The Definitive Guide to Social Selling: How to Sell to People

The Definitive Guide to Social Selling

How to Sell to People,
Not Contacts

Table of Contents
Part One Part Four
What is Social Selling? Real-Life Success Stories
• Why does your business need Social Selling? • Listening
• Who within your organizations needs to use Social • Reach
Selling?
• The return on investment for Social Selling Part Five
Best Resources to Learn About Social Selling
Part Two • Top People to Follow
Social Selling Basics • Best Blogs to Read
• Finding the right person
• Creating the right message
• Knowing the right time

Part Three
Six Tenets of Social Selling
1. No more islands of information – your CRM is not
enough
2. People are not contact records
3. More data is not the answer
4. No more cookie-cutter process
5. Impact performance. Not reporting.
6. From look-up to intelligence

The Definitive Guide to Social Selling: How to Sell to People, Not Contacts 2

What is Social Selling?
Why does your business need 2. Your competition is there, and if not, will be soon.
Your competitors have been asking this same question
Social Selling? and are making the decision to integrate Social Selling
principles into their process and culture. Your legacy
Content by Miles Austin, Sales and Marketing Technologist
competitors might be grappling with how to get this
at Fill the Funnel, Inc.
done, but rest assured recently launched competition
is already using these principles and getting results.
This is a question that every business leader or owner
Can you afford to wait?
should be asking. The answers can be a bit frightening
because Social Selling will require leaders to re-think and 3. Your employees and new hires expect it. They
many times restructure the expectations, structure and know what is going on with their customers and
tools used by their employees. prospects. Many of your sales team have already
created a social presence and are doing the best they
Three key reasons why your business needs can to do things right. You have the opportunity to
Social Selling are: support their activity and to give them the guidance,
content and strategy to succeed. Companies are
1. Your customers are already there. Studies are beginning to use their well-developed Social Selling
showing, “On average (and with little variation programs to attract and recruit new employees.
among industries) customers will contact a Sales Competitors are able to provide an enticing offer to
rep when they independently complete about 60% your current performers if you have not embraced
of the purchasing decision process.”1 If you want to Social Selling.
maximize your selling opportunities, you cannot afford
to lose out on that significant segment of buying
activity.

1 http://mlcwideangle.exbdblogs.com/2011/08/31/the-most-important-number-in-b2b-marketing/


Who within your organization needs Right now, your prospects are reading about your
products and services on blogs and in forums (online
to use Social Selling? communities specific to a brand owner, LinkedIn groups,
etc). They are scanning YouTube videos, LinkedIn
Content by Barbara Giamanco, EVP Sales and Social Media
profiles, Focus forums, Tweets and searching on Google
at Social Centered Selling, LLC
for information about what they want to buy and from
whom; they are ignoring the text on your website.
The Conversation Has Begun…Without You!
While your company is creating marketing materials
Buyers complete 60% of the buying cycle before
designed to close the sale, your prospects are using
interacting with sales. For sales organizations to succeed
social networks and social technology to decide for
in today’s social business environment, they must first
themselves. This is the new world of “social selling.”
accept that buyer behavior has changed. Buyer 2.0 is
web and social media savvy, informed and probably
Are you ready?
knows more about you than you know about them. In this
With the advent of Web 2.0 technologies, the buying
new world, buyers start the sales process without you,
process has changed. In a social sales world, most B2B
which means that sellers must shift from a transactional
(business to business) buying decisions now start, move
approach to the sales process to a solution oriented,
forward and are very often closed online or over the
value focused, and socially connected approach.
phone without a single face-to-face meeting. That’s
a frightening thought for the sales professional who
has long believed that the only way to “close a deal” is
to be sitting across the table from the prospect. Sales
Buyer 2.0 is web and social media people must also recognize and leverage the emphasis
savvy, informed and probably that buyers now place on recommendations, comments
and the referrals of others. Oh, and by the way, you can
knows more about you than you leverage technology for face-to-face connections using
know about them tools like www.imeet.com.


Intelligence Is Key This has heightened the need for comprehensive sales
As we use tools like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, the intelligence that brings together both traditional data
number of people who we maintain some degree of one- and social media. It is imperative that sales professionals
to-one contact and connection with via peer networks leverage the social web to actively listen, engage, and add
and groups have dramatically increased in the past few value to the customer conversation.
years. Social sales people will use these tools to become
more adept at successfully navigating the first few critical What You Know about Who You Know
phases of the sales process: investigating and early The new social customer demands a new approach
qualifying. Better information leads to better qualification from sales organizations. Your prospects are looking for
of sales opportunities. And, used effectively, social Trusted Advisors who know their business. The need for
networking shrinks the physical time it takes to move the comprehensive, real-time data is imperative to sales
opportunity to close. professionals who must leverage the social web to
actively listen, add value to the customer conversation
Social selling is about recognizing that the buying process and create sales relationships in new ways. Do you have
is controlled by a better informed and more connected the tools in place to help your sales team be effective in
customer. While sales remains a relationship-driven this space?
business, the power of “who you know” is trumped by
“what you know about who you know and when you know.”
The new social customer is demanding relevance from The Return on Investment
sales people, expecting them to know about them, their
companies, their needs, and when to engage with them. For Social Selling
Content by Anneke Seley, Founder of Phone Works
While sales remains a relationship-driven
business, the power of “who you know” is With more and more customers using social media to
trumped by “what you know about who gather information about products and to communicate
you know and when you know.” with vendors, many companies are trying to figure
out how social media technologies can be used most
effectively to meet the needs of the new online customer


– while generating revenue. Companies are starting
to report clear, measurable results from their social
initiatives:

• A Wisconsin hospital and HootSuite customer is seeing
a 15% conversion of leads to sales using live tweeting
during orthopedic surgery.

• In a pilot program selling to ibm.com customers, IBM
closed 10 orders in 30 days after implementing new
social initiatives. They had a 400% increase in sales in
the first quarter tied to social marketing programs.

