We hear a lot these days about the merits of being social in selling, but let’s pause for a moment and explore what this really means.
Let’s start with the definition of the word “social”. As you know, when you look a word up in the dictionary. you get more than one way to define a word…so here is the expression I think fits nicely in the context of sales.
: of or relating to human society, the interaction of the individual and the group, or the welfare of human beings as members of society <social institutions>
That’s it! The reason social selling or “being social” makes so much sense is because it’s all about leveraging the crowd as opposed to a unilateral relationship. The more things change, the more things remain the same really, because the best salespeople have always been exercising social selling techniques.
Some examples of what it means to be a social seller:
- Asking for referrals from happy customers
- Attending networking events and building wider relationships
- Building wider relationships around the ultimate decision maker
- Participating in industry events
- Becoming a thought leader for your discipline
Nothing has really changed. We just have technology to thank so these things are much easier to execute now. We don’t have to jump on a plane anymore – we can sit at our computer now and leverage the many available social channels. But, here’s the rub – because we have all these tools and because “being social” is easy now, we all need to be on our game or we are disadvantaged.
When you are in the throes of a sales process, your prospect is also “being social” and
- Is looking you up with google
- Exploring your LinkedIn profile and seeing who you are connected with
- Learning about your company online by reading your content
- Reading all about you and your competitors without ever having a conversation with you
So, while “being social” has not really changed for great salespeople, it’s now mandatory for sales and business because we live online and the world relies more than ever on the crowd and social channels to make buying decisions.
Are you “being social” enough or should you get to work, now?
Recent Comments