market an idea that you are a hub of information and knowledge and that they can trust you as an authority in your field.

In addition to this, you can list the sources of content where you can get your daily social media shares. Gather the publications and other sources that are relevant to your industry. You can even ask customers directly (i.e., What publications do you read to stay up-to-date for your role and/or industry?).

Your sales team can also work together with your marketing team. Ask the people in charge of marketing and social media for sources and content that you can share on your LinkedIn pages. These people are expected to keep themselves updated with the latest in your industry, so they will be a valuable resource for you.

Sharing relevant curated content lets your audience know that you take time each day to keep up-to-date with news and trends in your industry. It shows you’re looking for the best ways to offer added value to them without a sales agenda each time.

The Takeaway

Almost any sales enablement team will succeed if they make content the foundation of their social selling practices. Having relevant and useful customer-facing content can establish the seller’s authority and improve the level of relationships between them and their customers.

Keep in mind that while content matters, having the correct type of content (in context) matters more. When planning out your sales process, remember that customer-facing content that becomes part of the customer journey can be the secret to success, especially in such a dynamic buyer-driven environment.

Blog LinkedIn Social Selling

LinkedIn for Sales: 4 Tips to Build Your LinkedIn Network

Post author By Sales for Life Admin
Post date June 24, 2021
No Comments on LinkedIn for Sales: 4 Tips to Build Your LinkedIn Network

Modern problems require modern solutions. If we’ve learned anything from the past year, many professionals, especially salespeople, are pondering how to increase their LinkedIn connections and whether they are doing everything they can to improve their profile.

The fact is, LinkedIn can help you attract new business prospects, keep you in front of existing clients and vendors, generate more introductions and referrals, receive invitations to speak at events or conferences, among other things.

But having a savvy LinkedIn network doesn’t just occur naturally. Despite LinkedIn’s best efforts to assist you in developing a smart network, you must still do your part to generate relevant and meaningful relationships.

Here are 4 tips on how to build your LinkedIn Network:

1. Treat LinkedIn as a Primary Channel to Gain Connection

Many salespeople today regard LinkedIn as a mere secondary tool for business growth and sales efforts. That is simply not a good idea.

You don’t want to wait to speak with someone on the phone or send them an email before connecting with them on LinkedIn. Instead, you must begin considering LinkedIn as a primary channel through which you want to make connections and build confidence before returning to the phone and email.

You’re effectively spreading your sphere of influence by engaging with folks on LinkedIn. When you connect with additional individuals on LinkedIn, particularly those with whom you’d like to conduct business in the future or with whom you already do business, you’re slowly but steadily influencing them by sharing your ideas, insights, and education.

The whole point of trying to expand your LinkedIn network is to share your ideas on a broader scale.

And that’s something that current salespeople have never had before. You can certainly achieve that level of scale via social media sites.

2. Set a Target for the Expansion of your LinkedIn Connections

In addition, modern salespeople should consider how many LinkedIn connections are reasonable and how many they should have.

According to LinkedIn data, the average salesperson still only keeps one to three contacts in a single account.

This needs to change.

The fact is, to make the most of an account, you’ll need an average of eight individuals or relationships because that’s the number of people who are currently actively contributing to a buying decision.

In today’s world, a purchase decision is made by an average of eight persons.

You don’t have to get them all right away. But set a goal and a deadline for yourself. For example, let’s assume you set a goal of connecting with or sending at least three connection requests on LinkedIn every day, and you give yourself one quarter, maybe two quarters, to achieve that objective.

More contacts or stakeholder connections in an account boost your prospects of renewals and expanding business because the more contacts you have, the more sales interactions you’ll get.

But you must go out there and find people in all of the major accounts, connect with them, and start having discussions with them carefully and with intention. Do that, and establish a goal of increasing your network size with critical people in accounts by at least three people every single day. If you do that, your renewals will appreciate you.

3. Customize your LinkedIn Connection Message

Now that we’ve demonstrated the need to build your network consistently, we must consider connecting with people on LinkedIn effectively. For example, how can you persuade them to approve your request for a connection?

Never send someone a blind connection request.

On LinkedIn, you may just click the connect icon and send a request to anyone. Unfortunately, most people who receive connection requests like that on the site will simply ignore you.

Sending customized messages is what you should do instead. There are two rules that you should follow when creating those messages.

