MOVING SOCIAL CONVERSATIONS INTO SOLID SALES PIPELINE

SOCIAL SELLING MASTERY FOR SALES

©The Digital Sales Institute

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FROM CREDIBILITY TO CONSIDERATION

SOCIAL SELLING

LEAD NURTURING

LEAD GENERATION

PIPELINE

DEALS

ConnectingConversations

SharingEngagingBe Useful

CredibilityContentBe Seen

Be Found

ConversionConsideration Be ValuableSales

Opportunities Be Offline

Consistency Be Valuable

80% OF BUYERS ACTUALLY MAKE IT TO THE END OF THE SALES CYCLE AND MAKE NO

DECISION” – STANFORD BUSINESS SCHOOL

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MOVING CONVERSATIONS TO OFFLINE LEADS

The conversion from social selling to pipeline happens when offline sales conversations begin, opportunities are identified, and revenue is created that’s attributed to social conversations.

There’s no money made until somebody sells something, your social prospects have limited value without conversion.

We now enter the phase of approaching contacts/connections you have nurtured via social selling with the goal of converting a target percentage into your sales pipeline.

Closing the Social Selling loop – the success rate of buyer conversations, to conversion and into sales leads is based on quality of effort (not just quantity).

So take time out to review your social selling and content plan alongside your social purpose.

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THE SOCIAL VALUE TOUCH

Social selling communication is the tool you should be using as the “value” tool in tandem with the phone and email.

The infusion of social selling into your sales process will now allow you to give some type of business value (remember “Givers Gain”) instead of the standard “ask” to the buyer on the front end.

The value of social selling is that it is far more effective to channel your time helping customers form an opinion rather than trying to change one.

Social value touch points are precise and specific to each connection/prospect.

When the timing is right, they are designed as a conversion point from connection into a sales lead.

Actions like sharing a webinar, similar case study, exclusive whitepaper, VIP or Breakfast event invite -directly to their social network account (1 to 1 personalized) is considered a value touch.

The key is to find the most personal, valued and relevant touch points that connect you with your prospects situation.

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CONVERSIONS IS LINKED TO CONTENT AND CONVERSATIONS

This is where social selling activity converts into Sales Pipeline. (lead nurturing to qualified lead)

To drive social conversions into the sales pipeline, your content, messaging and social value touch must have shown how you can resolve the risks identified by the prospect .

Prospect “Awareness of Issue” moves towards “Consideration to Change”.

Using both the social channels and offline sales process you need to re-affirm your ability to deliver a safe scenario proposal (Decision to move forward).

A true social selling process still includes email and phone as touches but incorporates social media as the “value” (giving) touches in the process.

Remember, research shows it takes anywhere from sixteen to twenty two touches on average to get a qualified buyer demo at the mid-market and enterprise level.

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SOCIAL SELLING MATERIALIZES INTO SALES PERFORMANCE

Two important questions we should be asking ourselves to demonstrate the impact of social selling on sales metrics such as pipeline and revenue.

‒What percentage of our target social prospects are CONVERTING TO SALES LEADS?

‒What percentage of those sales leads are CONVERTING TO ACTUAL CLOSED DEALS?

82% of B2B decision makers think that sales people are unprepared when approaching them. – Forrester.

Increasing your overall sales conversion rate is really more about searching for opportunities (signals, interactions, value touches, questions, triggers) rather than trying to persuade someone to buy.

Use Dunbar's Number to move prospects in and out of your conversion hit list.

Note: The chances of selling to a buyer in Status Quo mode is less than 5%.

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THE FOUR BLOCKS TO CHANGE AND CONVERSION

Status Quo

Selection difficulty

Cost of change

Anticipated regret

Buyers prefer

stability

Assume that many of your purposeful connections will still be in the status quo or awareness stage.

So, these roadblocks have to be planned and accounted for within your - Social selling plan, - Content - Conversationsas part of the overall Sales process

We must be able to disrupt a buyer’s

status quo. On the Buyers

journey social media is NOW the primary

opinion shaper

Your social selling activity needs to portray

the cost of staying the same as MORE costly

than change. Your content and

conversations should create that contrast.

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PROSPECT CONTACT PREPARATION

“Are you ready to take the next step and engage the buyer?”‒ You have an understanding of that organization.

‒Knowledge about the business challenges that they have.

‒Understanding of the future strategy (industry or company).

You have identified a trend, challenge or opportunity you can assist with.

You have the ability to share social value touches, to go in and have an executive level dialogue that aligns with the signals/insights that the contact has shared.

People and companies buy because they have a need, a want or both. Do you understand what these are via social interactions and signals.

Can you meet the desires of your prospects on their wavelength with relevant messaging.

Before you can sell your product, you need to sell your intentions.

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PROFILE YOUR LEADS

After casting a wide social selling net, now you need to separate the qualified connections from the unqualified connections.

Create an extended Ideal Customer Profile for each prospect which includes their social media channels.

What signals and information are they offering across their social media channels?.

What signal, event or trigger have you identified to lead the engagement with?.

What social value touch points will you engage them with?.

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ANALYZE THE PROSPECT

Analyze prospect social behavior and patterns, look for recent connections, comments, trips, conferences and events.

What are the top topics the prospect interacts with?

What hashtags have they used most frequently in the last 30 days?

How socially active are they?

Are there any shared connections or similarities you can leverage?

Is there industry news, trends or events worth mentioning?

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SCORE YOUR TARGETS

Which prospects are the most relevant?

How many social value touches have happened?

List prospects into journey stages such as “Status Quo” “Awareness” and “Consideration”

Score your leads on demographic and behavioral attributes.

The attributes are based on information that is publicly available from social profiles and interactions, such as conversations, likes, tweets and posts.

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SCALE ENGAGEMENT THROUGH NURTURING

We know that social channels are connected to real people in the real world, and our social conversations have been sincere and authentic.

Plan out the number of social value touches over a period of time with the connected prospects you have started conversations with or identified as potential prospects.

Personalize the context of your messages and content to the furthest extent possible to the buyer in preparation to engage.

Follow your social selling process in order to lead you to the point where the timing will be right for you to ask for a customer’s commitment to engage.

After profiling, analyzing and scoring your social prospects, your social selling process of building credibility through content and conversations lead to this point.

‒ The Time to Move Connections into Sales Pipeline

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LESSON SUMMARY

The conversion from social selling to pipeline happens when offline sales conversations begin, opportunities are identified, and revenue is created that’s attributed to social conversations.

Closing the Social Selling loop – the success rate of buyer conversations to conversion into sales leads is based on quality of effort (not just quantity).

The key is to find the most personal and relevant touch points that connect you with your leads

A true social selling process still includes email and phone as touches but incorporates social media as the “value” (giving) touches in the process.

Increasing your overall sales conversion rate is really more about searching for opportunities (signals, interactions, questions, triggers) rather than trying to persuade someone to buy.

The key is to find the most personal, valued and relevant social touch points that connect you with your prospects situation.

Follow your social selling process in order to lead you to the point where the timing will be right for you to ask for a customer’s commitment to engage.