#sales 2.0

[jeffzelaya]

Are you The Bane of Social Selling?

Are you The Bane of Social Selling?

In my interview with Amar Sheth from Sales for Life I talk about growing up in a new generation of selling. Since my first sales job I have relied on social media and the internet for prospecting, building relationships, nurturing relationships and closing deals. It’s become 50% of my revenue and growing. Check out the interview and find why I believe social selling skills are essential for the…

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[jeffzelaya]

Jeff Zelaya Featured on The Sales Evangelist Podcast

Jeff Zelaya Featured on The Sales Evangelist Podcast

The Sales Evangelist Podcast Episode 86

Thank you Donald Kelly aka The Sales Evangelist for inviting to be a guest on the Sales Evangelist Podcast.

You can click play below and hear my interview with the Don about the evolution of the sales professional. If you’re in sales you should definitely subscribe to his podcast for some of the reasons I’ll mention below.

http://thesalesevangelist.com/?po…

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[jeffzelaya]

Must Have Social Selling Tools

Must Have Social Selling Tools

A presentation featuring some of our MUST HAVE Social Selling Tools: 52 Social Selling Tools for the Modern Salesperson from Jeff Zelaya What is your social selling technology of choice?

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[execnote-blog]

5 “Eureka” Moments That Transformed My LinkedIn Sales Strategy

Posted on April 04, 2014 by Brent Diefenbacher

Creating a profile and connecting to the people you know is just a fraction of an effective sales strategy on LinkedIn. 90% of what makes a salesperson effective on the network, most salespeople aren’t doing yet.

To help others think outside the LinkedIn box - Here are the 5 “eureka” moments that changed my LinkedIn sales strategy for the better;

1. You are being searched

Whether or not you’re active on LinkedIn, customers and prospects are searching your name online. To take advantage of that, you should be dead easy to find. These 3 steps will help;

Have a professional, recognizable photo (you should be identifiable by your thumbnail)

Customize your LinkedIn URL

Make sure there are industry keywords in your headline, summary, and job descriptions

2. Customers do not want to know how well you “crush quota”

Your LinkedIn profile is not your resume. Customers aren’t interested in how effective you are as a salesperson. They don’t want to know your extensive history in customer service. Even if you’re looking for a job, potential employers will be most impressed by a profile that centers on your customer’s needs, not your sales skills.

Everything you do on LinkedIn should reflect how you interact with your customer, not your potential employer.

3. Gatekeepers matter

LinkedIn is the perfect tool to connect with top decision-makers in your target industry, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore gatekeepers in your network. Assistants, community managers, and other lower-level members of your target organization are key connections in your LinkedIn strategy.

This “eureka” moment was so important to me that I dedicated a separate post to gatekeepers here.

4. The marketing team is your ally

I work with a small team, so this one came more from observing clients in larger companies than my own experience. Sales teams getting active on LinkedIn see a huge benefit from syncing-up with the company’s content marketing plan.

Ideally, a flow of internal and external content will be established from marketing > sales team > the sales team’s social networks.  

5. The 3:1 rule

Speaking of content, the 3:1 rule completely changed my view of sharing on social media. It means sharing at least 3 pieces of external content for every 1 update I make about my company. So for every ExecNote-related article or link I post, I share at least 3 articles from other sources that I genuinely think my target connections will be interested in. This builds thought-leader status and keeps my self-promotion in check.

This list is a distillation from my experience with LinkedIn as a sales tool. I hope it will be as useful to you as it was to me.

Related Articles:

How to Write a LinkedIn Connect Request to Existing Customers Salespeople: Harness the Power of a “Like” on Social Media Using LinkedIn for Sales: Don’t Connect and Sell

Image: Khalid Albaih

[execnote-blog]

Our Key Metric - We Borrowed it From Top Sales Performers

Posted on March 14, 2014 by Brent Diefenbacher

Startup life is full of firsts. First demo, first user, first moment when you realize what you’ve gotten yourself into.

It’s an exciting ride, which brought us to Guelph, Ontario last week for our first company retreat. Nestled in our getaway amid some glorious paintings of pheasants, we learned some things. We learned that Johnny once had a pet lobster (seriously) and that Igor once crashed a canoe.

On a higher level, we got away to talk about what we’re trying to do as a company. That conversation lasted nearly two days, but what we came out with is simple;

To empower people to communicate.

