"How about we stop giving 'social selling' a separate status within sales? LinkedIn and Facebook have been around for over 13 years now. You can assume that a professional account manager has mastered social selling by now. We are no longer talking about 'e-mail selling' either."
This statement was the starting point of a discussion I had with my colleagues within the Sales Leadership Academy about whether we should change the name of our master class "Advanced Social selling and LinkedIn in B2B " - taking place again on Nov. 28.
Unfortunately, we collectively came to the conclusion that reality is more unruly... You only have to look at the average account manager's LinkedIn profile to find that we still need to address it separately. Or do we? Perhaps we should look at the phenomenon of social selling from a broader perspective.
'Selling' is nothing more or less than convincingly communicating the value you come to bring, aimed at people who can also buy that value.
Social media are some of the many communication tools an account manager can use to communicate that value in a very targeted way. When we study the social media profiles of account managers and look at their recent activities, there is still much to be gained.
To communicate, you have to do something; just having and maintaining a LinkedIn profile is not enough. If we then scrutinize the sales professionals who do communicate via social media, we often don't get cheerful either. Selling is about convincingly communicating the value you come to bring. So it's about naming those areas where you and your company can make other people's lives safer, more profitable, easier and more enjoyable.
But what do most people do when communicating via social media? They bring "product puke" in the form of products and associated features, based on which the other person then has to make up their own mind what this "product puke" might lead to.
And ? last but not least ? to whom is the average account manager's social media communication directed? Is it to people who can also buy or is it just random shouting? The latter is unfortunately the most common.
Conclusion
Dear sales manager and account manager, rethink what selling really means and apply it using social media, among other things. Put your profile(s) and what you do with social media against the following yardstick:
- How professional does your profile look? Compare it to your competing profiles and determine who makes the best impression.
- Do you communicate proactively and purposefully?
- Do you bring in business with social media? 'If not', could this be because of how you handle social media, because others succeed.
- Are you bringing added value to your expressions?
- Ask yourself if people would miss your updates if you stopped.
Social media is a very valuable tool if you know how to use it properly. Until the majority of sales managers and account managers know how to properly use this communication tool, we at the Sales Leadership Academy, will continue to call our master class on effectively using social media in sales, "Advanced Social Selling and LinkedIn in B2B," for a while.
The good news
Fortunately, the number of sales managers and account managers who do know how to use social selling is increasing. Do you know how to make the most of social media?
Do you have ideas, experiences and suggestions on how you have used social media to naturally make the sales process better, smarter, easier and more professional? Do you have a strong opinion about the usefulness and necessity of social media in a B2B sales environment?... Please share them using a 'comment' on this blog.
~H. Ben Mastboom, helps companies as a frequent speaker, consultant,
coach and trainer how to become the preferred speaker and excel.
