Hearsay Social

How to balance social media risks and rewards

2013-05-20T21:49:12Z

Recently I had the pleasure of joining colleagues at Marsh and LinkedIn to speak on a timely webcast, “The New Reality of Risk: Balancing Social Media Risks and Rewards.” Watch a full replay of the webcast here.

With more and more of your employees using social media and social networking for sales, marketing, and other business activities, organizations must take conscious efforts to understand, evaluate, and mitigate the risks involved. In this webcast, we took a close look at what hurdles and benefits come from social sales and marketing.

Webcast participants included Mike Derezin (@mikedfresh), Global Head of Sales, Sales Solutions, LinkedIn; Adeola Adele, SVP, US Employment Practices Liability Practice Leader, Marsh; Robert Parisi, Managing Director, Marsh FINPRO; and myself. Thank you also to Regina Spratt, Managing Director, Marsh’s US Sales Leader for moderating.

Particularly inspiring were Mike’s introductory statements on the ubiquity of social media. Today, 91% of adults in the U.S. actively use social media. In the 18-24 year old range, that figure jumps to 98%. Around the world, over a billion people use Facebook to connect with family and friends, Twitter to follow specific interests, and LinkedIn to connect with colleagues and other professionals.

As social media becomes more and more valuable to both businesses and their customers, it’s clear today that governance is essential.

In developing social media governance, organizations must always start by setting clear goals and identifying exactly what risks are involved. At this stage, it is critical to receive input and buy-in across the C-suite to ensure that all the business needs are being met, from sales to marketing to compliance. Indeed, social media success requires cross-functional collaboration: you may view the organization departmentally, but the customer views you as a single unit.

Once goals have been established, next steps are to set a policy, train the organization, and enable social media activity. As a final and ongoing step, the organization must have a team in place to monitor and enforce all the guidelines they’ve established.

Ultimately, the greatest risk in all this is not being on social media at all. You must serve the customer where and when they prefer, especially if that means over mobile or on social media.

Thanks to Clara Shih from @hearsaysocial & Mike Derezin from @linkedin for joining today’s webcast. bit.ly/YfeOLs

— Marsh (@Marsh_Inc) April 17, 2013

#Socialmedia must be integrated throughout a business for it to see strong ROI. bit.ly/YfeOLs #NewRealityofRisk

— Marsh (@Marsh_Inc) April 17, 2013

Having a #socialmedia policy is critical for businesses. bit.ly/YfeOLs #NewRealityofRisk

— Marsh (@Marsh_Inc) April 17, 2013

Companies’ #socialmedia success & #riskmanagement requires cross-functional collaboration. bit.ly/YfeOLs #NewRealityofRisk

— Marsh (@Marsh_Inc) April 17, 2013

5 steps to #socialmedia governance: set goals, policies, train, enable activity & enforcebit.ly/YfeOLs #NewRealityofRisk

— Marsh (@Marsh_Inc) April 17, 2013

To see slides and hear the whole conversation, go the webcast.

Thrivent Financial’s path from social media compliance to ROI: Lessons from LinkedIn’s Financial Services Summit

2013-05-20T21:50:49Z

LEFT TO RIGHT: Knut Olson, SVP, Financial Network, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans; Paul Johnston, VP and Deputy General Counsel, Thrivent Financial; and Hearsay Social COO Michael Lock.

Many financial institutions get started on social media only to manage risk, but with the appropriate policies and processes in place, social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter can be extremely valuable for sales representatives. Yet many firms still struggle with making the transition from social media compliance to ROI.

At LinkedIn’s Global Financial Services Marketing Summit in New York last week, Hearsay Social COO Michael Lock (@michaelhlock) sat down with representatives from one of Hearsay Social’s customers, Thrivent Financial, to discuss their organization’s social selling success. Thrivent’s Head of Sales, Knut Olson, teamed up with his Head of Compliance, Paul Johnston, to share how they have gone beyond social media compliance to enable their financial advisors to sell socially.

Before using Hearsay Social, Thrivent was tracking social media activity for compliance manually, and it was so time-intensive that they could only allow a small number of field representatives on social. Eventually, however, they had to catch up wih the field.

“Social media is here,” said Paul. “Whether or not we like it from a compliance and legal perspective, our sales reps are going to be using it.” To make compliance manageable, Paul recommended assigning a single team or person to focus on understanding the technology and regulations. “The rules are changing rapidly” said Paul, and the “functionality of social networks is changing rapidly.”

