Social Selling University

Update Your LinkedIn Profile for Social Selling

Editor — Mon, 16 Nov 2015 18:41:19 +0000

A recent guest post by HubSpot’s Emma Snider on Heinz Marketing’s blog focused on how to update your LinkedIn profile to maximize its effectiveness in your social selling efforts. It’s definitely worth a read, even if you think your profile is tip-top.

Emma’s tips include the following:

Picture: First of all, have one. The more recent, the better.
Headline: Don’t just list your title and company. Follow the convention “I help [target market] with [problem] by [value proposition].”
Summary: Three paragraphs with no more than three sentences each. Focus on the results you enabled for clients instead of your personal victories.
Recommendations: Seek endorsements from customers after you’ve worked with them for six months.
Groups: Join at least three groups your target buyer would be a member of, and participate in them.

Read the complete post here.

Matt Heinz: Social Selling & Pipeline Petting Zoos

Editor — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 17:04:00 +0000

Matt Heinz published a great list of his “recent reads” on his blog at Heinz Marketing. Two of the items were of particular note:

How to get more people to share your content, and
Disruptive social selling technologies

Barb Giamanco: Sales Acceleration Is An Inside Job

Barbara Giamanco — Tue, 27 Oct 2015 17:08:32 +0000

As a seller, are you responsive? Think carefully about this question.

Do you know exactly how long it takes you to respond to email and phone calls from prospective clients?

How quickly are you responding to leads that come from the marketing department? Do you respond at all?

How often do you have to say someone, “I’ll get back to you.”, because you did not know the answer to their question?

What about your proposal creation and delivery time? Do you respond within an hour or two, or is it more like days?

In today’s fast-paced, competitive business world, it is all about velocity.

Read the rest of this post over at Barb Giamanco’s Igniting Sales Transformation blog.

Matt Heinz: Four lies (and four truths) about social selling

Editor — Thu, 15 Oct 2015 16:49:52 +0000

Matt Heinz, founder of Heinz Marketing, wrote a past blog post that focused on the biggest lies of social selling and how they cause confusion. He lists those lies as follows, and then goes on to debunk them and give the real truth behind each.

Lie #1: You can use social media as a sales channel
Lie #2: Social selling is replacing traditional sales
Lie #3: Social media leads are warm leads
Lie #4: Prospects are easier to reach on social media

Read the complete post from Matt Heinz here.

The Best Sales Techniques Won’t Win You Clients, But Here’s What Will

Joanne Black — Mon, 12 Oct 2015 16:03:39 +0000

Without strong relationships, your sales career is DOA.

Salespeople are asking the wrong questions: What are the best sales techniques? What tech tools will help me generate hot leads and land new clients?

It’s not what will help you win clients; it’s who.

The answer is you. Yes, you are the very best tool in your sales toolkit. You know how to have conversations and build relationships—the most important ingredients for sales success. You nurture professional and personal networks that keep your sales pipeline full of referral leads. Technology can aid the sales process, but it can’t make real human connections. That’s the job of salespeople.

Read the rest of this post from Joanne Black at NoMoreColdCalling.com.

Webinar: How to Implement a Social Selling Strategy, with Barb Giamanco

Editor — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 20:45:18 +0000

If your team isn’t fully on-board with using social and professional networks to target and engage with companies and contacts, maybe you need some help in implementing your strategy.

Why? Because socially savvy reps are 6.7 times more likely to exceed their quota!

Join social selling advisor Barb Giamanco on Thursday, October 8th at 10am PT (1pm ET) for this free webinar on How to Implement a Social Selling Strategy.

Click here to ~~register~~ view the recording.

Created specifically for sales and marketing professionals, Barb will use real-world examples to show how to leverage social media to accelerate the sales process and improve customer relationships.

In less than an hour you will learn how to:

Expand networks and build credibility.
Generate new and upsell pipeline.
Design a strategy to track the results.

NOTE: If you were unable to join us, you can still view the recording here.