• 95% of pipeline and 30% of revenue at SaaS video/
gamification/analytics startup PAKRAGames can
be tracked to social outreach (LinkedIn invites and
tweets).

• Adobe Omniture doubled its opportunity-to-call
ratios, resulting in more opportunities generated
by its account development teams.

These are the kinds of metrics and data, backed by
well-known brands as well as small-and medium-sized
companies, that can change your executive team’s
perception of social selling from time-waster to revenue- 75% of buyers are likely to use
generator.
social media in the purchase
process in the future


What are some ways to use data and metrics to 2. Track inbound leads generated from social lead
succeed with Social Selling in your company? generation marketing programs using links back to
your (or your rep’s) website.
1. Reference industry surveys to “sell social” internally.
If possible, survey your buyers…or find evidence that Train your sales team to post or re-post customized
they are engaging in social media. versions of marketing-generated messages that are
meaningful to their customers and prospects who
Business.com reports that 55% of B2B survey are Twitter followers, LinkedIn connections, Facebook
respondents conduct searches for information on friends and the like. Then, using your CRM or other
social media sites. SiriusDecisions says 60% of the systems, track these leads through the marketing and
buyer’s journey is complete before it gets to sales. You sales cycle and make a connection between social
may be able to sway skeptical executives with hard marketing and revenue. Keep in mind that best-
facts. performing companies find that mixing these kinds
of direct marketing-oriented social interactions with
To justify their investment in social marketing and other “non selling” posts such as sharing articles,
sales programs, IBM surveyed over 1,000 global opinions and other content from thought leaders and
buyers and found that 1/3 have already used social influencers in your industry yields the best results.
media to engage with their vendors. Furthermore,
they discovered that 75% of their buyers are likely to 3. Use social media to research, target, and connect with
use social media in the purchase process in the future. your ideal (pre-qualified, most likely to buy) prospects.
Then track social interactions along with phone and
e-mail.

Connect with them Using social media in conjunction with phone and
e-mail can increase sales cycle conversion metrics
using personal, customized, such as the critical connect rate. It’s getting
relevant messages increasingly more difficult to get busy people
to respond and engage, especially in outbound
prospecting. Know which companies and titles are


most likely to be interested in your products, then prospect using social media profiles but also to get
connect with them with personal, customized, relevant warm introductions through individual and company
messages (not generic scripts) – something made social graphs, for example, connecting through reference
possible and easy with social tools. customers or fellow alumni.

Using this approach, PAKRA gets 17 out of 20 people It’s time to face reality. Industry data, metrics, and success
to accept LinkedIn invitations and connect within stories, such as those mentioned above, prove that
36 hours. A second short follow-up message, also prospects are using social media to educate themselves,
personalized to that buyer, includes a link to their connect with sellers and make buying decisions. Leading
website. 10 out of 20 respond at that stage. companies are figuring out how to appropriately use,
track and measure their social selling initiatives and
They’ve found that engagement can be tied to incorporate them into already-existing processes used in
mentioning: their sales organizations will see performance.

• Something work-related (85% of the time)
• A book they are reading (5% of the time)
• Other personal information (2% of the time)
• Content provided in discussion groups (1% of the time)
You can build and foster
With social media, it’s often more than just work relationships with unlimited
information and can also include how sales and
marketing can leverage personal and company social prospects, partners and
graphs. Network Hardware Resale (NHR) has also
been using social media in conjunction with email
influencers at very little cost.
and phone to generate meetings with the right
prospects, and has quadrupled meeting acceptance
rates from 15% to 60%. For NHR sales reps, the key is
to not only craft relevant messages for each


The Return on Investment for updated features in Salesforce.com. For the first time, you
can see integrated social media accounts and interaction
Social Selling, Part 2 activity right in your core sales management platform.

Content by Matt Heinz, President of Heinz Marketing, Inc.
Here’s why that’s so important:
Let’s say you have 80,000 leads in Salesforce.com. You
Social media is not a direct-response channel. I think we
know 40,000 of them have Twitter accounts. Of those,
can all agree on that. But it absolutely is part of the sales
you also know that 6,000 are following your Twitter
funnel for your business.
It’s where you can build
and foster relationships
with unlimited prospects,
partners and influencers
at very little cost, adding
value on a daily basis until
a percentage of those
individuals and organizations
are ready to move forward –
either into a conversation or
an active buying cycle.

Establishing a quantitative
value for social media as
a component of the sales
funnel has been difficult,
largely because we rely
on disparate systems to
establish causality. That
changed last fall with


account, and you know exactly which of those 6,000 have
responded or interacted with you in that channel.
When that lead makes its way through the funnel – to
an open opportunity and eventually a closed deal – you
can now establish the source of origination and primary
causality of pipeline movement back to the social media
activity.

Social media may not be a direct-response lead channel,
but with this level of integration you can evaluate its
effectiveness and ROI as an eventual sales producer in an
apples-to-apples format with email, direct mail, events,
etc. And if prospects have been impacted by multiple
campaigns and channels (and most likely have), you can
still measure and weight the primary causality factors all
in a single platform.

That’s powerful stuff, and it will help many organizations
finally bridge the gap between their focus on leads and
sales, and the importance of investing in long-term social
and content-based relationships well before customers
are ready to buy.