It really helps having a point person to keep an eye on these constant changes. Also, Paul described how important it was to establish expectations cross-functionally, so that everyone remains flexible and can adjust as regulations or technology changes in the future.

Technology for his field sales organization, Knut described, was intended to “accelerate a human process that is already part of the business.” So, in their relationship-based business, social media was a no-brainer. Hearsay Social has Thrivent Financial sales representatives to attract prospects, build stronger relationships with customers, and grow business overall.

You can watch the full session here:

See more from the event:

LEFT TO RIGHT: Knut Olson, Michael Lock, and Paul Johnston.

Reestablishing trust via social media: Hearsay Social keynote panel at LinkedIn’s Global Financial Services Summit

2013-05-20T22:57:20Z

The Hearsay Social team was delighted to join LinkedIn and executives from across the financial industry in New York last week to discuss how marketing and sales strategies are evolving due to the seismic shift in online behavior from social media.

The impressive lineup of industry experts discussed everything from the state of the economy to the future of regulation and compliance on social media to an audience of 300 senior marketing and business leaders from around the globe.

Our CEO Clara Shih, who blogs regularly about social enterprise topics on LinkedIn, spoke on a fascinating keynote panel alongside Sallie Krawcheck (@SallieKrawcheck), Past President of Merrill Lynch and Herb Greenberg (@herbgreenberg) of CNBC. In their discussion, moderated by Dan Roth (@danroth), Executive Editor at LinkedIn, they discussed the impact social content on LinkedIn has had on them and their businesses. With some examples from some of the financial services firms Hearsay Social works with, Clara highlighted how social content can help financial advisors become experts in their field. Here is the video recording:

Earlier in the day, Jill Schlesinger (@jillonmoney), Senior Business Analyst at CBS News, gave a talk on the state of the economy, and encouraged organizations to speak to consumers in ‘their’ language: “If you can’t figure out a way to communicate with people in a way that they can take that information in, its useless.” She also highlighted the importance of regulation to consumer protection:

“We don’t want to discourage innovation, but we need to recognize the need for regulation” @jillonmoney #inFC13

— Hearsay Social (@HearsaySocial) May 2, 2013

Eileen Loustau, Global Director of Social Media at Blackrock/iShares, highlighted how social media can help organizations ‘humanize’ themselves. Saying, on social media, “try to be a person, not a company.”

Great advice…RT @hearsaysocial: Lessons learned from @isharesetfs: try to be a person, not a company #inFC13

— Renée Fishman (@reneefishman) May 2, 2013

A recurring theme throughout the day was how pervasive social media has become across financial services firms. Already, 1 out of every 3 professionals on the planet is on LinkedIn, according to David Hahn, Vice President of Product at LinkedIn. And those numbers are only growing.

Hearsay Social CEO Clara Shih and Jennifer Grazel, Global Head of Category Development – Financial Services, LinkedIn

1 out of every 3 of the world’s professionals is on LinkedIn and it continues growing @adsonlinkedin #inFC13 twitter.com/HearsaySocial/…

— Hearsay Social (@HearsaySocial) May 2, 2013

@hearsaysocial – Great conference yesterday! Thanks for the RTs! #inFC13

— iShares (@iSharesETFs) May 3, 2013

Like: “It’s easy to hate an institution. It’s hard to hate a person. @clarashih #infc13”

— Estelle Metayer (@Competia) May 3, 2013

Great meeting Clara Shih and team at the Linkedin conference today. #inFC13 #ChameleonConsul twitter.com/CathyCSmith/st…

— Cathy C. Smith (@CathyCSmith) May 3, 2013

@clarashih + the @hearsaysocial team linkedin #inFC13 @ Time Warner instagram.com/p/Y089Hqmigh/

— Aparna Mukherjee (@aparnamuk) May 2, 2013

Women rockstars at #inFC13 @salliekrawcheck @jillonmoney @clarashih. Fierce,authentic, outspoken and smart as hell!!