Now this seems pretty vague. It doesn’t include the words LinkedIn or sales or increased revenue. But those things don’t get us up in the morning.

What does is helping our ideal user be better at their job.

That user is a salesperson who knows how to sell - very well - but wants to get more out of social media. We’ve been following several people who fit this profile, listening to how they generate leads, nurture prospects and close deals. Whether they are introverted or extroverted, relationship builders or challengers, they are best at three basic things; engaging, listening, and interpreting.

As we keep building and testing the app, we’ll keep coming back to these core values as our “communication” metric. Does this action in the app start a conversation? Does this added feature break down a barrier?

If it does, we’re on the right track.

Related articles: How to Write a LinkedIn Connect Request to Existing Customers 5 Reasons Why Salespeople Should Engage With Gatekeepers on LinkedIn Salespeople: Harness the Power of a “Like” on Social Media

Image: StockMonkeys

[execnote-blog]

Notes from the ExecNote Lab: LinkedIn Win

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Brent Diefenbacher

We love it when salespeople come to us with a LinkedIn win. Any success story is good, but a LinkedIn win brings a special grin. It’s because we’ve been spending months breaking down the “why” of online networking in sales.  

This week our team has been alpha testing ExecNote’s new platform with our first users. It’s a small group that have gracefully gone through the kinks, bugs, and IE crashes with us. Their experiences are shaping our app for beta testing.

Our eighth alpha fits our perfect user profile -  a Senior Account Executive in telecom. Lets call her “Cynthia.” After our first conversation about whether LinkedIn is worth using as a salesperson, Cynthia pushed back.

Me: “Do you see value in engaging and sharing with your LinkedIn network 3-4 times a week?”

Cynthia: “I don’t think I’d have the time. My colleagues and I spend most of our day on the phone with customers.”

She also mentioned that she didn’t want to come across as a pushy salesperson in her professional network. Still, I got her to agree to go send a connect request to everyone in her email database.  

Cynthia picked up on our next call with a sparky tone. One of those connect requests led to a reignited business relationship. She told me this person had otherwise fallen off the map, and ignored her calls or emails. He operates several business locations in her target industry across North America - he’s kind of a big deal.  

After accepting her connect request, he had reached out to her personally for advice on implementing wi-fi organization-wide.

So we can’t take full credit for this one, but this type of feedback is valuable than anything else in our alpha testing process. It proved to Cynthia the “why” of using LinkedIn for sales. Only time will tell if using our platform to engage and share with those connections will bring her similar wins.

We’d love you to try ExecNote in our beta phase. In the meantime, connecting with everyone you know on LinkedIn could lead to your next big deal.

Related Articles Why Your Team Needs an Internal Social Selling Champion 5 Reasons Why Salespeople Should Connect With Gatekeepers on LinkedIn Using LinkedIn for Sales: Don't Connect and Sell

[execnote-blog]

How to Give Your LinkedIn Profile a Buyer-Centric Makeover - Part 2

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Jen Mahon

A winning LinkedIn sales strategy starts with one crucial step; Ditching your resume-style profile and replacing it with one that focuses on the buyer first.

In Part I of this post, I found that most salespeople on LinkedIn haven’t done this yet. It’s understandable - salespeople are busy. Writing a thoughtful, personalized profile is much harder than copying and pasting from your resume. Now that you’re diving into a new year of sales, this is the perfect time to invest some time into reworking your profile.

Your profile should do four things; Signal, Resonate, Validate and Initiate a relationship with the buyer. Use these criteria to build your Buyer-Centric LinkedIn profile;

1. Signal

As a salesperson, you know that first impressions matter. The same rule applies to the world of social selling. The moments that someone spends on your LinkedIn profile is just as important as the first moments of an in-person business meeting.

What body language would you use? What words would you introduce yourself with? How would you indicate in that first second that you will become that person’s go-to resource in your industry?

Use these three criteria to ensure your profile sends the right impression within seconds;

Do you have a professional, welcoming photo?

Is your profile full of information? A full profile immediately indicates your profile has something to offer.

Are there industry keywords in your headings? Keywords like “telecom” or “document management” indicate very quickly that you will be a helpful resource.

2. Resonate

After sending the right signal, a Buyer-Centric profile goes deeper into the customer’s world and resonates with their top challenges.

