Social Media For B2B Sales - What's Your Plan?

Plan?! We don’t need no stinkin’ planning! LOL. Three years ago when I made the decision to jump into the waters of social media, I did just that. I jumped in. I had no goals and no plan to reach those goals. I had been given a loaded gun, my finger had been placed on the trigger, and I had no idea as to which end of the device that the bullets would come out of. Bullets hurt.

Let’s talk about goals first and then we will raise some important questions that you will need to answer in order to formulate your plan. As a B2B salesperson, your goals should be to …

Expand your network
Promote your existing products or services and introduce new ones
Establish your expertise
Find and create strategic alliances
Find new revenue sources
Uncover new opportunities and convert those to sales
Get more referrals from both clients and contacts
Build closer relationships with your existing clients and develop relationships with new ones
Learn more about who your clients are connected to
Seek advice from others and that includes your clients
Provide better customer service
Monitor and protect your brand
Keep your pipeline full and increase your closing ratios
Track key-contact career movements

Ultimately, as a salesperson, my primary goal is to sell more stuff. I also want to manage my relationships with my customers. There. I said it. “How crass is that! Customers don’t want to be managed and, for that matter, I don’t sell to people! I help people to buy!” Whatever. You can phrase it however it makes you feel comfortable but, it is what it is and these overall goals in no way suggest an adversarial seller-buyer relationship. I manage customer relationships to ensure my ability to exceed my customer’s expectations. Read on at Maximize Social Business

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Craig M. Jamieson

Managing Member at Adaptive Business Services

Craig M. Jamieson is a lifelong B2B salesperson, manager, owner, and a networking enthusiast. Adaptive Business Services provides solutions related to the sales professional. We are a Nimble CRM Solution Partner. Craig also conducts training and workshops primarily in social selling and communication skills. Craig is also the author of "The Small Business' Guide to Social CRM", now available on Amazon!