— Cathy Curtis (@cathycurtis) May 2, 2013

‘As mrketers you should arm your salesforce with approved compelling content for them to distribute via their network’ @clarashih #infc13

— Elizabeth Towler (@LizTowler) May 2, 2013

Paraphrasing a great quote from @clarashih “Today’s rep has to be a trusted advisor and not just transactional” #inFC13

— Matthew Breinich (@Cen3fugal) May 2, 2013

Social networks that engage people are different from social channels that distribute content like YouTube. Clara Shih #inFC13

— Cathy C. Smith (@CathyCSmith) May 2, 2013

There’s a difference between social networking sites and social media. @clarashih #infc13

— Ads on LinkedIn (@AdsOnLinkedIn) May 2, 2013

“This decade of #technology is about enhancing human beings. Web 1.0 was about replacing them.” @clarashih #infc13 twitter.com/neildicicco/st…

— Neil DiCicco (@neildicicco) May 2, 2013

Empower each employee to have an authentic voice while following compliance guidelines. @clarashih #inFC13

— Ads on LinkedIn (@AdsOnLinkedIn) May 2, 2013

Great advice…RT @hearsaysocial: Lessons learned from @isharesetfs: try to be a person, not a company #inFC13

— Renée Fishman (@reneefishman) May 2, 2013

See more from the event:

Highlights from Innovation Summit Toronto: Sales and Marketing in the Social Era

2013-05-20T22:57:51Z

Hearsay Social is in Canada!

In anticipation of the LIMRA LOMA Canada Annual Conference, we hosted the second event in our Innovation Summit thought leadership series in Toronto. The Innovation Summit yesterday brought together leaders and innovators from top Canadian financial services and insurance firms. Hearsay Social COO Michael Lock kicked off the event with a presentation about how firms must adapt to changing consumer behavior and build stronger relationships with customers by making the leap from social marketing to social sales.

The Honourable Kevin Lynch, Vice Chair of BMO Financial Group and former Clerk of the Privy Council, keynoted the event with a presentation entitled,”Disruptive Innovation and Us–From Banking to Baking, No Sector is Immune to Innovation.” Highlighting the importance of innovation, no matter the industry, Mr. Lynch focused specifically on financial services, where “innovation is the key to competitiveness.”

Part of the challenge he sees facing Canada is the limited focus on innovation and new ideas. Canada falls very low in rankings on productivity (72%) and innovation, ranking #20 in R&D. Banking is not at the forefront of technology, and Canadian companies may be even slower to move. There is opportunity, however. You just “can’t be a follower if you want to be a leader,” said the Honourable Mr. Lynch.

The changing financial services client

Following Mr. Lynch’s talk was a panel of industry leaders including Michelle Smyth, Director, Social Media, Sun Life Financial; Sulemaan Ahmed, Principal, Servo Annex; Jen Evans, CEO, Squeeze and Sequentia; and Silu Modi, VP, Associate Director, Digital Marketing, Macquarie; moderated by Brian Cook, Country Manager, Canada for Hearsay Social.

The panel conversation started with a discussion around how consumers have changed: 77% of consumers do research online and 45% do only online research according to one of the panelists. They discussed how some advisors have found success on social networks just watching who views their profiles; typically before they have a meeting, not only are advisors doing their research on clients, but clients are doing due diligence on their advisors.

Jen highlighted another opportunity, pointing out that 13% of leads and new relationships are coming from social media, according to a Hubspot study. She has seen evidence that, in a lengthy buy cycle, social media can help move people from weaker ties into stronger advocates.

Sulemaan made a comparison between social technologies emerging today and the way some companies approached email in prior decades. Speaking to a CEO about compliance trying to block a social media pilot, he told them, “You sat on the other side of this table and told me we didn’t need email. We did, and we’re moving forward with social.” Later, Sulemaan added, “People don’t connect with brands. They connect with people. Unleash them.”

Addressing the issue of compliance, Michelle opined that employees are going to participate in social media whether their employers want them to or not. Highlighting the importance of identifying business objectives of a social media initiative, she also noted that it’s “not about spending hours, but being smart.”

In the final session of the day, we heard from Brian Church, Country Manager, Canada Head of Sales Solutions, North America, LinkedIn, and Sabrina Geremia, Managing Director, Integrated Solutions, Google Canada. Sabrina described how they have seen the consumer path to purchase for the financial services industry change dramatically over the past decade. Customers are spending more and more time researching financial services online, and up to 25% of these queries are coming from mobile devices, according to various sources.

Brian backed up Sabrina’s point, citing a study from CEB indicating that 57% of B2B decisions are happening before any engagement with sales. This is a result, he explained, of how much information is available before a buyer even reaches the salesperson. Social media is having a massive effect on consumer decisions, and people are looking to their network to decide what’s important.

Unveiling the next generation of social sales

2013-05-20T22:58:02Z

Businesses have said time and again that social media only matters to them if it can drive sales. Recognizing this, and coinciding with LinkedIn’s ten-year anniversary this week, we at Hearsay Social are excited today to unveil the next generation of our innovative social sales platform.

