Business At The Speed of Like. New Imperatives For Social Media Sales Success. A Sales Performance International White Paper

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1 Business At The Speed of Like New Imperatives For Social Media Sales Success A Sales Performance International White Paper

2 Social Media for Sales 1 Embracing Social Media For Sales Making It Part Of A Proven Sales Process Social media sites continue to grow exponentially to meet consumer demand. Are you taking advantage of the unprecedented opportunities to connect with customers and prospects throughout the buying process or are you being left behind? The rapid rise in social networking has dramatically changed the landscape for professional sales people in both B2C and B2B settings. With millions of people using social media sites, searching for information online, and engaging with their peers and colleagues for buying advice, sellers face new challenges in being able to quickly identify and respond appropriately to buyers needs. Buyers Are More Educated Than Ever Before Engaging With Sales People In 2012, Facebook topped 1 billion users, while runners-up Google+ and LinkedIn surpassed 500 million and 175 million accounts, respectively. Increasingly, people of all ages and backgrounds are using social media sites on a daily basis. Source: Wikipedia Social media sites are giving buyers vital tools to research companies, pre-qualify products and services and gauge customer satisfaction well in advance of contacting sales people directly. Consider these recent findings: 93% of B2B buyers begin their buying process using Internet search (source: Marketo) (1) CEB indicates that the B2B buyer is on average 60% through the sales cycle before they engage with a salesperson (2) Marketing Sherpa recently released a report that showed the average B2B deal size is declining, with sales professionals now competing on price instead of value and offering incentives to close deals quickly (3) The 2012 Inside The Mind of the BtoB Buyer Survey, conducted by DemandGen Report, revealed that more business buyers are using social media as part of their purchasing decisions

3 2 Social Media for Sales DemandGen surveyed more than 170 B2B buyers involved in the purchase of a solution during the past year and found that 72% of respondents used social media to research their solution purchase. However, just 14% said they contacted the solution provider directly over social networks. The Benefits of Social Selling The good news is that top performing sales organizations are seeing a positive return-oninvestment through social selling. According to research by Aberdeen Group, users of social selling far outpace other companies around a number of key performance indicators (KPIs) directly related to sales effectiveness (Figure 1). (4) IBM surveyed more than 1,000 global buyers and found that more than 1/3 had already used social media to engage with vendors. Source: IBM Institute For Business Value Current Performance Benefits of Social Selling 70% Users of Social Selling All Others 60% 50% 40% 30% Total Team Attainment of Sales Quota Customer Renewal Rate Sales Forecast Accuracy Percent of Sales Reps Achieving Quota n = 182 Figure 1 Source: Aberdeen Group, June 2012 According to Aberdeen Group, the leading pressures reported by best-in-class companies included: Customers and prospects are communicating on social networks; we need to be there too (71%) Address the diminishing effectiveness of traditional marketing activities (57%) Those imperatives indicate why social selling is now crucial: the need to communicate with buyers in spaces they use, and to replace the traditional reliance on marketing to serve up highly qualified leads.

4 Social Media for Sales 3 Social Media: Helping Transform Sales Cultures Andris A. Zoltners, Professor Emeritus of Marketing at Northwestern University s Kellogg School of Management, discussed ways to transform sales cultures in an article in Harvard Business Review. He noted that most evolutionary changes work within the current sales strategy, organizational structure and sales team. The focus is on getting current sales team members to behave differently, Zoltners said. For example, to spend more (or less) time prospecting, to improve customer engagement quality or to manage the pipeline more effectively. Several operational levers influence sales team activity to help achieve these ends, including the following: Performance Management: Set expectations and manage against them Data and Tools: Provide salespeople with insights that enable success with customers Incentives: Motivate high levels of the right sales activity Training and Coaching: Help salespeople develop the competencies they need (5) Sales Organizations Must Evolve To Meet Social Media Challenges The online information and social media revolutions point to a new era for sales professionals. The lines between personal and professional use of social media are blurring, with buyers simply seeking results. The sales people who win more deals will understand the need to utilize social media to stay attuned to potential opportunities, while also building their credibility and the social proof of their offerings. They will require training to ensure they operate within company and industry guidelines. Effective Social Media Requires More Than Mastery of New Tools From Facebook to LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube, there are hundreds of social media sites to choose from. However, just setting up accounts and using various tools are not enough to effectively impact the sales process. Instead, sales people must develop a core strategy that supports and guides prospects throughout the buying lifecycle from their initial interest through their acceptance of a potential solution to closing. Sellers must demonstrate a keen ability to listen and understand buyers needs empathically, before they attempt to connect one-on-one or one-to-many. Aligning Multiple Organizational Interests Depending on the size of the organization, sales people must also carefully consider how their salesfocused social media activities will align with the goals and objectives of multiple departments, including Marketing, PR and Customer Service. Consumers see the social layer around a brand as one that supports their buying decision in providing engagement and information pre-purchase, then supports them after the purchase when they have questions. Source: Jason Falls, founder of SocialMediaExplorer.com

