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Implementing B2B Social Selling: a Guide for Sales & Marketing Directors  Implementing B2B Social Selling: A Guide For Sales & Marketing Directors Table of contents Accelerate Sales with Social Selling Page 3 About the Author Page 3 Section 1: What is Social Selling? Page 5 1.1 Why Aren’t Salespeople Selling This Way Today? Page 8 1.2 Social Selling Blogs, Tips and Guides Page 9 Section 2: Leveraging the Experience of Senior Salespeople Page 10 2.1 LinkedIn Usage and Best Practice Page 12 Section 3: 8 Steps to Implement a B2B Social Selling Strategy at Your Company Page 13 3.1 Planning Page 14 3.2 LinkedIn Profile Optimisation Page 15 3.3 Target Setting Page 17 3.4 Messaging and Follow Ups Page 18 3.5 Response Management Page 20 3.6 Inbound Monitoring Page 21 3.7 Calling Page 23 3.8 Measurement and Reporting Page 24 Conclusion Page 25 Glossary Page 26 About Network Sunday Page 27 Services Overview Page 28 Implementing B2B Social Selling: A Guide For Sales & Marketing Directors | Page 2 Accelerate sales with social selling Implementing B2B Social Selling: A Guide For Sales & Marketing Directors | Page 3 Common problems faced by sales and marketing teams of successful business tend to be “we need better quality sales leads”, “our sales people are struggling to hit their numbers”, “we’ve bought LinkedIn premium licenses but very few of the sales team are participating”, or “we’ve decided to terminate the agreement with our marketing agency”. Sound familiar? To address these issues, we have spent six years developing the knowledge, experience and unique business frameworks and techniques that embrace LinkedIn. We believe LinkedIn and other digital platforms are the future for effective sales and marketing. The purpose of this whitepaper is to share a social selling framework that you can implement. I hope this will help equip your business with a reliable solution that delivers a steady stream of quality sales opportunities. My belief is that if you can recognise that prospecting today is 100% digitally- led, and take action to execute a social selling delivery model where your senior salespeople collaborate more closely with your inside sales (or business development) team - you will accelerate sales. My intention in this whitepaper is to offer some perspectives on how businesses can reorganise their approach to prospecting and early stage digital B2B selling so that more sales opportunities enter the pipeline each month. If you’re confused by terminology please see the glossary at the end. If you are interested in learning more about Network Sunday, you’ll find more information about us at the end of this whitepaper. If you are interested in discussing this whitepaper or meeting up for a chat, you’ll find my personal email address there too. Tim Bond Founder & CEO of Network Sunday About the Author Since 2009, Tim Bond has been helping sales and marketing leaders of professional services and technology businesses accelerate sales through intelligent and proactive use of LinkedIn. Tim joined LinkedIn a year after the platform launched in 2004, and has been a driving force in the adoption of social selling by B2B sales and marketing teams around the globe. Implementing B2B Social Selling: A Guide For Sales & Marketing Directors | Page 4 1. What is social selling? Implementing B2B Social Selling: A Guide For Sales & Marketing Directors | Page 5 “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” - Charles Darwin To give a brief definition, B2B social selling is Today, thanks to the ubiquity of LinkedIn and when salespeople use social networks, mainly other social platforms, it is possible to research LinkedIn but also Twitter, to research and interact and engage prospects much more easily than with their prospects as part of the selling process. in the past. With the intelligence gleaned from a potential buyer’s social and professional profile, Rewind 5 years. Can you imagine telling a sales the seller can write highly personalised messages director that soon many of his new business deals via LinkedIn or email that are much more likely would come from conversations started via social to result in a response and conversation. These networks? The reality is that this is very quickly initial digital encounters are social because in becoming the norm and unless salespeople most cases the potential buyer and seller can change their approach to selling they will get left see with whom they are communicating, what behind and lose out to competitors. they have done in their careers, their proposition or functional responsibility, professional The good news is that besides some quick and academic achievements, interests and LinkedIn tasks before and after a sales call, experiences. salespeople don’t need to change much at all besides their mindset and openness to collaboration. Implementing B2B Social Selling: A Guide For Sales & Marketing Directors | Page 6 While