Social Selling Basics
Content by Miles Austin, Sales and Marketing Technologist Dan Rather or our local newspaper. Now we receive
at Fill the Funnel, Inc. information throughout the day from Twitter, RSS, blogs
and YouTube as they happen, all on our smartphone or
Do we really need another wave of selling philosophy? computer. These changes require us to re-think our sales
Some of us will remember “spin selling,” “consultative methodology to incorporate these new realities into our
selling” and many other effective sales methodologies approach.
over the years. It seems that every twenty years or so,
sales thinking evolves to reflect the changes in our culture Social Selling is about recognizing that buyers are now in
and technology. control of the buying process. They are better informed
and more connected. Even the long-standing belief that
Think about the changes that have occurred during the relationship is the most important factor in B2B sales
past twenty years. We have moved from snail mail and success is being challenged.2
voicemail as the primary communications vehicles to
email, blogs, websites and online presentations. We used
to order the Annual Report for the companies on our
account list; now we simply go to the web to find the very
latest information about our prospects. Remember the
hoops you would have to jump through to get information
from the “gatekeeper” about the individuals with the
buying decisions? Now Data.com (formerly Jigsaw), Buyers are now
InsideView, LinkedIn and others are able to provide
not only the name of those individuals, but their email
in control of the
address, phone number and more with the simple click buying process
of your mouse. We all got our daily news update from

2 http://www.forum.com/blog/strategic-selling-how-to-sell-to-senior-executives/


The graphic below reflects the responses of 231 senior- Here are three areas to consider when embracing
level decision-makers when asked to rank the most Social Selling:
important criteria they use:
Finding the right person. Social web tools have
the ability to eliminate this long-standing obstacle for
salespeople. There is no excuse for not having current,
accurate name, title, email address, location and much
more. You now have the ability to learn who influences
customers by their social graph. Utilizing web tools to
gather this information is now a common denominator for
everyone that sells in a B2B marketplace. It is important
to realize that your buyers will frequently know as much
or more about you, your background and interests than
you know about them. Social platforms are not a one-way
mirror, available only to sellers. It is expected that you will
do your homework prior to any contact and will tailor how
you communicate and what you share to not waste their
time.

Creating the right message. If you have been
http://www.forum.com/blog/strategic-selling-how-to-sell-to-senior-executives/ using social media as a listening tool, you will know what
information the buyer is still seeking. By “listening” to
These changes demand the availability of dramatically their questions on LinkedIn, by knowing which pages
improved sales intelligence that combines traditional they have visited on your site, which downloads and
data and social media, readily accessible by everyone videos they have seen, you are well equipped to focus
involved in the sales process to provide information that your message directly to where they are in the selection
will help sellers possess the information at the top of their process. Are they looking more at product information,
prospects requirements. or background on your company? Sales intelligence


web tools will tell you who their current provider is.
You have the ability to learn what external and internal
forces might be driving this activity for them. Reporting
structure, decision trees and buying influencers are all
now more visible. This information, gleaned from multiple
tools and sources, will better equip you to direct your Add value to the
messaging and communication directly towards what they
right person,
will need to continue to move along the buying cycle at
the right time.
with the right
message at the
Knowing the right time. Attempting to sell to right time
your prospect before they are ready to buy can derail
the opportunity completely. Listen to their questions.
Understand who influences them, and the reasons they
are seeking a solution. Learn the drivers behind the
buying decision timeline and incorporate them into your
timing. You are able to use social web tools to gather
information and formulate a 360-degree view of your
prospect, their influencers and their company. When they
are at the stage that a decision needs to be made, you will
have earned the right to be the one they choose.

Social Selling success requires you to leverage the social
web and web tools to actively listen, engage, and add
value to the right person, with the right message at the
right time.


The Six Tenets of Social Selling
Content by Craig Rosenberg, VP of Sales and Marketing at you are not leveraging real-time information about your
Focus, Author of Funnelholic customers before you reach out, then you aren’t selling.

1. No more islands of information – The question becomes: How do you
your CRM is not enough harness the incredible information
available to you? CRM is not enough.
Never before in the history of sales have our prospects There are two main reasons:
and customers willingly and publicly updated what they
do, how they feel, and what they care about every day. 1. CRM data is very rarely updated – If a company is
Everyone asks me: What do you think of social selling? diligent about it, their CRM data is typically updated at
My answer: What is there to possibly to think about? most twice a year. We’re talking about two types of data –
Your prospects and customers are basically out there contact data e.g., name, address, email, and phone which
publishing information that you can leverage to build often becomes outdated quickly because people change
real, meaningful relationships with them. NOT taking jobs and roles, and transactional data such as trouble-
advantage of that is a crime. Remember that dumb tickets, new activities, etc. The second type of data is
question: What keeps you awake at night? Don’t ask typically updated frequently by call center agents, sales
that anymore because you can know it before you call reps, and order desks when they touch prospects and
a prospect. Call it social selling if you like, but really, if customers. But contact data is rarely updated or, even
worse, there isn’t a reliable source of accurate contact
data to update it with.
Remember that dumb question:
What keeps you awake at night? 2. CRM data can’t tell you the whole story – Contact
Don’t ask that anymore. information is obviously important in order to reach
someone. However, what can turn the needle for a


sales person is finding out a big project your prospect is phone or to have a substantive conversation with customers
working on is actually going to help you make the deal. Or when we do connect with them on the phone. Today’s
simply even knowing the fact that they got married two salesperson needs one place and more efficiency to capture
weeks ago. the data they need to make the right call at the right time.”

Sales Expert Dave Brock: “It’s very simple. Information I would add to Kevin’s quote: Today’s salesperson needs
in the CRM system is likely out of date and, quite frankly, one place to capture the data to make the right call at
does not reflect what is going on with the customer. It is the right time to the right person. Contact information
name, email, address, etc, not what’s hot on their minds.” alone cannot tell you the story you need to be successful.
David hits on it well. Titles are a classic example: We used to rely on titles for
deciding whom we should call and what we should say, but
Kevin Gaither, host of “This Week in Sales” and Director of titles can mean lots of different things to lots of different
Inside Sales at BetterWorks: “CRM wasn’t enough to begin organizations. The key is to find the right role and, even
with. CRM you have to populate with the information. better, the right challenges to sell your product to. Social
There is so much information being created that the CRM data allows you to go beyond title and understand “who”
cannot keep up with.” the person is so you can determine early on if you should
waste time and effort on this contact.
The answer is to provide your sales team with real-time
access to the dynamic data being created every second Brock: “The key is to determine how we intersect with
on the internet. Combine this with the foundation of a the customer smartly. What’s happening to this prospect,
CRM system and your sales team is armed to compete. their company, or even their industry?”
It should be noted that researching a client before a call
is not new; there is just a lot more information now than Sales Expert and author of the blog “A Sales Guy” Jim
there used to be. Keenan: “Leads are no longer just second and third party
referrals or first party requests. A lead today can be a
Gaither: “Back in the day, a good salesperson would have complaint on Twitter, a question on LinkedIn or discussion
multiple browsers open with press releases and 10-Ks to on a Facebook page. CRM has to capture the new
piece together a meaningful way to get customers on the definition of a lead.”