With new capabilities launching today, our customers can move beyond yesterday’s sales tactics and successfully adapt to the era of social selling. More than ever before, Hearsay Social is dedicating itself to social selling success across regulated enterprises.

Developed specifically with sales representatives in mind, new features launching today include alerts for important events, activity feeds, improved calendaring, and a robust mobile experience. Using Hearsay Social, sales reps won’t miss a thing on the social networks. Further, these new capabilities will empower each sales rep to attract prospects, retain customers, and grow their business.

In addition to upgrading our sales solution, today we also launched the Hearsay Social Brand Solution, extending the valuable Hearsay Social capabilities that marketers are familiar with, to now support complex marketing team workflows and high-volume social media interaction. Brand marketing teams can even more effectively plan, publish, and measure messages across all social channels using the same enterprise platform already deployed across their field and compliance teams.

Everything you love about Hearsay Social is staying the same: we’re focused on sales, we’re enterprise ready, and we’re committed to our customers’ success on social media.

To learn more about today’s exciting news, see the press release or our coverage on Bloomberg.
Also, be sure to register for today’s webinar with Forrester on social selling.
How do social sellers make it to the top? Insights from LinkedIn Sales Connect.

FINRA compliance panel recap from LinkedIn’s Global Financial Services Summit

2013-05-20T22:58:38Z

This week, Hearsay Social had the honor of running the compliance track at LinkedIn’s Global Financial Services Summit in New York.

We were delighted to host Joe Price, Head of FINRA’s Social Media Task Force, along with Lisa Shalett, CMO of Goldman Sachs; Iain Duke-Richardet, Head of Technology Compliance at Royal Bank of Canada; Sean Shore, Business Conduct and Compliance Manager at National Bank Financial Wealth Management; and our very own Yasmin Zarabi, Compliance Officer at Hearsay Social for an interesting dialogue about the role and future of social media regulation in the industry.

LEFT TO RIGHT: Lisa Shalett, Iain Duke-Richardet, Sean Shore, Joe Price, and Yasmin Zarabi.

Yasmin kicked off the day with a discussion on how organizations must balance the regulatory risk of social media with the clear opportunity for social to support the financial organization. Joe Price then provided an overview about FINRA’s social media regulation. As a part of this, he clarified the difference between ‘static’ and ‘dynamic’ communication, reiterating that profile pages are static and status updates, tweets, and photos are considered dynamic.

Lisa is a huge advocate for social networking. She is head of brand and digital now, but her prior role as head of compliance and legal at Goldman Sachs gives her great context and credibility to speak on these topics. “There is a huge opportunity with social media,” she said, “if you become an expert now, you have the first mover advantage.” Lisa continued to stress the opportunity for compliance professionals that embrace social media. She compared the opportunity to email, saying, “it was not long ago that email was innovation.” And, Lisa suggested that because of the high-visibility of social media, compliance professionals willing to learn social would immediately get themselves a spot at the leadership table. Moreover, Lisa challenged the audience– what is the risk of NOT doing social media?

While the panelists had interesting perspectives and debated many issues, there was mutual agreement around the enormous business opportunity on social media. As long as financial firms and their employees adopt the appropriate policies, procedures, and technology, social media can be incredibly valuable for organizations to stay relevant and drive business in this new era.

See below for more photos and tweets from the event:

LEFT TO RIGHT: Yasmin Zarabi, Joe Price, Sean Shore, Iain Duke-Richardet, and Lisa Shalett.

Excited to hear from @hearsaysocial‘s @clarashih, @michaelhlock, and @yasminzarabi at #inFC13 ow.ly/kDVAs

— Seth Suntha (@SethSuntha) May 2, 2013

.@yasminzarabi gets called out as the only compliance person in the room at#inFC13 @hearsaysocial representing!

— Meagan Herfkens (@mherf) May 2, 2013

See more from the event:

BMO, Scotiabank, Sun Life Financial LinkedIn, and Hearsay Social to kick off LIMRA LOMA Canada Conference with Innovation Summit

2013-05-03T13:39:24Z

Today we are thrilled to announce that on Tuesday, May 7, ahead of the LIMRA LOMA Canada Annual Conference in Toronto, Hearsay Social will be hosting an Innovation Summit for financial industry leaders to discuss the future of financial services and relationship management in the social era.

