In today’s constantly connected world, where mobile b2b buyers complete some 70% of their purchase before contacting a vendor, you’d think that social selling and social intelligence would be must have’s in every salesperson’s toolbox.
However, new research from KiteDesk, an intelligent prospecting and social selling platform provider for Salesforce users, shows that this simply isn’t the case. Social media adoption by front-line salespeople is moving a bit quicker than molasses, but not by much. According to preliminary results, less than half of frontline sales people are using social media for prospecting, monitoring conversations and engaging intelligently with potential customers and their influencers during the sales process. Which means that only early adopters are reaping all the benefits that social has to offer.
My experience working closely with b2b salespeople over the past decade has shown me that buyers want to feel connected to the salespeople they do business with. They’re looking for a relationship, not just a quick handshake. And the statistics back me up: A Sales Guy CEO Jim Keenan says that 72.6 percent of salespeople who use social media as an integral part part of the sales process surpass their peers, and exceed quota 23 percent more often.
With this in mind, KiteDesk commissioned influencer relations firm Evolve!, Inc., to identify the 30 most influential, best and brightest in social sales. We vetted more than 500 candidates for their topical expertise, categorized based on crowdsourced endorsements and scored based on measures such as social footprint, popularity among and citations by industry insiders, retweet frequency and related factors. Weights were assigned to each factor to pinpoint the 30 most influential social sales people online, which you can take a look at here:
As Kyle Porter, CEO of SalesLoft, explains, one social sales strategy that is particularly successful is reaching out to prospects where they are. “If they are on Twitter, go there! Advertise using Twitter hashtags related to events in your industry. Follow all the contacts in your ‘open CRM opportunities’ list on a Twitter private list. Be where your prospects are.”
Mike Weinberg, principal at The New Business Sales Coach, believes that social media not only helps you understand your prospects, but it can help you reach out and renew fading relationships: “I reinvigorated a major opportunity for my own business that had stalled by writing a blog post with this particular prospect in mind. I used what I learned about their situation from my personal social network and from research, and tailored my post to push a few hot buttons. Using both social media and good old fashioned email as vehicles, three key executives read the piece within 24 hours, and I received a call directly from the CEO saying that he wanted to meet with me.”
On the flipside, Mark Roberge, Senior Vice President of Sales and Services at HubSpot, has words of warning for salespeople who ignore social: “I probably receive about 30 cold calls a day from various vendors. One day, I ran a quick test. I actually opened one of their prospecting emails. I visited their website. I followed the company on social media. And guess what? The rep did not call right away. The rep had no idea. I did not receive a call until a week later and there was no reference to the actions I took.”
While not all social sales experts agree, Julio Viskovich, senior digital strategy architect at Glacier and consultant at NexLevel Sales, believes that with the right tools, training and senior-level support, frontline sales reps will quickly move towards large-scale social media adoption: “We will see budgets shift from traditional training and tools to social sales-focused tools, intelligence and training,” he says, “Also, look for B2B sales teams to be empowered to be micro-marketers and content providers through social media.”
Ease of use is a significant barrier to adoption for any technology, which is why Lori Richardson, sales strategist, speaker and author, believes that, “things need to be easy to adopt and maintain. And that includes learning the new skills for social selling strategies and incorporating them throughout the sales process.”
Businesses also need to foster executive buy-in and champion the process internally. Only then will businesses truly see the benefits that social sales has to offer.