You want Prospects to look at your profile and think “This person understands my business and knows what challenges I face”. Even better, you want them to say “I didn’t even know that problem was affecting my business - I should really do something about it.”

Here are some examples of LinkedIn summary statements that will resonate with your buyer’s pain points;

“These are some of the top challenges my previous clients were facing…[List] ”

“Professionals in the changing environment of [Target Industry X] are faced with increasing complexity of [Process X]. They need to simplify [Process X] to avoid higher costs and minimize threats of lost efficiency”  

Personalize these challenge statements based on your industry knowledge and observations of past clients. Think about how you can offer new insight into the root causes of your buyer’s business problems.

3. Validate

You’ve resonated with your buyer’s needs and, ideally, you’ve changed how they think about their top challenges. Now it’s time to validate your role as someone who will solve those challenges.

Use these three questions to form a winning value proposition;

What do you do to solve the top challenges stated above?

How is your solution different from any other salesperson in your industry?

How have you solved those challenges for clients in the past?

Example;

“I work with business leaders in [Target Industry X] to optimize [Process X] using custom, industry-specific tools developed by [Company X]. My professional goal is to help [Target Industry X] leaders get the most out of this crucial process by tailoring every solution to the client’s specific needs and budget. My past clients held key industry roles at [Company Y] and [Company Z], both of whom I personally helped streamline [Process X] and while cutting costs of the process by 10-15%.”

4. Initiate

The perfect LinkedIn profile will turn every curious visitor to your profile into an ongoing relationship. But it needs to be dead easy for buyers to connect with you.

End your summary with a call to action like “I’m always open to meeting people in [Target Industry]. Feel free to send a connect request or email me at [email protected] ”

Make sure your contact information section is complete, and add a link to your Twitter or personal blog if you have them.

As you plan for a new year of sales, LinkedIn could become your best asset for connecting with buyers online. If your profile reads like a resume, rework it now for better results in 2014.

Related Articles How To Give Your LinkedIn Profile A Buyer-Centric Makeover - Part I 3 Email Habits That Will Grow Your LinkedIn Network How Salespeople Should Connect With Inbound Leads on LinkedIn

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[execnote-blog]

Why Your Team Needs an Internal Social Selling Champion

Posted on January 07, 2014 by Brent Diefenbacher

It’s established - social selling will help your team adapt to the changed buyer. Now the challenge is to implement social selling across your organization. You need to do this as efficiently and effectively as possible. An internal social selling champion is someone who is responsible for driving your team’s social selling strategy. Here’s how electing an internal champion will benefit your team; Centralized Learning

When you invest in an internal champion, you’re investing in building an expert whose knowledge can be passed on to the whole team. Think economies of scale.

ExecNote is a prime example. Our team of three co-founders started out at square one - resume-style LinkedIn profiles, nonexistent Twitter presence and outdated profile photos.

Then we elected Jen, our community manager, to be our internal social selling champion. She dedicated her time to reading up on social selling and sharing the best articles with the team.  She encouraged us to get professional photos, create buyer-centric LinkedIn profiles, and get active on social media.

Social selling is complex, but working with one central source of knowledge makes it much simpler. It gives your sales team someone to go to with questions or ideas, and you’ll avoid every salesperson having to work through the learning process on their own.  

Context is Key

The most effective social selling program is tailored to the team that uses it. An internal champion knows your team’s story, company objectives and sales culture. They know how to leverage that on social media to reach your goals and help each salesperson build a personal brand.

An internal champion is also more trusted by your sales team. They know your organization, and can relate to your team. They can anticipate the objections or challenges that might come up as you roll out your social selling strategy. Long-Term Vision

Research cited in The Challenger Sale finds that salespeople forget 87% of sales training content within one month. Bringing in an external social selling coach can help your team get started, but a lot of that information will be lost after the initial buzz dies down. You need someone on the inside to drive the long-term strategy.

An internal champion will evaluate and re-evaluate your successes and failures. They’re in it for the long-haul. That matters, because social selling is all about building lifetime value.

Related Articles The Don'ts of Social Selling Language 2013: Top 5 Social Selling Articles for Sales Leaders Dear B2B Salesperson, Why Am I Better At Social Selling Than You?

Image: Scott Maxwell