This will be the second Hearsay Social Innovation Summit, you can see a recap of the inaugural event here:

With a keynote from Kevin G. Lynch, Vice-Chair of BMO Financial Group, former Clerk of the Privy Council, executives from top insurance and financial services organizations (including BMO Financial Group, Scotiabank, and Sun Life Financial) will join Hearsay Social and LinkedIn at the Fairmont Royal York to to talk social sales and marketing.

The disruptive forces of social media are changing the way financial services and insurance companies do business. With the growing availability of social sales productivity tools, these organizations cannot afford to be behind the curve; by participating in this event, participants are committing to exploring the cutting edge of technology.

Speakers include:

Kevin G. Lynch, Vice-Chair of BMO Financial Group, former Clerk of the Privy Council
Paul Regan, Head of Digital, Scotiabank
Michelle Smyth, Director, Social Media, Sun Life Financial (@michelle_smyth)
Michael Lock, COO, Hearsay Social (@michaelhlock)

Following the Innovation Summit, Hearsay Social and its partners will be attending the LIMRA and LOMA Canada 2013 Annual Conference at the same location, connecting with corporate leaders across the industry.

We look forward to exchanging ideas with innovators from around the globe, helping some of the worlds largest organizations identify opportunities to leverage new technologies and build relationships in the social era

Join Forrester, AXA Equitable, Wells Fargo, and Hearsay Social for “Selling in the Social Era”

2013-05-20T22:59:18Z

Every day, your customers and prospects go on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to share what’s happening in their lives. Your own network is full of valuable clues as to who needs to buy what and when, making it a treasure trove of leads.

Sales professionals, digital marketers, and others are welcome to join our webinar this Monday, May 6 at 11 AM PT: Selling in the Social Era.

In this webinar, our guest speaker, Forrester Research analyst Zachary Reiss-Davis (@ZacharyRD), will share key findings from a new Hearsay Social-commissioned study on the state of social selling. Also hear from Robert “Bucky” Wright, Senior Executive Director for AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company and Chairman of AXA Advisors, LLC, along with Cathy Price, VP of Digital Marketing at Wells Fargo, and Hearsay Social CEO Clara Shih (@ClaraShih), as they discuss best practices for sales and marketing leaders in this new era, including:

Strategies top sales leaders should consider to activate their social sales force
Understanding the customer lifecycle as individuals engage with social touch points
Top reasons sales people are successful on social platforms

If you can’t make it, register anyway and we’ll send you the study conducted by Forrester Consulting and the webcast after the event!

How can you use social media to drive sales? Social business experts weigh in at FT Digital Media Conference in London

2013-05-01T17:17:34Z

Hearsay Social is proud to have participated in the Financial Times Digital Media Conference, the flagship annual event that brings leading individuals together to discuss technological disruption of new and established media. Speakers included Sir Martin Sorrell, Group Chief Executive of WPP; Marion King, President of MasterCard Worldwide, UK & Ireland Division; and Clara Shih, CEO and Founder of Hearsay Social.

“This event is very focused on what the FT does best,” explains Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, Media Editor, Financial Times, “exploring the business models that will determine success in different markets around the world, from the perspective of both senior leaders of global media groups and today’s most promising digital entrepreneurs.”

Joining Clara on the “Business of Social” panel were Richard Waters, West Coast Managing Editor of the Financial Times; Christian Hernandez Gallardo, Director of UK and Pan-Euro at Facebook; Gilles Storme, VP of Advertising Sales, EMEA at King.com; and Richard Moross, CEO & Founder of Moo.com.

From left to right: Richard Waters, West Coast Managing Editor of the Financial Times; Hearsay Social CEO and Founder Clara Shih; Richard Moross, CEO & Founder of Moo.com; Gilles Storme, VP of Advertising Sales, EMEA at King.com; and Christian Hernandez Gallardo, Director of UK and Pan-Euro at Facebook.

“One of the highest signals that you will likely want to have a mortgage or car loan is a life change,” said Christian. “If you got engaged or are expecting, I guarantee you’re going to have a lot of expenses coming up. You will probably need some advice from a helpful financial advisor. Those social signals feed into an econometric model, and then we help them go back and actually talk to the customer at the right time.”

In an age where mistrust of corporations has never been higher, many companies are seeing success by using social media to promote their employees as ambassadors of the corporate brand.

“The traditional big media world is much more affected by individuals,” said Clara. “There is a blurring of lines across paid, earned and owned media. The same piece of content coming from a person versus a corporate brand performs better from an EdgeRank perspective and also ties back to individual curation. Consumers want to hear from human beings, oftentimes a friend or trusted advisor.”

More significantly, companies that effectively empower their employees on social media can activate an additional channel to connect with customers.