Give Them a Good Reason to Connect
Offer to learn from that individual. Don’t just say you’d want to connect with them for this or that reason and then proceed to your sales pitch. Instead, mention that you’re hoping to interact with industry thought leaders so you may learn more from them and expand your skillset. Find your own words—no need to be too fancy.
Offer Them Value in Exchange
Second, keep your message humble. Offering to be a resource for them is a terrific way to do this. When you message someone, they’re giving up something like their privacy or inbox space by engaging with you. As a result, offer to be a resource for them in exchange. Let them know that you, too, have unique information and specific knowledge that they can tap into and that you’re willing to offer it.

Your chances of connecting with more individuals on LinkedIn will naturally increase as a result of these strategies. And whether you want to connect with CEOs, critical people who are managers or directors, or anyone in between, this is a great approach to expand your LinkedIn network.

4. Take Advantage of the “Executive Network Effect”

Finally, make it possible for salespeople in your company to connect with you and make your profile and network visible to them.

Allow your team to assess who in your network is worth meeting for them to utilize you and an introduction from you to go out and start a sales conversation.

This phenomenon is called the Executive Network Effect. Every organization that does it sees an immediate rise in sales opportunities, and they do it regularly as part of their strategy of identifying future opportunities and prioritizing them.

Interested in learning more tips on how to use LinkedIn for Social Selling? Read The Ultimate Guide to Social Selling now.

These simple steps will help you expand your network on LinkedIn. They do not only increase the likelihood that a contact will do business with you, but an expansive network will also allow other industry insiders to see your profile and consider you as a business connection.

Blog Social Selling

Social Selling:
Overlooked and Underrated

Post author By Sales for Life Admin
Post date April 22, 2021
No Comments on Social Selling:
Overlooked and Underrated

You’ve probably heard of social selling. It’s one of the most talked-about things in the world of sales–now more than ever.

In the B2C arena, it’s common practice for the past decade. When it comes to B2B, however, it’s still something that sales professionals and marketers need to work on.

Those who already do are using social media platforms in a similar way that B2C audiences are: familiarizing themselves with the platform, planning, researching, and building lasting relationships with vendors in their network. But beyond that, they also need to gear up to face the challenges that sellers navigate when they go into social selling.

Social Selling Defined

Before we go into issues faced when navigating its tricky waters and the importance of social selling for your company, we need to understand what it is.

In the B2B industry, social selling refers to the process of using social media for sales teams to connect with their prospects. Popular platforms for doing this include LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.

It starts with prospecting but doesn’t end there.

It goes on to bridge relationships and ensure that trust between the two parties is established.

Through regular communication and transparency, which can be accomplished with monthly meetings or phone calls–or in this case, by connecting and engaging via social media, your clients can feel more comfortable with you and trust you.

Of course, the type of content we connect with and share in social selling is different for B2B than for your average B2C accounts. Make sure that the content that you post is not purely focused on selling your product or service. Share content that’s relevant to your industry, such as blog posts, articles, podcast episodes, and videos. Doing this can solidify your standing as an expert and give you credibility for your prospects.

Content planning and publishing aside, one key aspect to remember is that each post you share needs to align with your company’s brand and vision. You have to maintain this while still showing your personality to allow the audience to relate to you. Having a more human approach (versus a robotic one) also improves the chances of engagement with your consumers.

Common Challenges in Social Selling

There are many advantages to social selling, but we’ll get to those in a bit. First, let’s take a look at the challenges you are most likely to face before you reap all the benefits of this powerful strategy.

Challenge #1: Selling on the Wrong Platform

Before you and your team start social selling, you need to decide which platforms to post and share content on. This decision is a critical one, which many fail to take as seriously as they should.

When it comes to marketing in general, some factors that need to be considered include why people are on a particular platform, what activities and types of user engagement typically happen there, and who are there to consume your content.

For B2B social selling, the most prominent elements you want to have in a social media platform are the following:

Why: To connect with peers, vendors, and LinkedIn Groups
What: Engaging with people within and outside of your circles to build your network
Who:
- Vendors, sellers, or clients who are in your industry that are either current or prospective consumers of your content and products
- People who are looking to experts and professionals in any given field for answers to their questions and problems

With these elements in mind, one can deduce that LinkedIn is the most potent social media platform for social selling from a B2B perspective.

Interested in learning more about Social Selling?
Check out The Ultimate Guide to Social Selling.

Challenge #2: Self-Serving Content

Here’s the thing about social selling: there always has to be added value for your customers.

Your audiences follow you (or are about to follow you) because you present yourself as trustworthy and credible.

What does this mean?

You must publish and share relevant content founded on insights that you’ve gathered regarding your audience’s interests. It also means that you have to use your content as a bridge towards getting to know your network, building relationships with them, and gaining their trust. All of these are vital to your process – and all should ideally occur before any selling actually happens.

