Social Selling with LinkedIn: What are You Afraid Of?
Sandra Long
Author of "LinkedIn for Personal Branding" l Keynote Speaker l TEDx | LinkedIn Rebranding | B2B Social Selling l My Mantra: "Be a Friend First" | Helping Companies, Events, Universities, Leaders, ERG's, and Employees
It’s time for Halloween and all sorts of scary things. Social Selling should not be one of them! The fear of the unknown stops otherwise smart people from moving forward in the digital world.
There are real reasons to be frightened if you and your team are not leveraging Social Selling. Here are just a few scary possibilities:
Buyer Research: Your prospects and customers are looking for your team online. What do they see? Hopefully, they are finding LinkedIn profiles that exude experience, customer-friendly language, and compelling images. It's a real bonus if your team members' personalities can shine through along with your company brand. Don't scare them away!
Missing In Action: You also have reason to be frightened if your prospect is looking for your company or team online and can’t find either. Chances are they will end up at a competitor site or profile. Your sales team will need to have optimized profiles for easy discovery through a LinkedIn search.
No Reply. This one is deadly. Your customer finds your profile or your sales rep's profile. She sends a message using the new LinkedIn messaging platform. Unfortunately, your rep doesn’t know how to respond so there is no response. No response. Painful.
Competitor Connections. The pain and fright are getting deeper. Your customer and competitor have connected on LinkedIn. Your competitor’s team has interesting and compelling profiles that showcase the company and link to their branded company page. The competitive team knows how to network with LinkedIn.
Competitor Engages. Next thing you know your competitor is meeting face to face with your top customer or prospect. According to LinkedIn statistics, once you have a first-level connection your likelihood of having an in-person meeting increases dramatically so this should not be a huge surprise. It just hurts.
Scary stuff involving Golf. Now your competitor has called on the President of your biggest customer. Your competitor's sales guy found seven connections in common with the President. Now a golf game is scheduled with some of the mutual first-level connections. Horrors!
Lost Speaking Opportunities. A LinkedIn search and referral through some savvy 2nd level connections points to your competitor. Now she has been invited to speak at a major industry conference. This lost opportunity cost your company plenty in credibility and pipeline.
Sales Rep Defections. For years, your Sales VP has insisted on "cold call" or "telemarketing" days. Just like in 1979. First, your top sales guy leaves you. He leaves you to work for an innovative company in your city that is teaching the team about Social Selling. Soon the others follow, and you are saying goodbye to your team.
So should you be afraid of Social Selling? I propose that the only frightful scenario is NOT training your team about Social Selling. Please let me know your thoughts on this topic. Are you still afraid of Social Selling?
For a quick SlideShare version of this blog post, click here.
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ABOUT SANDRA
Sandra is the author of the best-selling book called LinkedIn for Personal Branding: The Ultimate Guide.
Sandra is a speaker and instructor specializing in LinkedIn and Social Selling. Her company is Post Road Consulting LLC.
Follow Sandra on LinkedIn or connect with a personalized message. For LinkedIn tips follow Post Road Consulting on LinkedIn.
Author & Speaker @ Buyer First | Founder @ Unbound Growth
5moI think they are afraid of becoming someone else's "bad email sales post"
Enabling global sales teams to leverage the power of digital marketing and social media in order to build a pipeline and accelerate the sales process
4yTeams shouldn't be afraid of social selling, they should be embracing it as its the new way of doing business. Nice article Sandra.
Business Owner
4yClaire Kennedy so glad we don't have to be "afraid" thanks to the social audits you conduct with the BDR team! Great points Sandra - thanks for sharing!
Marketing & writing w/heart, not hype | Virtual & In-Person Marketing Speaker | LinkedIn Marketing | Copywriting Svcs. | Alcohol Ink Artist
5ySometimes I think there's no response to a message, not because they don't know how to respond, but because they're not actively checking their LinkedIn account consistently.
Client Executive at Cisco Systems
8yGreat find Greg. Hope you are well!