Social Selling Without Borders - My 51 Hours in London Town

I've had the privilege of attending a lot of industry shows in my career, however, it's not every day that attending a show brings me across the pond. Last week I packed my best bespoke suit and touched down in London Town for a one-day shakedown on Social Selling. On top of being held in one of the world's most incredible cities, I also had an opportunity to rub shoulders with one of the brightest leaders in social; LinkedIn.

SalesConnect London was a phenomenal show with a handful of keynote speakers, including legendary explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes (Google that guy; your head might explode). And while Social Selling may not have a whole lot to do with running 7 marathons on 7 continents in 7 seven days, or trekking from Pole to Pole without ever stepping aboard an aircraft, one teeny commonality here is that each new venture comes with its own handful of naysayers. 

There'll always be haters, that's the way it is.

Whether you view Social Selling as a load of tosh, the latest buzzword off which a dozen startups trying to make a buck, or the next wave of sales, you cannot argue with the facts: 78% of sales professionals that utilize social outperform their peers, and are 6x more likely to exceed quota.... yes, 6x. (Forbes) 

It's not enough anymore for sales professionals to simply get cute and creative with their prospecting efforts. The chances your prospect has already received an email inquiry of whether they're OK after being chased by a rhino are pretty high by now. Sales professionals need to be actively sharing and engaging in ways that educate and uplift their prospects, which involves meeting them in the places where they find their data and content; online social communities.

In my post "What is Social Selling Anyway" I dove into social selling as more than simply blasting your corporate propaganda across social channels, & that Social selling begins with 4 steps: Connect, Listen, Share, and Influence. The folks at LinkedIn have taken this notion into consideration by establishing the SSI, or Social Selling Index, as a way to assess where you sit currently in the Social Selling game. Mine looks a bit like this:

This nifty, familiar-looking barometer is a way to get a more granular look at how you're accomplishing the first steps to social selling. This is a huge gamechanger for sales reps, as a recent study from Pardot revealed that 2/3 companies have no social media strategy for their sales teams, and nearly 93% of sales execs have had no formal training on social media.

You'll notice one of the 4 components of your SSI is to "Engage with Insights", or  rather to share content and influence your networks in meaningful ways. This requires cross-functional collaboration. You need support from marketing and technology teams to make sure your sales teams have the right infrastructure in place to find great content and track how that content performs. Even more importantly, teams need a clear set of tools and processes to get up and running. It is not enough to tell your sales teams to "tweet more". A solid support system is the crux to:

• Discovering good content (outside your company content) that can be shared easily
• Keeping up on conversations 
• Measuring the results of social activity & how it is driving your company's bottom line

You don't need to be an expert at social media to pick up selling on social either. Dare I say, even the most tenured sales reps have found that engaging with prospects via meaningful content is super simple when enabled with the right tools. If you're new to the scene, wondering how to get your execs bought in, or looking to maximize your own social selling efforts and boost your SSI, I suggest checking out EveryoneSocial's Beginner's Guide to Social Selling.

And while my stint in London was shorter than an optimal trip to kick it with my bedrin, SalesConnect further solidified my position on Social Selling as a moving  force spanning well across the globe, and the bee's knees to any sales professional's efforts to hit their target. 

Is your org in on the Social Selling scene yet? Please share in the comments as I'd be honored to hear how it's affected your strategy, and what's working / not working for you.