“Media is not just about paid, owned, and earned; there is also employed media. Your brand ambassadors can be extremely effective authentic channels for connecting with your customers and prospects,” Clara explained.

Watch a recording of the conversation on FT Live.

How social sellers make it to the top: Insights from LinkedIn Sales Connect

2013-04-26T23:52:12Z

Earlier this month, we at Hearsay Social had the opportunity to be a part of LinkedIn Sales Solutions’ inaugural summit, hosted by Mike Derezin (Global Head of Sales, Sales Solutions, LinkedIn) at the W Hotel in San Francisco. It was an incredibly inspiring event about how the selling discipline has evolved in the social era. I myself learned a tremendous amount and wanted to share the top takeaways.

Selling experts panel, from left to right: Jill Konrath, Kurt Shaver, Miles Austin, Koka Sexton.

Most of your customers are on social networks–that’s a given. But did you know that 75% of them are influenced by what they read there? In the social media era, buyers are more educated than ever before. (The Corporate Executive Board recently reported that the average B2B buyer is already 57% of the way through the purchase decision before even engaging with your sales rep.)

Traditional cold outreach today is essentially ineffective. Mass emails and brute force phone calls are annoying to your prospects, not helping to close deals. On the contrary, social selling tactics are helping businesses today increase sales through relationships and social data that help them find the right people, make introductions, and refine their messaging.

Typically, the path of a social salesperson follows four stages. First, a salesperson must establish and enhance their profile on the appropriate social network, typically LinkedIn or Facebook. Then there’s the initial wave of connecting with present and former colleagues, friends, and even family. You never know what connections will come in handy.

Once the social salesperson has set up their profile and connections, they must consistently work toward building their brand and establishing themselves as an authority in their particular area of expertise. This is done through status updates and sharing of original and third-party content. In the final stage of this path, the social salesperson reaches 2nd- and 3rd-degree contacts, and the process repeats.

Jill Konrath speaking at the Summit.

Many of these topics and others were discussed at LinkedIn SalesConnect earlier this month. One panel, dedicated entirely to “Social Selling,” included panelists Koka Sexton, Sr. Social Marketing Manager LinkedIn; Kurt Shaver, Founder, The Sales Foundry; Miles Austin, The Web Tools Guy; and Jill Konrath, author of SNAP Selling. Jill conducted a large-scale research study looking at top-performing sales reps versus their average peers and found four major differences in whether and how they used social networking sites in the selling process.

Here are four ways social sellers make it to the top, based on Jill’s study:

1. Top sellers do their homework.

Top sellers have mastered use of LinkedIn as a research tool. They always research prospects before reaching out, compared to their regular sellers who often cold call without context. By the time top sellers reach out via phone, email, or InMail, they are able to speak knowledgeably and credibly regarding their prospect’s role, company, and industry, and to reference past job experiences as well as mutual connections.

2. Top sellers invest in growing their networks.

On average, top sellers have much bigger networks and invest in continuing to grow those networks compared to their peers. Top-performing reps make a habit of connecting to existing customers, who can provide valuable references or introductions for future deals. Jill says that “social networks make it so that reps don’t have to fight the delete button” because they can go in warm.

In addition, top B2B sellers connect with not just one or two contacts at a prospect organization but many contacts. They hedge their bets, refusing to put all their eggs in one basket lest a particular contact become unresponsive, act as a gatekeeper, or leave the company. To continually update their knowledge on accounts, sellers can create targeted prospect lists with saved searches on LinkedIn.

3. Top sellers invest in a professional presence on social networks.

They take the time to always include a photo and to ensure that it is professional yet personable. Top reps articulate relevant skills and experience, and share content to showcase their subject matter expertise. Importantly, top sellers write their profiles as they would want the customer, not a recruiter, to read it. Instead of bragging that they are “the #1 rep” or “a hard closer,” they view their profiles from the customer’s eyes and ask “do I appear like someone a customer would want to work with?”

4. Top sellers invest in content (status updates and groups)

Top sellers understand LinkedIn has evolved from just a place to post your resume to a full-fledged content sharing network with streams and groups. They set aside a few minutes every week, if not every day, to share timely status updates and relevant articles they find across the Web. In addition, the best performers also make a point of joining highly targeted groups on LinkedIn to find what their customers and/or peers are talking/asking about. These are triggers that help top sellers stay top-of-mind in a low touch way and keep in contact with their customers.

Congratulations to Mike and the entire LinkedIn Sales Solutions team on a great event!