Gaither again on information: “Sales reps need real-time considered the ones who didn’t unprepared. Jim Keenan,
access to determine trigger events for reasons for calling. blogger from A Sales Guy: “We sell to people not contacts.
New product releases, funding events, and management Name, phone, email don’t tell us anything about the
changes give you strategic reasons to call…you want that people we sell to. Knowing them is key, knowing them
information at your fingertips.” means engagement. Social media gives us that platform.”
Please do not be mistaken. The information you can find
I think we all agree that we don’t want our sales reps in your CRM system is very important to understanding
losing productivity by having to look all over the place for the history of a prospect or how a customer has grown
customer data. We wish our CRM data could tell us the with you and your organization. There is real value there.
story, but it can’t, which means we need to layer real-time However, when we are talking about sales, we have the
access to customer data to be successful.

2. People are not contact records
Although a traditional contact record provides vital
information about opportunities, purchases, trouble
tickets, and company activities, it falls short of creating a
complete picture of the person.

We have always sold to people, but our access to
information has changed. Three or four years from
now, we are going to laugh at how we thought we could
effectively sell to people with merely their contact record.
We will only be able to tell them: “Back then, it was all
we had.” In today’s world, your prospects and customers
actually publically publish what they care about! When
my wife gave birth to my twin sons, I watched the real
social sales people reference it in their calls with me and


opportunity to access much more. Taking advantage of Dave Brock called it the “360-degree view of the
that opportunity is the key to selling today. customer” and Lori Richardson, President of Score
More Sales, called it the “living, breathing snapshot.”
When researching this topic, we spoke to a number Lori on the information available today: “The idea of
of sales experts. Everyone said the same thing: the capturing static information about anyone in 2012
information is available, and you have to use it. Mike is one small piece of what needs to happen when it
Damphousse, CEO of Green Leads: “At Green Leads, comes to prospective customers, active customers, and
my reps live with dual monitors up all day long. They strategic partners. Yes, it is great to have notes from past
don’t think about pursuing contacts any more, they are meetings and conversations, but combine that with all of
pursuing people. People have histories, lives, and more to the information that can be culled in minutes (seconds
them than just phone numbers and email addresses. The really) by checking updated social activity. Modern tools
information is there. Use it.” aggregate that activity so that you can get a sort of a
“living, breathing snapshot” of someone you are about to
meet and this needs to be done often. It should not add
you your workload, and it doesn’t have to if you focus on
working smart. (Spend less time going through email, for
example, or schedule it differently).”

Selling is about relationships, and
relationships are about people – not
faceless contact records


Steve Richard, Founder and President, Vorsight: “Is a progress of any kind, is built on relationships and trust. Used
contact record a person? Is Steve Richard no more than effectively, CRM strategies and the tools that enable their
a marketing automation lead score in someone’s CRM? execution can help individuals and organizations maximize
Of course not. What makes me, me and my needs, my impact and return on sales and marketing effort and
needs is very different than anyone else. So why do investment. Too often, recipients are degraded into objects,
we think database marketing can do our consultative faceless contact records in a database table that are simply
selling? The reality is it can’t – and your job is safe. The targeted for one-sided corporate gain. This often triggers
first human touch point is the most critical part of the revolt. Perhaps this was best articulated in the Cluetrain
sales and marketing process. It is the piece that can’t be Manifesto: ‘We are not seats or eyeballs, or end users or
done by a computer and can’t be outsourced to India. consumers. We are human beings and our reach exceeds
Why? Because human beings can gather all the pieces your grasp - deal with it.’ Taking the time to understand
from the social sphere to create a better picture of a and respond in a way that resonates with your prospects
prospect than any computer ever could. Humans can use and customers is a proven and sustaining bedrock of sales
those key points – what we at Vorsight refer to as 3x3 success. Today’s digital landscape allows us to increasingly
Research – to craft unique talking points and questions leverage structured and unstructured information available
to resonate immediately with that one unique human from a wide variety of sources to help discover context and
being. The best sales reps can capture attention, develop insight about the habits, behaviors, and interests of our
needs, and create a vision for their prospects better than buyers, with the goal of creating value for them.”
any email campaign ever could. Social selling is all about
people selling to people better through information that Selling to people really works – Zuora has tripled
our predecessors only wish they had. To do anything less C-level outreach and increased lead conversion rates
than social selling in this day and age is to commit sales by 132%. Xactly has tripled qualified lead volumes and
malpractice.” lead conversion rates, and increased win rates by 10%.

CRM Expert and CEO of Initium LLC/Innovantage, When I wrote this piece and reached out for quotes, I
Brian Vellmure sums everything up: anticipated the reception of would receive. If I learned one
thing: everyone agrees. Move beyond the contact record and
“Selling is about relationships, and relationships are about understand your prospects and customers. That separates
people – not faceless contact records. Business, and the best sales people from the rest. (It always has.)


