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June 18th, 2018
2 min read
Customer habits are changing. Your buyers are digitally driven and spend more time in social media settings. Sellers, therefore, need to become social sellers.
Social selling requires building your digital social presence. In other words, when someone searches for you or finds you online, what do they see?
Do they find someone with skills who solves their problems or do they find someone who uses hokey and trite expressions to sell them? Social selling requires you to look as good online as offline. You wouldn't, for example, treat an individual who walks into your office like a potential ATM, would you? You would hopefully treat them as an individual who needs a problem solved.
Also, your digital network needs to be a social network. You need to engage your network socially. Social selling requires becoming visual, valuable, and interesting.
And how does one become visual, valuable, and interesting? It starts with content.
The first rule of using content for social selling, or any type of selling, requires providing content that is visible, valuable, and interesting to your digital network.
(Hint: Nobody thinks your self-promoting blog posts, braggadocio Facebook posts, or self-aggrandizing Tweets are interesting or valuable.)
Once your content becomes visual, valuable, and interesting to your target audience, your target audience broadcasts your content. And chances are, your target audience's audience probably belongs to your target audience, too. You are now the likable, socially capable, industry expert--not because you pronounced it, but because your audience has.
An important aspect of social selling requires changing how you view social media. Social media focuses on marketing. Social networking, which will eventually lead to more social selling, requires a different mindset and a different level of engagement.
Use social networks to find your buyers, listen to their problems, and relate, connect, and engage with them. Your social network, in other words, will tell you what they want. Your social media followers will simply read your post, maybe click on a link, and move on their way without ever letting you know how to best serve them.
Social selling at its root involves social listening for sales signals.
Social selling mistakes and misconceptions abound. Here are the most common.
Tools exist to help you grow your revenue through social selling, but those tools must be used to strengthen and engage your network, not just market to them.
Owner/Head Coach @ Bernco Media. Digital sales & marketing since 1997. Passion for teaching companies to be the most trusted voice in their space. They Ask, You Answer Certified Coach & HubSpot Certified Partner & Trainer. Reversed Type 2 Diabetes doing KETO. Wears Mickey Mouse Daily. Daydreaming of next Disneyland Trip.
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