Social selling is the context to bring Sales & Marketing together for bigger business results.
“Selling through social channels is the closest thing to being a fly on the wall in your customers, prospects, and competitors’ world.” Jim Keenan, CEO, A Sales Guy Inc. What wouldn’t you give to be that fly? Exactly. We’d cough up unicorns and fairy dust, and then some.
Sales reps report 57% higher ROI from social selling, compared to 23% ROI using traditional methods. (Source: Salesforlife)
Also known as Social Selling or Digital Selling, this topic has been abuzz in social media. More so on the platforms for business such as LinkedIn. If you are following social media content and marketing strategies, chances are, posts Social on Selling would have come to your feed already.
Yet, the adoption of social selling aren’t skyrocketing yet. What gives? This was the typical chicken and egg story that we wanted to find out. If something as obvious as this is being promoted extensively, maybe adoption is low. Which is why it is being so heavily pushed in the first place!
We wanted to find out what was happening. And for that we ran a series of polls targeting sales and marketing folk over a month. And the results, though not surprising at first glance, were deep and real. Here are the 6 things we learnt on what Sales folk really want.
First. Turns out, people aren’t convinced about it yet. There’s a lot of noise around this. But they say “we don’t know who really knows”. We want to believe it. But show me the proof.
Second. Business buzz words remained buzz words and are pushed top down for implementation, if it caught on. Then they become trends. And here, the folks on the front believed they were being pushed into it. Not led through it. So hey, why should I believe you?
Third. There’s a demand for domain experts who can not only prove it works with facts and insights but also educate on how to do it. People in sales do not have the attention to theory. However they would like to build their arsenals and would like to be show how to do it before they take the plunge. And this is reflected not only in their choice of content sources but also choice of learning methodology.
Fourth. there’s a market out there for organised social selling training. And this is only going to grow as more people adopt and use social media for both personal and business purpose.
Fifth. Sales does not find marketing collateral convincing enough to help them sell better. And they seek a content engine for themselves. While the branded stuff continues to be marketing led.
Sixth. It’s nothing new. But tentative adoption is what’s happening. Highlighting the need for education and induction into Social Selling.
Don’t miss the detailed white paper with the poll insights. You can click here to get it.