3. More data is not the answer finding the needles of insight any easier.” Net-net, piling in
the data achieves the opposite of your goals – you actually
More data, without proper filters, can be more of guarantee they will not hit their number.
a distraction than a benefit. Sales teams only want
information they need – not all that data. Less is more. Once sales people experience the power of leveraging
social data, they will never go back. Jim Keenan: “Data is
David Brock: “Success is not about the quantity or volume dead, sales people want information. Information is data
of data, it is about the information that gives you the clues with context.” Sales Expert Mike Damphousse: “’Give me
to connect with prospects in a meaningful way.” one accurate lead with deep, interesting information, not
100 garbage ones.’ That’s what I hear from my reps.”
Stu Silverman: “Time is the enemy of sales people.” Stuffing names in the database acknowledges that you
believe sales is a roulette wheel and that you are making
Most managers believe more data is the answer. Not the odds longer.
enough pipeline or sales? The common refrain is: “We need
more names!” The data is often purchased on a wholesale While data with context is crucial to the social selling
level with much of the information old and zero insight process, be careful not to get stuck in the same old
into prospect they are trying to sell to. The result is often habits. Find out what data is meaningful without getting
negative. When data is dumped into the CRM, sales people bogged down with information overload. You can run
have to essentially start at the beginning and sift through the risk of spending too much time sifting through social
the bad data and attempt to find the right person to sell to. media channels and lose sight of the end goal, just as you
CRM Expert and CMO of Terametric, Chris Selland: “More can sifting through too much data. Jill Konrath, author
data is meaningless and can be a negative without analytics of SNAP Selling and Selling to Big Companies: “When
and insight. Piling more hay on the stack doesn’t make salespeople get Google Alerts on every conceivable
prospect, they go into overwhelm mode. They’ll either
waste time following up on irrelevant news or totally miss
“ Once sales people experience the the golden opportunities.”
power of leveraging social data, According to the 2011 CSO Insights Sales Optimization Study,
they will never go back. ” sales reps spend 24% of their time researching prospects on
average, time that could otherwise be spent on selling.


Focus on what’s important and what will help you make 2. You have no excuse – The information is out there
the right connections. Talk to your reps. Find out what for you to leverage. Before you call someone, you
is working and filter out what isn’t so you can strike the can determine if they are the right person, what the
right balance. Then you can arm your sales team with the message should be, and whether it is the right time.
tools and training so they can target the right people at
the right time and hit them with the right message. A sales process is absolutely necessary, but the process
and the subsequent training need to allow sales to make
adjustments based on the available information for the sales
4. No more cookie-cutter process people. Former Yankee Group CRM analyst Chris Selland:
“Sales process and CRM is all about reinforcing process
The sales process must be adapted to the customer needs
consistency but it too often ignores the fact that customers
and mapped to finding the right person, communicating
appreciate consistency but are even more appreciative when
the right message, at the right time.
you recognize their unique needs and differences.”

There are some critical reasons for this
Sales expert David Brock: “Sales process is a road map.
fundamental change:
It can you tell the streets but not the road conditions,
potholes, weather, etc. Adapting to the changing conditions
1. The new buyer demands that you focus on their
is the secret to getting from point A to point B.”
needs -- the buying dynamic has changed. In the
old days, the vendors controlled information and
The old sales process playbook was as follows:
thus controlled the buying process. Today, the
internet allows buyers to get the vast majority of
1. Buy/build a list based on title and company
their research completed online. The buyer is now
demographics
in control. They always wanted you to understand
2. Give sales a one-size-fits-all script
their pains and needs, but in today’s selling
3. Start calling
environment they demand it. Jim Keenan: “There

has never been a place for cookie cutter selling. It’s

just today you can’t get away with it.”


The new sales process playbook: Bill Binch, Senior VP of Sales from Marketo, laid it out
pretty well: “There are no traffic jams in the extra mile.
1. Determine buyer personas – the organization
should define roles versus titles as well as pains and A college professor gave me this advice and it’s stuck
needs of their target buyer. with me to this day. His point was that you need to
differentiate yourself and cut through the noise, so
2. Identify appropriate buyer personas leveraging do it by exceeding the prospect/customer/client
social data – in today’s world you can determine expectations. Millions of young sales pros are taught
who the people who NEED you are. Those are the methodologies, skills, and have tools to help them
people to reach out to. reach a prospect. But the best go beyond that:

3. Tailor your message – understand the buyer Is my message calibrated to the person I’m
personas’ current pains and initiatives leveraging calling on?
social data and tailor the message BEFORE you call This is pretty easy to talk about, hard to do. We all
or email. Sales expert Mari Anne Vanella: “Selling know we should do this, but many times we go to
isn’t pitching anymore—it’s discovering, partnering, market with a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead of
solving. The idea of a by-the-book sales process is changing the message for the C-level target, we hit
really replaced with having team members that are them with product features; and vice versa – we focus
situationally fluent, able to think on their feet and on value and ROI with the day-to-day user who simply
can mentally map what the prospect is telling them wants to know how the product works and how it will
to the right topics real-time.” make their life easier. The best reps I’ve worked with
take the company message and fine-tune it to the
4. Leverage trigger events to call at the right time scenario, level, buyer and make it custom.
– trigger events are events in a buyer’s work
environment that will necessitate change. An This provokes another key point, though – the
example of this is a layoff or expansion. Smart sales methodology question. Today many companies
reps follow their prospects and reach out when they prescribe to a fixed, heavy methodology that isn’t
can identify challenges nimble to respond to scenarios. The analogy I’d use


is the NY Giants in this year’s Super Bowl. They went Would I take call from me if I was on the other end?
in with a strategy, i.e. we’re going to keep the ball This is the true test. A friend of mine, Keith Higgins,
on the ground for the first half. Under that strategy CMO at Symphony Services shared something with
are a number of plays. But the plays haven’t been me that I thought was really good. He said of all
cast for when they’ll run them – to decide that they the prospecting calls he gets, one message is really
watch the defense, then adjust based on field position good. “Listen, I know you get prospect calls all the
etc., adjust based on the other team performance. time. What I want to know is, how does your company
Today’s selling needs to do similar – a single one-size evaluate best practices and ideas for X technology and
approach to selling is out of date; scorecards and how do I get myself included in that discussion?”
playbooks that allow for real-time responding and
adjustments are the new rage. It’s a call he takes every time because it’s real. Hey,
we’re not gonna look at that for 6 months, but when
Am I calling the right role? we do we’ll call you.”
Too high – we’re taught to call high. But does the
CMO at Cisco really engage in the decision to buy what At the end of the day, it is important to remember that
I’m selling? selling to each buyer individually and selling to their pains
and needs have ALWAYS been best practices. Today, you
Too low – am I selling an expensive, complex solution can apply those best practices with consistency and likely,
to only the end user? with great results.