5 4 Social Media for Sales The smart use of social media channels will increase the chances of converting a casual follower into a paying customer. Conversely, posting randomly or without a strategy may lead to inconsistencies in your organization s branding and messaging. Even worse, it may drive potential customers away, causing them to seek other solution providers. Combining The Power of Social Media With Solution Selling While there are many business-oriented social media training programs available, very few focus on sales. Even fewer align the use of social media with a proven sales methodology. To address these shortcomings, Sales Performance International designed a new curriculum to help sellers use social media tools to their advantage. The workshop integrates social media usage with the best practices of the highly effective Solution Selling sales process and methodology. This program educates sales professionals on how to apply a Buyer 2.0 framework for business development and prospecting that addresses the use of social media to (Figure 2): Target Target Listen Network and Research Create Demand Manage and Nurture Figure 2 Listen Create Demand Manage & Nurture Network & Research In each of these areas, participants gain a deeper understanding on the use of key social media technologies including LinkedIn, Twitter and InsideView, along with techniques to support their personal branding and prospect targeting efforts. The training program complements the release of Solution Selling 2.0, a holistic buyer/seller framework that addresses the impact of social media, dealing with buyer pre-conceptions and the increased demands for proof-of-value from sellers. The New Sales Challenge: Adapting To The Reality of Socially Empowered Customers The new paradigm in buyer empowerment creates an expanded set of challenges for sales professionals. The exchange of new ideas and insights is much more rapid than ever before, making it is more difficult to control the flow of information and perspectives to a selective set of prospects. Even if sellers are armed with innovative ideas to help their customers, the shelf life of uniqueness is shrinking quickly by virtue of social media sharing and the unprecedented access to both information and individuals. Therefore, sellers must master three distinct personas or roles to correspond to prospects behavioral buying phases and concerns. These personas include Micro-Marketer, Situational Expert, and Risk Manager (Figure 3).

6 Social Media for Sales 5 How Buyers Buy Behaviorally Level of Concern Phase 0: Planning or Latent Strategy Initiatives Issues Priorities Micro-Marketer Phase I: Determine Needs Situational Expert Phase II: Evaluate Alternatives Phase III: Evaluate Risk Risk Manager Risk Cost Needs Solution Pain: Problem, Issue or Missed Opportunity Time Figure 3 To get back to the front of the sales cycle, sales professionals must now engage in informal marketing, by actively participating in industry or community discussion groups in order to demonstrate thought-leadership and credibility. They also need to regularly monitor and engage in discussions that are talking place in relevant online communities. To accomplish this, sellers need to become social media literate through the use of new tools and technologies that allow them to efficiently engage where and when buyers are forming their initial ideas about a potential problem or opportunity. In addition, since most sales professionals don t have the time or background to research innovative new ways for their prospects to compete or solve problems, marketing needs to actively assist sales with messages to seed early stage discussions. Will YOUR sales organization embrace the change, or fall behind? In conclusion, as social media continues to impact buyer behavior, forward-thinking sellers and transformational cultures will adapt their practices accordingly. By learning and applying new skills in social media, sales people will be better able to identify opportunities, engage prospects, convert them into customers and maintain strong, long-term relationships. Source: SPI

7 6 Social Media for Sales About the Author Brandon Uttley is Social Media Product Manager at Sales Performance International. Prior to joining SPI, Uttley spent over 25 years in public relations and marketing leadership roles, including starting and managing three web development and online marketing companies. He has consulted with a range of industries and firms, from startups to Fortune 50 companies. Uttley earned the Accreditation in Public Relations (APR) designation from Public Relations Society of America and served as president of the PRSA Charlotte chapter in He is a frequent public speaker and a regular contributor to the top social media site SocialFresh.com. About Sales Performance International Sales Performance International (SPI) is a global sales performance improvement firm dedicated to helping the world s leading corporations elevate their sales relationships and drive measurable, sustainable revenue growth and operational sales performance improvement. Founded in 1988, SPI has been the leader in helping global companies successfully transition from selling products to marketing and selling high-value solutions. With extensive sales performance expertise, deep industry knowledge, global resources and a proven track record, SPI collaborates with clients to deliver strategic, operational and tactical solutions. SPI has assisted more than 1,000,000 sales and management professionals in more than 50 countries and 14 languages achieve higher levels of performance. (1) Marketo, 2012: marketo.com/b2b-marketing-resources/best-practices/marketing-automation/three-strikes-and-youre-out (2) CEB, 2011: mlcwideangle.exbdblogs.com/2011/08/31/the-most-important-number-in-b2b-marketing (3) Marketing Sherpa, 2012: marketingsherpa.com/article/chart/average-b2b-deal-size-decline (4) Aberdeen Group, 2012: aberdeen.com/aberdeen-library/8256/rb-social-selling-intelligence (5) Harvard Business Review, 2012: blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/11/improving_your_sales_force

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