With a grateful nod to Heinz Marketing, Lifehacker, Inc. Magazine and others who regularly publish “This is How I Work” articles, which I love to read …. welcome to “How I Work It – Social Selling”.
I try to watch and emulate others and you probably do the same. There is a lot of confusion, particularly with B2B, regarding how to implement social selling. Our hope is that these folks will inspire those of you are still on the fence and our goal is to share with you some of the best proven selling practices that you might wish to emulate!
Today we are joined by Mindi Rosser of Mindi Rosser Marketing and The Conversion Company. Mindi takes the mystery out of social selling by consistently demonstrating key elements including …
- Authenticity
- Personalization
- Uniqueness
- A desire to share, educate, and to promote others
Welcome, Mindi!
Could you please tell our readers a little about you?
I am one of those social-savvy Millennials who’s enthralled with social media marketing and how it can allow amazing people to share their messages with the world.[Tweet “Learn how Mindi Rosser does social selling!”]
How about telling them a little bit about your business?
I help small to medium-sized B2B businesses—and their leaders—look awesome on social media. My underlying mission is to empower women and men to overcome adversity in their lives, so they can become strong leaders more than capable of pursuing their dreams, their calling and their purpose. I like to help these powerful women and men use social media marketing to share their purpose online and find their tribe. I like to call myself a bit of a social media matchmaker.
How did you get started in selling and when did you begin adding social selling to your business?
I started selling when I was only 7-years-old, while doing fundraisers for my elementary school. Though sales petrified me at the time, as I’m an introvert by nature, I got a thrill out of closing the deal. No matter how small.
During the early days of my career, I realized that cultivating selling skills was essential to continued success. And, my immersion in the world of sales and marketing began. Social selling was “not a thing” at that time, as social media was uncharted territory for businesses. I started in social media marketing and community management before realizing the potential for businesses to use social media more effectively.
Why were marketers the only ones using social media? Why were salespeople still cold calling and using clunky email messages?
What are your social selling goals, objectives, and strategies?
Obviously, closing deals and increasing revenue is a goal for the sales teams and businesses I work with.
On the other hand, I think building relationships and establishing the right connections with the right people at the right time is critical to long-term social selling success.
I take an authentic approach to social selling, where quality trumps quantity. It does take longer than many expect to be able to tie business results to social selling efforts, but slow-and-steady wins the race. You must be consistent, be willing to adjust tactics based on feedback and be patient during the nurturing process. Only then will you build a sustainable social selling program.
Do you have regular routines?
Yes, every salesperson or thought leader should establish their own social selling routine. The best checklist I’ve found is this Social Selling Checklist by Sales for Life.
Here’s what I advise my clients to do at a minimum: check all their social channels daily for any interactions, engage with a few new prospects, add a few new connections to their network, comment on others’ social posts, share a good piece of content with their unique insights, publish content periodically and get into good conversations online around topics that matter to their prospects.
How do you integrate social selling with traditional selling methodologies?
Figure out how social selling fits into each team’s sales process. It’s important to understand how social selling supports each sales methodology before imposing a social selling program on a sales team. Social selling does not replace traditional selling methods. It supports them.
How do you manage to stand out from the noise?
Be authentic. Be helpful. Be genuine. Be transparent. Always personalize every interaction.
Could you please share with us a few of your favorite social selling tools?
- LinkedIn – You cannot be a social seller without using LinkedIn. Focus on optimizing your profile and regularly engaging within your network on a daily basis.
- Twitter – Monitor keywords, questions and conversations from buyers. Look for opportunities to engage with them by being helpful and answering their questions.
- Social Scheduling Tool (Buffer or Hootsuite) – Using a scheduler allows you to share great content consistently. Goal is to share at least one piece of good content per day on each social network.
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator – If you are trying to close complex sales, you must have a Sales Navigator account to give you the insight you need for identifying and engaging with decision makers within target accounts.
How do you track your results?
Goal is positive ROI.
ROI = (Revenue – Investment) / (Investment)
Some important KPIs to measure:
- Content Sharing Impact
- Daily Time Spent Social Selling
- LinkedIn Network Growth
- Website Traffic
- Conversion Rate
- LinkedIn SSI Score
- Pipeline CRM
- Revenue CRM
It’s important to set your own metrics for your social selling program. If you are looking for a deep dive into ROI, Social Selling Mastery by Jamie Shanks outlines exactly what you should track and why.
What do you feel are the biggest challenges facing salespeople as it pertains to social selling?
Not enough time. Many salespeople do not have the time to invest in learning and using social media optimally. They feel it’s a waste of their time. Many are convinced it does not deliver a good return on investment. Why spend a couple hours per week on social media when they could be “actually selling?” Convincing them—with hard numbers and success stories—that it’s worth their time is critical to getting buy-in.
Lack of support from leadership. Some salespeople are convinced they should be doing social selling, but they are not getting the support and tools they need from sales enablement or sales leadership. It’s nearly impossible to be effective as a social seller without getting leaders to buy-in to the program and support their salespeople with the resources and training they need to do social selling.
What about their biggest mistake that salespeople make when trying to implement social selling?
Automation. Many salespeople think they can create automated messages for prospects and blast them via InMails or LinkedIn messages. And, they wonder why they get no response.
Expecting too much, too soon. Social selling is the long game, not a quick win. Salespeople often think they’ll connect with a prospect on Monday, send them a message on Tuesday, get a call on Wednesday and seal the deal by Friday. There’s an assumption that social selling is just a quicker way to close the deal.
What is your “social selling superpower”?
Knowing exactly how to craft a social selling program that gets results and feels seamless to those participating in the program. Knowing which tactics will work for that individual business or sales team. Doing only what works. Nothing more. Nothing less.
How can our readers get in touch with you to learn more?
Connect with me on LinkedIn. Tweet me @mindirrosser about social selling. Or, check out my website http://www.mindirosser.com to find out more about my work and read my blog about social strategy.
Please nominate somebody to answer these same questions!
I’d like to hear how Jill Konrath works it!
Mindi Rosser
Latest posts by Mindi Rosser (see all)
- How I Work It – Social Selling with Mindi Rosser - July 5, 2017