Did I surround the account? 5. Impact performance. Not reporting
I get a prospect and I call them. My boss asks me why
I’m missing my number and I answer I don’t have Salespeople are looking for new ways to sharpen their
enough leads. Really – did I call just the prospect competitive edge, not create more reports.
or did I try to surround the account, learn who the
prospect works for, and who works for him? Who are Dave Brock: “CRM is sold to sales management and
the peers? so naturally, it’s built for sales management, not for
individual sales reps.”


IDC Sales Advisory: “Only 50% of sales people made their them, service more effectively to them, and so on. The
quota in 2010.” problem is the CRM system falls short. There is too much
data being created outside of the CRM system that sales
I wonder if IDC Sales Advisory in their research could can use to positively affect their selling effectiveness that
report how many of the 50% who didn’t make quota used CRM doesn’t capture today. My father used to tell me: “If
a CRM system on a daily basis. My guess is almost all of you don’t get 2x back what you put into something, it’s
them. We don’t mean to unfairly bash the CRM system; it not worth it.” For sales reps, all they do is “give” to the
is a mission-critical application for running a successful CRM. They don’t get much back. Jim Keenan: “It’s a sales
sales force. The problem is the CRM system does not help person’s job to sell; it’s a company’s job to support them
sales people close more deals. (And if you asked the sales in selling. Reporting doesn’t sell anything to anyone.”
people, they would probably tell you that all with all the
clicks, the system bogs them down.) What’s the solution? There are a couple best
practices in sales effectiveness:
The irony is in many ways, the intent of a CRM system is
to provide knowledge of the customer that allows you to 1. Provide real-time customer insight using social
sell more effectively to them, market more effectively to customer data – as Dave Brock says: “The rich
3-dimensional perspective of the customer comes
from a combination of CRM data and live internet
“ It’s a sales person’s job data.”

to sell; it’s a company’s 2. Provide this data easily – the enemy of sales people
is time; if they have to click more or go into too
job to support them in many applications, they won’t do it.

selling. Reporting doesn’t 3. Ensure they understand what actions to take

sell anything to anyone. ” against this insight – today, that might come in the
form of training. Jill Konrath: “Not all trigger events
are created equal. Teach your salespeople what
the most important ones are and why. They need


to understand the business implications in order to
create relevant messaging and move prospects off
the status quo. “ In the future the application will be
able to provide these recommendations.

You will be hard-pressed to find a sales person who can’t
find the value or competitive advantage in having real-
time data about their prospects at their fingertips. CRM
expert Brian Vellmure: “Most successful sales executives
aren’t really concerned about all the new things that
technology can do. At the front and center of their reality
is making their number, showing up atop the leader board,
making club, and in some cases, just keeping their job.
Because of this, they tend to be a great proxy for the
validity of emerging technologies.

“As a sales rep, if I have 20, or 200, or 2000 potential
interactions that I can choose to invest time in, I want
to know which ones hold the highest potential for the
highest return. Surfacing meaningful insights in the
context of existing patterns of work holds the potential
to help sales professionals better allocate their time and
effort to maximize revenue for both themselves and the
organizations that employ them.” “ Reports are meaningless if
The most obvious statement I could possibly make is they are not actionable. ”
actually the final point: The sales manager’s job is to make
his/her sales reps as productive as possible. Before they


require their sales reps to do something, they should waste time following up on irrelevant news or totally miss
always ask themselves the question: “Will this make them the golden opportunities.” The moral of the story: Just
better?” Entering data and helping you create reports is because you have access to information does not mean
not making the sales reps better. Sales guru Jim Keenan: you know what to do next. There are a couple of very
“If you want the sales team to report, then give them important factors when leveraging social data:
the tools and support to have something to report.”
Throughout my research for this project, I could not find 1. What information is actionable or not? – Just
one sales expert who did not emphasize the importance of because the company announced something does
real-time social intelligence in the day-to-day life of a sales not make it important to your prospect’s life. A
rep. If it makes your sales reps better, why wouldn’t you? social media update alerting a sales rep to a key
prospect’s job/role change can either surface a
6. From look-up to intelligence new sales opportunity or increase the risk that
an existing sales opportunity might not close.
Intelligence that anticipates needs and provides Knowing about it at the right time is key, without
recommendations the sales rep having to spend lots of time looking
for it. What does the information mean? – The
Chris Selland: “Reports are meaningless if they are not information is telling you what the client cares
actionable - and if those actions are not taken.” about. Can the individual sales rep determine that
themselves? There could be thousands of press
Jim Keenan: “Predictive analytics are without a doubt releases and other streams of information related
the new wave. They are also only as good as the to many prospects that the sales rep is working on.
interpretation. Spend as much time on how you interpret It is nearly impossible for the sales rep to quickly
the data as you do responding to it.” establish that a specific press release about a
merger & acquisition or a new compliance initiative
You have the data/intelligence, now what? It’s interesting could either increase his/her likelihood of winning
that Jill Konrath’s quote on trigger events was a warning: the opportunity unless the sales rep is automatically
“When salespeople get social data on every conceivable presented with the information in the right context.
prospect, they go into overwhelm mode. They’ll either The social information to be available in the context


of the lead, opportunity, or account information to manage sales customer activity. Today’s CRM should
within the CRM so that a sales rep can take quick manage community activity. Ideally these platforms will
action on it. triage conversations and provide intelligence.”