Barb Giamanco: Closing the Sales Productivity Gap with Robin Saitz, Brainshark CMO

Barbara Giamanco — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 15:00:25 +0000

Barb Giamanco had a fantastic interview recently with Robin Saitz, chief marketing office at Brainshark. You can read the highlights of the interview over at Barb’s blog, here.

Some interesting tidbits that Robin shared included the fact that 38% of companies lack a formal process to prepare or train new sales reps.

Add in a social selling learning curve and the deck is stacked against many new reps!

Check out Barb’s blog post for more insights as well as a streaming copy of the complete interview.

Why Your Content’s Context Matters for Social Selling

Editor — Wed, 16 Sep 2015 19:18:04 +0000

Brainshark just released a new ebook, What is Content in Context? (And Why it Matters for Sales), where they look at how putting content in context can help eliminate the time reps waste searching for or creating content.

Related to social selling, the context of your content matters. Just pushing random marketing or product content at a prospect can undermine your ability to effectively engage. Giving them access to content that’s relevant, that matters to them, that is related to their business challenges, is how engagement works. Sadly, Brainshark cites an Aberdeen Study which found that only 23% of companies have CRM that includes a content management component.

Joanne Black: Don’t Confuse Recommendations with Referral Leads

Joanne Black — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 16:25:10 +0000

“Turn 70 percent of your prospects into customers.”

That statement got my attention—not just because it sounded too easy, but because I wasn’t sure where the data came from or how accurate it was. Sure, referral leads are top-notch, but they don’t just appear.

I dug a little deeper and learned the statistic referred to the Net Promoter Score (NPS)—a tool many companies use to survey clients about their willingness to recommend these businesses to others.

NPS provides relevant data that measures how well customers like us and our products. It can make us feel good about the work we’re doing…or not, depending on the results. A high NPS is certainly a good start, but without follow-up, it amounts to nothing but bragging rights.

Read the rest of Joanne Black’s post on her blog, No More Cold Calling.

Heading to Dreamforce? Check Out InsideView’s Open Lounge!

Editor — Thu, 10 Sep 2015 01:23:57 +0000

Last year InsideView launched Open Lounge @ Dreamforce, which provided a relaxing spot for Dreamforce attendees to network, learn, and unwind. It helped over 1,500 people take a break and learn a few things during the chaos of Dreamforce.

This year, Open Lounge promises to be even bigger and better, with a wide range of engaging speakers and innovators for even more thought-provoking sessions. It even features Social Selling 101 and a great Social Selling Workshop.

In addition to refueling with fabulous refreshments, this year’s sessions will expand the way you think about B2B with great content and networking opportunities. Register now, or read on for details!

Here’s just a taste of what you can expect at Open Lounge:

Analyst Debrief of Dreamforce Keynotes: To help you interpret the impact of the main Marc Benioff Dreamforce keynote, Forrester analyst Laura Ramos, Jim Dickie of CSO Insights, and other industry influencers will be on hand for immediate commentary following the keynote session. The session will be moderated by our own CEO, Umberto Milletti.

Social Selling 101 with Barb Giamanco: Barb Giamanco is one of today’s top sales innovators and a pioneer in social selling. She will be at Open Lounge to helm a session titled Social Selling 101. If you are just starting to scratch the surface of social selling, or you aren’t sure how it can help you, definitely plan to attend this session.

Better Sales Conversations from Brainshark: For sales leaders, we’re hosting a panel discussion on “Insights for Better Sales Conversations.” Today’s buyers are highly educated and your sales reps need to be ready. The panel features Joe Gustafson, CEO of Brainshark; Walter Rogers, CEO of CCI Global Holdings; and Sharon Little, Research Director, Sales Enablement Strategies at SiriusDecisions. They’ll be moderated by Robin Saitz, CMO of Brainshark.

This is just a taste of what you’ll find at Open Lounge 2015, but complete details can be found here.

Want to join us? Click Yes! Save me a seat.