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Success Story: How Meru Networks Optimized Their Pipeline With Social Selling

Jamie Shanks
Jamie Shanks

I hope you’re already aware of the benefits of Social Selling training. But if you still have any lingering doubts, I’d like you to meet Kevin Coppins, former Vice-President of Sales at Meru Networks. Here’s Kevin’s story.

As Vice-President of Sales, Kevin could see that the sales process was changing. He wanted a dynamic sales force—not an “amateur sales force” that continued to use the same outdated techniques repeatedly without trying to improve their skills. He quickly saw that Social Selling has become an integral part of the sales process, and realized it was a unique sales process that would get his sales reps out of their comfort zones—and teach them new tools that they could leverage in order to succeed.


So in conjunction with the sales enablement team, he decided to enrol his sales and marketing staff in our Sales for Life Social Selling training program. Over 50 sales professionals participated in this year-long project. It was all-encompassing:

  • Live training: The sales and marketing teams received monthly instructor-led training calls, where they would learn new modules, as well as tips and tricks to become Social Selling experts.
  • Social Selling library: They also had access to the e-learning library, where they could watch training videos and continue the learning process. Daily mentorship calls also allowed them to have their questions answered in real time.
  • Personalized experience: In addition, the curriculum was reviewed regularly through quarterly recap sessions, to ensure that everyone was on board, and learning at the same pace.

The Social Selling training program was a huge success. It served as a wake-up call for the sales and marketing departments. Kevin wanted his sales professionals to learn that instead of traditional cold calls, there was a new way of communicating with clients—and a new way clients wanted to be engaged.

They realized that clients were learning without them. So they could either keep the status quo and not achieve their desired results, or choose to be a resource to their buyers by leveraging content.

Kevin now had a sales force that was maximizing opportunities. They now had the knowledge to share more of their content, promote their message in the marketplace, and attain better quality leads.

The impact of the Social Selling training also provided another important benefit: it was an excellent recruiting tool. Through its social content, Meru Networks was able to attract Generation Y and Generation X employees, who perhaps didn’t like the old style of cold-calling. It positioned Meru Networks as a progressive organization, which had the potential to attract more resumes and high quality candidates.

Bottom line: Social Selling training works.

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The Ultimate Guide to Social Selling