2. What is your next move? – Once the sales rep The only way sales organizations will be able to build their
has the data, what should they do next? The sales teams to leverage social data in scalable ways will
next source of competitive advantage for sales be to ensure that sales reps have an application that can
organizations will come from systems that can interpret and provide recommendations for them. It’s not
analyze social media and online conversations as as easy as it used to be where we had one message, one
well as CRM data, to recommend the next move for buying type and we solved everything with scripts. Steve
sales reps. For example, if social selling solutions Richard, Co-Founder of Vorsight: “Just like an expert
can recommend the right prospect(s) to focus on plumber knows how to use his many tools in unique ways
at any given time, based on historical win rates of to fix the pipes, so must salespeople be trained on how
similar prospects, that will provide reps an immense to interpret and use social selling tools in order to reach
competitive advantage over their peers. In short, the right person with the right message at the right time.
think of it as a Netflix movie recommendation Training alone isn’t enough.” We must equip our sales
based on your preferences as well as your friends’ teams to be agile and react on their feet. That is the
recommendations that saves you tons of time future of selling.
finding the right movie to watch.

The baseline has been established. Your sales reps
deserve an application that helps them quickly and
efficiently find real-time social intelligence. The next step
is for the application to recommend what to do next – that
is the killer sales application. Dan Waldschmidt: “Gone are
the days of using social tools as triggers. Today’s social
tools should drive interpretation. They provide meaning
to the behavior of the prospect. Gone are the days of CRM


Real-Life Success Stories
In theory, social selling has tremendous potential. Perhaps the best way to examine social selling apart from
However, in practice it may prove difficult to translate general social media efforts is to look at successes that
social media efforts into distinct ROI and cash flow. While brands and salespeople have had in winning customers
some companies may boast about how they have 40,000 over. The following social success stories fall into two
followers on Twitter and 10,000 Facebook likes, what categories: sales that have been made through listening
does this mean for their bottom line? How can we actually and monitoring social media, and sales that have been
visualize and solidify the social sales funnel? made through the reach of social media.

B2C companies have been the pioneers in using social
media to monitor customer conversations and identify
opportunities to not only address customer complaints
about a product or service, but also to find new leads.
Almost everyone recalls examples of airlines, hospitality
companies, and many other B2C companies using social
listening effectively.

B2B companies are imitating the best practices developed
by B2C companies not only because of the results they’re
achieving, but also because even B2B customers are
expecting that companies will follow their conversations
on social media and take action, instead of expecting
them to interact with the companies through traditional
channels.


Listening for Social Sales 2. Soft Selling: When he received the tweet, he offered
his potential clients unconditional help and made it clear
Like the age-old desk phone, social media is another that he was willing to answer any questions they had. No
tool in the salesperson’s arsenal to bring in customers. pressure! No obligation.
However, social media has the added benefit of allowing
for open, transparent conversations that sales can Other realtors started “harassing” the same people. So,
capitalize on. when they needed help for finding a home to buy, they
asked for Jay’s help.
Let’s imagine, for instance, that you’re a salesman at a
car company. One day you pick up the phone to make a [One time, he] was a very close to a sale but his client’s
call, only to overhear a completely random conversation moving plans changed and they ended up not coming to
between two strangers about how they’re looking to buy a Phoenix but they referred massive number of people to
new model of the car you’re selling. Social listening allows him. (His genuine help turned complete strangers into
for the targeting of prospects in an immensely powerful brand advocates.)”
way. Aaron Eden, Founder of Garious, outlines how Jay
Thompson, a real estate agent in Phoenix, used this tactic By using a social dashboard to monitor specific keywords,
to bring in new customers: Thompson was able to identify and bring in new
customers that were already warm, qualified leads. We
1. Effective targeting: He set up HootSuite to receive see the same methods applied to win over customers
notifications of tweets including keywords “moving” and from competing brands:
“Phoenix.”
Ralf VonSosen, VP of InsideView: “In several instances
we have found prospects that were in conversations with
Social listening allows for the competitors, or looking for information where we were
able to insert (tactfully) ourselves into the conversation. We
targeting of prospects in an have done this on the marketing side to tee up the prospect
for the sales rep, as well as sent the info to the sales rep for
immensely powerful way them to insert themselves directly into the conversation.


“If we maintained an informational and helpful tone, It goes without mention, too, that while social listening
we have seen the prospects be very responsive and can aid in bringing in new customers and win over
appreciative on our input. clients from the competition, so too can it nurture
existing customers. By using networks such as Twitter,
“The great thing about these opportunities [is] that LinkedIn and blogs to foster an existing customer base,
by default the timing is right to have a meaningful companies can establish a relationship that spans beyond
conversation. What has been critical for us is to also simply signing the deal. This follow-up nurturing can aid
supplement the info we gather from Twitter with more in customer referrals and product renewals. So while
information about the person.” listening and monitoring can certainly help in making the
initial sale, the relationship cannot, and certainly should
Alex Shootman, Chief Revenue Officer at Eloqua: “Just not, end there.
a couple of months ago one of our sales people was on
TweetDeck and noticed a person really struggling with Brand Reach for Social Sales
a competitive offering to ours. The rep reached out,
helped the person with their issue, they began to build Social selling casts a wide net to prospects, customers,
a relationship and we took out a competitor from that third-party bloggers, evangelists, analysts, and advocates.
account within the last few weeks.” Through the success stories below, you’ll be able to see
how social media provides a supplement to live sales
By remaining vigilant about conversations that are conversations, how it allows for extended nurturing
happening across social media, sales reps have the of prospects, and how your content has the ability to
opportunity to reach out to the right person at the right generate sales. And the best part: once the attention of
time, rather than blindly casting out a line to see who bites. one user is captured, word spreads organically through
their networks. Many of the success stories we’ve seen
“ By default the timing is right to through reach and “talking” (as opposed to listening)
happen by nurturing users or potential customers –
have a meaningful conversation. “ drawing them to a brand’s social network, posting
relevant content, asking them questions, and then
following up.


