Focused Social Selling – Your Social Houses in Order

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We are now ready to begin the steps that are entailed in the Leonidas Selling System. I must warn you. There will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 steps to this process. The good news is that, once these steps have been completed, maintaining the system will be very easy and should take relatively very little time to do so. If you are just jumping in, I would strongly encourage you to read our previous articles on this topic as there are some important questions that you will need to answer prior to starting out.

Get your social houses in order

If you are going to be social, use social networking as a part of your sales efforts, you had better get your social houses in order first. Social media is a two-edged sword. If you are good at what you do, social makes you better. If you suck at what you do, social will also amplify that to the rest of the world. This, combined with the old adage that “you get only one chance to make a good first impression”, makes it imperative to ensure that everything is up to snuff and looking good before you venture out.[Tweet “Before starting out with the #Leonidas Selling System, get your social houses in order!”]

This means that your profiles and pages on the social networks that you will be frequenting must be accurate and complete. Think about it this way. When somebody requests to connect with me on a service, or if I am considering extending a request to connect, the absolute first thing I do is to take a close look at their social presence. Particularly, if I don’t know this person or don’t know them very well, what I find may be the most important deciding factor as to whether we will connect or not. If your profile looks like hell, you have no picture, and you can’t spell “cat” … adios. It’s that simple. If you show no activity on that network, or if you don’t make it easy for me to learn more about you and your company … same result.

Your company pages are equally important. People want to connect with people who have their collective stuff together and I am no different. Belonging to some good industry related groups is also a huge plus on a number of different levels. You are increasing your chances of connecting with some really great people and those people will have a better chance of getting to know you.

In many cases you will be wanting to direct people to your website. Does it look good? Is it easy to navigate? Do you have a regularly maintained and updated blog? Does your site make it easy for others to contact you and this includes connectors to your social pages and profiles? Assuming you have a blog, are those articles configured to be easily shared via social sharing buttons?

Obviously, blogging is a great way to demonstrate your expertise, create valuable educational content, and to attract others to you and to your website. However, if you your company does not have a blog and you want those same benefits, all hope is not lost! Use LinkedIn Publisher. I myself have started to use this more and have been amazed at the results. Now, LinkedIn happens to be my business hot spot so, whenever I publish on LinkedIn, I am doing so directly to my target audience. On top of that, the views, likes, and engagement have actually been far in excess of what I see on my own website. Sad but, true. Since I am a huge believer in replicating success, guess where I will be spending more time writing!

Your brand messaging is just as important! I tend to have a somewhat eclectic assortment of interests and, early on, I shared and wrote about a lot of different things relating to social business. A few years ago I signed up for a brand messaging assessment that matched my sharing against my identified area of specialty which is selling. Of the six areas that the assessment graded, I got five “F’s” and one “D”. Wake up call! I immediately adjusted my focus to my area of expertise and the results were nothing short of amazing! When it comes to my business, it is certainly better to be the master of one.

Understand each social network

Each network has their pros and cons and this will vary according to your particular business needs. Always remember … where are your customers?? If your customers are not there, why are you? Conversely, if your customers are there, why aren’t you? Check out the ….

2015 CMO’s Guide to the Social Landscape 

 

Get the 2015 Guide PDF here

In addition to understanding each social network, it is also important to be aware of the rules of engagement on each. When I was first getting started, the three major networks were explained to me as …

  • Twitter is a cocktail party. It is the wild wild west and almost anything goes.
  • Facebook is the neighborhood BBQ. It is where you hang with friends and family.
  • LinkedIn is Facebook with a tie. It is the boardroom.

Now, you can say almost anything on Twitter. Facebook is very personal and any talk of business should be kept to an absolute minimum. B2C tends to play better with Facebook than does B2B. LinkedIn is business so baby pictures that work well on Facebook, or even on Twitter, do not belong on LinkedIn. If you can remember this one paragraph, you will excel!

While each network may have their individual strengths, when combined strategically, they will be very effective when used together. For example, Twitter conversations are often converted to LinkedIn connections by leveraging the two in a progressive engagement manner (discussed in previous articles in this series).

Now that your social houses are in order (if not, get to work!), we are ready to commence with the system and this will begin with our next article!

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

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!
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