In my last article I outlined some of the questions that I/we should be able to answer prior to diving into the selling system that I am calling Focused Social Selling. There were a number of areas that we will need to address and my goal is to explore each of these over the course of the next several articles. Remember that this is the pre-planning stage. These are areas to be thinking about now but, we will be adding the specific details later on.
Please keep in mind that I am a one-man show and a simple salesperson at that. I am strictly B2B and my target market is fairly narrowly defined. I have had zero marketing experience or training and I have no intention of farming those services out. Therefore, my solutions will be evidence of my low levels of sophistication.[Tweet “The Focused Social Selling System requires careful planning. #FocusedSelling”]
My personal situation is somewhat complicated. As I stated in an earlier article, I am also approaching retirement. To that end, I am really not looking to increase my book of business. Therefore, while I will be implementing the steps for myself, this is not about me, it’s about you. My only goal is to provide the community with something of value. I hope that makes sense. If it does, will you please explain it to me.
Therefore, if I were running a medium to large sales team, my suggestions, and my resources, would be quite different and this just might describe you. I will be using many of my own business specifics for purposes of example only. Today, let’s take a look at …
What do you want to sell?
I actually have a fairly diversified set of services and each of those might be delivered in-person, online, or even in a group or open workshop setting. So, this question not only points to what, it also points to how and where. If you have multiple product lines that can delivered in multiple ways to multiple areas, we ride in a similar boat. Make no mistake. These are critical areas that will be instrumental in developing your buyer persona and this will be one of the first steps in our system.
For example, It would be my goal to bundle my sales related services which include: training and consulting, Nimble Social CRM, salesperson pre-hire assessments, and my local networking group. My focus would be geographically local as I prefer to meet/work with folks in person. Open workshops are a non-starter for me since everybody gives those away for free or for dollars that just don’t pencil out. A company sponsored workshop (say for their clients) would be a possibility. I am not real keen on online training (including webinars) and, since I am staying local, it’s not really needed anyway.
The critical piece of this exercise is that, particularly if you wish to work within a specific geographical area, who do you think will become your target buyers? Where will you be marketing your services? Why are you talking with people in China (unless, of course, that is your market)? This will greatly influence your short list of target customers and free you up to focus on them alone.
Mind you, my system does include space for a select group of influencers regardless of where they live. These might be people who you like and maybe even learn from. They are perhaps your mentors and everybody needs somebody(s) to emulate. At least I do. Influencers and colleagues from similar non-competing industries also have the potential to refer you to buyers who will directly meet your target persona.
What are you going to give up?
You may find yourself spending an inordinate time on what I would describe as busy work. I read too much, research too much, test new products too much, and I share too much. While all are important activities, none of these excesses have placed excess dollars in my pocket so I do this … why? If this sounds like you, I would suggest that you might cut these activities by 50% and redirect your efforts from quantity to quality. Then, if it were me, I would decide what activities need to be conducted during selling hours (when you should be engaging with customers) and on your non-selling hours (evenings and weekends).
If your customers are not found on Facebook or Pinterest or Google+ … why are you even there? However, if some of your targeted customers are there, you will need to revisit your participation but, only to the extent that it applies to your select customer group.
What are your ultimate goals?
You will need to articulate where you want to go, establish benchmarks, and define your metrics. Goals also include timelines for completion. My only goal right now is to get all of this activated and my planned date for completion is October 1.
Your metrics will very well look quite different. They might be defined by increased new revenues and increased revenues from existing accounts along with customer retention percentages. You might also look to increase margins and penetrations in specific lines. Particularly if you are just getting started out, you might have goals in terms of increasing your targeted connections but, remember that we are attempting to cap those. You quite likely have your current figures for all of these categories and these will comprise your benchmarks.
How are you going to approach it?
What do you need to do? Important activities would include writing, sharing, and engaging. It’s great to do all of these things but, you will still have to be able to effectively promote and to act upon them. Much of your approach will be defined in the actual steps that we will cover in future articles but, your activities will likely break down into five key areas …
Social activities – I have always maintained that social media does not have to be a time sucking black hole in order to be effective. If you were to do as little as: 5 tweets per day, 3 retweets, 3 mentions, 2 LinkedIn shares per day, 3 touches, 2 group updates per week (get out of unused groups), and 1 recommendation per week … I think that you could be highly effective!
Sharing should include a mix of your materials along with valuable contributions from others that would align with your brand and your offerings. Keep in mind that all of these activities will be focused on your target list. Now this becomes very powerful!
Providing content – Creating content has worked well for me. If you are not creating content now, you need to be. I will continue to write and will also focus more on repurposing my content. I have already begun to do this by republishing selected content from my original, still active, site as well as article excerpts from the column that I write for Maximize Social Business. This also includes republishing articles to LinkedIn which is where my target market resides.
Other great types of content include videos, slide shows, infographics, and podcasts. You can create Ebooks or white papers that might be used as free downloads in exchange for somebody signing up for your mailing list. If you have such a list, a monthly newsletter would likely follow. All of these content ideas serve the important functions of educating your client base as well as attracting potential customers to your services.
Progressive engagement – I saw an article recently that pointed out that Twitter was exceeding LinkedIn as a profitable tool for discovering new opportunities. The conversation was started … which is better? Someone replied … “Twitter and LinkedIn.” Brilliant and correct! It’s easy to engage on Twitter and then move somebody to LinkedIn. I see it being used everyday on … me. We will closer define progressive engagement in a future article.
Connecting with your target market – Once your buyer persona is defined, this becomes pretty simple. I will start with LinkedIn (and LinkedIn groups) and my existing customers and build out from them. Once you have a clear target, hitting it should be little problem. Your challenge will be keeping your list to your agreed upon limit.
Building relationships – We will be looking at, really looking at, client social profiles and monitoring their conversations in order to really get to know our customers. That might sound creepy but, it is absolutely no different to what salespeople have been doing with their eyes and ears since time began. It’s not what you know, it’s how you deploy it. If you have no social skills in real life, I suggest that you run away from social selling as fast as you can. Social selling only amplifies that which you are and, if you are a creeper … not good.
Converting connections to paying customers – You need to get people from your website, your profiles, and your activities and into your revenue stream. This includes effective calls to action along with good old fashioned engagement and conversation. You are going to have to prospect but, one of the beauties of social selling is that we can turn many cold calls into warm calls.
To be continued …
Please note – All posts in this series will be tagged FocusedSelling. You will be able to click on that tag at the bottom of any post in the series and all posts in the series, most recent first, will be listed for you. So, if jump in the middle and you want to get started, work from the bottom up. Cutting in line and skipping steps would definitely be ill-advised. #FocusedSelling
Craig M. Jamieson
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