It’s important to note that, while many companies can at meeting someone in person, social media can serve to
trace their sales originally back to social media, these strengthen and extend relationships with prospects over
channels cannot and do not replace phone conversations time, with the high probability of an eventual sale.
and in-person meetings. Social media may be the Matt Heinz, president of Heinz Marketing Inc, details a
origination point of the sale, but it is not the place where success through this lengthy – but ultimately rewarding
these deals are typically closed. – nurturing process: “A couple months ago, I got a call
from the CEO of a fast-growing technology company on
Dave Brock, President and CEO, Partners In EXCELLENCE, the East Coast. We had met at a conference two years
emphasizes where social media sits for him in his ago. At the time, I did what I usually do with people I meet
company’s sales process: at events – followed up immediately after, invited her to
join my newsletter list, put her into my nurture marketing
“Social media has been an important part of a number systems, and pretty much moved on.
of sales, but has never been the exclusive component.
… I think what we’ve learned is that social media is just “Then, out of the blue, she called. Her business
one element of a prospecting approach, but we need is exploding, and she wanted help organizing and
to build the engagement through multiple channels accelerating her marketing efforts. Less than a week later,
simultaneously. We never expect someone to tweet us an she was a recurring-revenue client for our business.
order – because that’s not the way people buy our types “On one hand, that’s one of the fastest deals we’ve closed
of services. But social media is an important component and the least amount of work I’ve put into a pitch. On the
of extending our visibility and awareness in our target other hand, I worked that deal hard for two years. The
markets. For us, last year close to 70% of our net new CEO had been reading my newsletter, following my blog
name business originated through some sort of social and Twitter feed, and knew I could help her with exactly
media contact -- but none of them were closed through a what she needed done.
single channel or through social media exclusively.”
At least 33% of our new business now comes from social
Social channels are a great way to generate brand media and content marketing.”
awareness, and they are also an ideal nurturing channel.
While they cannot supplement the sense of trust one feels


social channels, your content has the potential to be
“ At least 33% of our new business spread for general awareness and consumption… It’s
now comes from social media the “viral” factor. Then, whether or not you’re capturing
viewer demographics, the opportunities to spread brand
and content marketing.“ awareness, nurture customers, and sell the product are
all there. By listening, conversing, and relaying content
Content marketing and social selling have many key to an audience of prospects, brands can easily set the
points of intersection. By creating content that is wheels in motion to establish meaningful connections and,
targeted, relevant, and easy to consume, companies can ultimately, make the sale.
establish themselves as thought leaders in a space, which
inevitably leads to customer trust and sales.

Candyce Edelen, CEO of ProperGrowth: “We write content
for our blog, which we promote in several social channels
including Twitter, LinkedIn, and on industry forums and
knowledge communities. We’ve won several clients in part
because they follow us in those channels … We link our
blog to our profiles, and do status updates to promote
our content. People regularly tell me that they feel like
they’re up to speed with what we’re doing because of the
status updates. In most cases, publishing the content on
industry knowledge communities has also had a strong
influence. We publish on a site that has strict editorial
standards around the content - no advertorials. That site
has a strong influence in our target market and has been
a powerful resource.”

Here lies the powerful intersection of content marketing
and social selling; by making content available through


Best Resources to Learn About Social Selling
Experts Blogs
Barbara Giamanco, Social Centered Selling, LLC www.fillthefunnel.com
Miles Austin, Fill the Funnel www.phoneworks.com/learning-center/blog/
Anneke Seley, Phone Works
www.tele-smart.com/blog/
Matt Heinz, Heinz Marketing
Craig Rosenberg, Focus
Dave Brock, Partners in EXCELLENCE
Kevin Gaither, BetterWorks
Websites
Jim Keenan, A Sales Guy www.socialmediaexaminer.com
Mike Damphousse, Green Leads www.slideshare.net/heinzmarketing/secrets-to-
Lori Richardson, Score More Sales
successful-social-selling
Brian Vellmure, Initium LLC/Innovantage
Steve Richard, Vorsight www.socialmedia-academy.com/index.php/resources/
Stu Silverman, SalesRamp social-selling/
Chris Selland, Terametric www.socialsellingu.com
Jill Konrath, SNAP Selling
Mari Anne Vanella, The Vanella Group
Bill Binch, Marketo Books
Jill Rowley, Eloqua
“The Now Revolution” by Amber and Jay Baer
Alex Shootman, Eloqua
“Social Boom” by Jeffrey Gitomer
Ralf VonSosen, InsideView
“No More Cold Calling” by Joanne Black
Nigel Edelshain, TurnTo Networks
Josiane Feigon, TeleSmart
Jeffrey Gitomer, Ace of Sales
Michael Lodato, Network Hardware Resale
Other places to browse
Koka Sexton, InsideView www.slideshare.net


About
About InsideView

InsideView, the leading provider of sales intelligence, increases productivity and revenue by delivering relevant business
and social insights to the point of need. Our award-winning technology gathers and analyzes information from the most
relevant social media, user-contributed and traditional/proprietary editorial sources to provide compelling insights about
companies and contacts directly within your CRM, browser, or mobile device. More than 100,000 sales professionals, and
over 1,000 market-leading companies including Adobe, AIG, BMC, CapGemini, Experian, and SuccessFactors use InsideView.

For more information, visit www.insideview.com.

About Focus

Focus.com makes the world’s business expertise available to everyone. At the heart of Focus is a network of thousands
of leading business and technology experts who are thought leaders, veteran practitioners and upstart innovators in
hundreds of different topics and markets. You can connect with the Focus experts in three primary ways: Q&A, Research
and Events. Personalize your Focus.com experience by following specific topics and experts and receive the Q&A, research
and events of interest to you. Focus is easy to use and freely available to anyone who wants help making better business
decisions.

Learn more at www.focus.com.


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