71% of buyers report that they need to see relevant information from sellers. 66% cited that references and reviews from industry peers were critical to their decision-making process, and 61% believed that a seller’s overall reputation in their respective industry helps drive their buying behaviors. Source: The 2014 B2B Buyer Behavior Survey (Demand Gen Report)

Challenge #3: Zero Monitoring Efforts

So you’ve determined the proper channel to publish relevant content that caters to your target audience, but you haven’t been tracking how all of these efforts are doing in sales conversions. Unlike a casual social media post, the number of likes, shares, and comments won’t do B2B sellers a lot of good. In social selling, you need to dig deeper.

Metrics will be your best friend. The LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI) Score is a good indicator of your content’s success. In fact, according to a study, sales professionals’ SSI scores were directly correlated to their ability to beat and surpass their quota.

Sellers with high SSI scores are 51% more likely to exceed their quota and get access to 45% more opportunities than sellers with low SSI scores.

Another way to track ROI from social selling is to use marketing automation software. Tools that fall under this category allow you to gather data about your prospects, segment them, and build connections with them using content relevant to where they are in the buying process.

Interested in learning more about Social Selling?
Check out The Ultimate Guide to Social Selling.

How Social Selling Can Improve Your Sales Efforts

After understanding the roadblocks and challenges that you will probably face, now is a better time to take a peek at the different benefits that you can get from a successful social selling strategy. Here are some advantages of social selling:

Benefit #1: Obtaining Measurable Results

One of the benefits of social selling is the ability to measure your results (which we have discussed earlier, see: Challenge #3). These trackable results can come in different forms, depending on what types of monitoring you are implementing.

Individual Engagement Rates – Not exclusive to LinkedIn, this statistic can be measured by looking at the total amount of content you’ve shared over a given timeframe. Then, compare this rate to another (prior or succeeding) period. This can be done to assess social media efforts weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly.
Second Degree Connections – These are the number of connections a seller makes, interacts with, and prospects.
LinkedIn SSI – This is a statistic that shows the effectiveness of your social selling efforts and execution. According to studies, the higher the index, the bigger a seller’s sales success is.

Obtaining all of this information can either lead you to (1) keep posting great content for your target audiences or to (2) adjust your content strategies to get more desirable outcomes.

Our COO, Amar Sheth, wrote an article about measuring social selling ROI and what it means for sales leaders.

Benefit #2: Outperforming Peers and Competition

The world of sales is inherently competitive, to say the least. By utilizing social selling as part of your overall process, you can keep up with the competition–and if you succeed, you can stand out and win against them. Take this exciting statistic for example:

78% of social sellers outsell peers who don’t use social media.

Benefit #3: Beating Your Quotas

By incorporating social selling into your current sales practices, you can not just meet your monthly quotas–you can exceed them, too.

Based on the work we’ve done with current and past clients, we have proven that sellers can surpass quota by 15%, grow their pipeline by 25%, and improve their win rate by 20%.

This is made possible through our methodology here at Sales For Life, which incorporates social selling strategies.

Benefit #4: Capitalizing on Existing Platforms

Here’s a straightforward statistic: 96% of sales professionals spend an average of six hours every week on LinkedIn.

That means that’s where your competitors are. Not doing anything about it means you’re losing prospects by the day by simply not doing social selling.

In addition, corporations and executives consider LinkedIn, particularly, as a source of content relevant to their industry or profession. That’s your target market right there, just waiting for you to tap into and connect with using good content.

Build your company’s credibility, meet more prospects, and build stronger client relationships by regularly sharing valuable and reliable content.

For more information, check out The Ultimate Guide to Social Selling, which delves deeper into best practices, integrating it into your process, training, tools, metrics, and more.

Blog LinkedIn Social Selling

12 Hacks To Increase Your LinkedIn SSI Score

Post author By Jamie Shanks
Post date March 9, 2021
No Comments on 12 Hacks To Increase Your LinkedIn SSI Score

While there are opinions around the validity of LinkedIn’s Social Selling Index (SSI) Score, I can definitively say my SSI accurately reflects my progression as a social seller. I am now at the point where I’m growing my network rapidly, connecting with the right people, and creating new opportunities from social on a weekly basis. In fact, since I began my social selling journey at Sales for Life, my LinkedIn SSI Score has gone from 63 all the way to 96!

But why is your LinkedIn SSI score so important in the first place?

What is the LinkedIn Social Selling Index Score?

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