not all professionals have updated their Today, the first phone call with a prospective LinkedIn profiles with sufficient detail to help you supplier or customer couldn’t be more different personalise an initial message, there has been than the age old “cold call”. a massive surge of members since 2004, many of which have made the effort to promote their “LinkedIn provides a personal personal online brands. Traditionally the impetus was to be found and potentially recruited by head introduction, which meant I was hunters, but more and more sales professionals already linked to the prospect are using LinkedIn to engage with potential and we had read all about each customers, suppliers, investors and employees. other. This totally changed the psychology of our interaction and these new contacts actually wanted to help me. It became more of a chat and less of a sales conversation.” John Dunnett, MD of Evoco If your lead comes from LinkedIn prospecting, the first telephone interaction really does feel like you’re speaking with someone in person who you met at an event. Relationships and trust develop faster which is further accelerated if potential buyers are 2nd degree connections. Implementing B2B Social Selling: A Guide For Sales & Marketing Directors | Page 7 1.1 Why aren’t all salespeople selling this way today? Aberdeen Group report that 64% of sales teams The problem facing salespeople that use social selling hit target, compared to 49% that don’t. Despite all-round positive conversion today is: rates surrounding social selling, adoption rates » Not enough training remain low. » Not enough time There is so much opportunity to personalise the According to a new survey sales process but most salespeople don’t have from PeopleLinx only 31% of the time to figure out how, and many are simply salespeople are currently engaged too busy to do it justice. The reality is no one in social selling activities. likes change. Social selling requires a change in behaviour and demands new activities that take time. If the results are so compelling This whitepaper explains how close collaboration why is this figure so low? and new workflows can ensure your organisation can implement social selling without any extra work for your senior salespeople. Yes, you really did just read that. Only 26% of the PeopleLinx survey respondents felt as if they knew how to use social media to sell. Implementing B2B Social Selling: A Guide For Sales & Marketing Directors | Page 8 1.2 Social selling blogs, tips and guides If you’ve ever looked up #socialselling on Twitter, requires senior sales reps, business development you’ll know that there are a lot of guidebooks, and marketing teams to handle different tiers of whitepapers, e-books, blogs, infographics and responsibility in line with their experience and powerpoints floating around the web on how to roles. execute this strategy. While this information is useful at an individual level, as a business leader For instance, we are not advocating that the you need to figure out how to transition your entire senior sales reps shouldn’t participate in social sales and marketing team to this new model with selling - they should, but at different stages in minimal pain. the sales process e.g. before and after an initial meeting. It is earlier in the sales process, before Before considering tactics, companies must take a an opportunity has been identified, where sales company-wide strategic approach to social selling. need support from their colleagues e.g. business development or marketing. The first mistake companies make is thinking that they can buy LinkedIn premium licenses for the entire sales team and expect them to get on with it. Social selling is a new process that Implementing B2B Social Selling: A Guide For Sales & Marketing Directors | Page 9 2. Leveraging the experience of senior salespeople Implementing B2B Social Selling: A Guide For Sales & Marketing Directors | Page 10 Senior salespeople should be busy working on So if your senior salespeople need real opportunities out in the field. They can’t afford the time to prospect on LinkedIn at the to be building real relationships level they need to REALLY prosper from the great with prospects through LinkedIn potential offered by the platform. but don’t have time, then what? It’s probably crossed your mind that your junior business development teams don’t have the professional presence to effectively network with C-level decision makers. And you’re right. Think about it, if you’re responsible for a business function facing some challenges and are approached by someone representing a Senior salespersons cannot afford to expend software company who claims he can solve a hours researching their LinkedIn networks to similar problem to yours - how much more likely identify and approach suitable prospects to whom are you to respond to his message if you could they can position their solution.
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