Social selling workshop key points

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From Left to Right: Frederic Chauvire (SAP), Carmel O’Boyle (Oracle) and Declan McGonigle (Indde.com)

IRELAND CHAPTER

Interview Panel at the Social Selling Workshop which was held at the IDA OfficesHighlights

from the Recent Social

Selling in Inside Sales

Workshop

Friday 13 March 2015

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The Panel were interviewed by Ake Braedt (far left) from LinkedIn

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Key points taken from the Interview panelCarmel O'Boyle from Oracle

• 70% of the sales cycle is over by the time buyers start to engage with possible suppliers• Social selling is the current trend and it's not going away for the foreseeable future• Assumed millennials would be more comfortable with social selling than other

'generations' - Carmel's experience is that this is not the case. This point was also backed up by Fred Chauvire from SAP (speaking later)

• Carmel suggests critical pillars for any social selling strategy is to ensure all sellers are (1) Socially Complete (Training - Skills & Knowledge of various platforms) and (b) Socially compliant from both a personal and an organisational perspective

• Key Point: Also need to educate team on cultural idiosyncrasies - particularly in a Global / EMEA sales team.

• Need to keep tight controls on 3rd party content - particularly at early stages of on boarding people . (Social feeds / social content). Over time people will develop better judgment as to what constitutes useful and appropriate 'thought leadership .. but this takes education & time.


• Developing appropriate metrics around areas such as the following are key a) revenue b) Movement through the pipeline c) amount of conversations moved offline towards sales opportunities d) Quality of stakeholders engaged with e)Have we done business with them recently

• Carmel also suggests that it is very important to have an 'internal in company networking metric"

• Carmel concludes with - 'Social selling is an exercise in change management and must be managed, monitored and measured accordingly.

Carmel O'Boyle from Oracle Contd…..


Frederic Chauvire from SAP

• Appropriate metrics are a key challenge

• Activity metrics are easy but commercial and return on investment metrics are not.

• Management need to be careful and ensure metrics are meaningful and move the organisation closer to achieving commercial results. If not careful, activity based metrics will result in some agents engaging in activity to be 'compliant'.

• Tools like sales navigator in LinkedIn add great value from a coaching perspective. It allows the senior sales manager challenge the 'reach out' process being used by the inside sales agent.

• Making thought leadership relevant to target audience one of the biggest challenges.


• Indeed are at the evolutionary stage of social selling

• Suggests up front classroom style training is key

• Need for clear guidelines to keep the company and individuals safe.

• Metrics are the biggest challenge

• Currently trying to get people consistent and compliant - in terms of both posting and growing a connection base

Declan McGonigle from Indeed.com


Question 1

IRELAND CHAPTER

How do you measure the impact of social selling in your inside sales teams:

(What have you tried? What has worked? How do you balance time invested in social selling activities

with a return on 'investment'?)


Question 1 - Answers

IRELAND CHAPTER

• Very difficult to measure the direct impact of social selling however you can measure the influence you have by use of tools like the Social Selling Index, Klout (you can see how active a person is) and you could also measure from Re-tweets or Favoured posts etc.

• Most commonly used is LinkedIn, followed by Twitter – with one company using a digital business card.

• With customers researching via social media prior to making final decisions, companies have to be visibly active and relevant.


Question 2

IRELAND CHAPTER

How and where do you integrate social selling into your sales process?


Question 2 Answers

IRELAND CHAPTER

Use it end to end, some examples are:

Demand generation – especially good for acquiring net new customers Account management Renewals Gamification – competition that measures Klout score for each rep and

gain points the number connections you make, content you share etc. Account discovery Virtual Summit – invited network of customers to attend through social

media a virtual summit which was a webinar – more registrations and attendees than using traditional methods

Recruitment – check candidates social activity on LinkedIn/Twitter etc. before making a hiring decision – have found that the more active a person is, the more successful they are when they join as they are natural at multi-tasking.


Question 3

IRELAND CHAPTER

The Social Selling challenge: How does your organisation marry the company

social selling agenda with the social selling agenda of the individual inside sales agent?

(They are not mutually aligned)


Question 3 Answers

IRELAND CHAPTER

You do not have control over your employee’s LinkedIn profile, what they post etc.

You can give guidance and training on how to be socially compliant

Management need to lead by example

Score their LinkedIn profile against criteria and provide feedback on how to improve in order to create a professional BRAND and improve DISCOVERABILITY and REACH e.g. Professional photo Customer Focused Headline Put in the Company Disclaimer. *Views expressed here are my own

and not necessarily the views of Company Name” Show Your Personality (voluntary, affiliations, sport etc.) Add Rich Media Attachments (80/20 Rule) Language Considerations – 1st party OR 3rd party


Question 4

IRELAND CHAPTER

How do you ensure your reps represent your brand appropriately on Social channels ? (could open discussion on social media policies,

mitigating risk on social media)

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Starts with Hiring – presenceCandidates should have a great presence on social media upon interview- this gives an indicator of their approach to professional brand

Peer learningEmployees learn from each other, having a peer group review of online social profiles will help with employee brand representation to the market and create competition among the peer groups

Company GuidelinesCompany guidelines on what is deemed a company appropriate social profile will help steer employees in the right direction to create social media profiles as ambassadors for their brands.

Question 4- Answers


Question 5

IRELAND CHAPTER

"Social selling now means inside sales professionals pick up the telephone much

less than is ideal" Discuss


QualificationSocial selling allows the sales person to better qualify leads and prospects, reducing the overall sales cycle time and providing a better customer experience

Enabling SalespersonSocial sellers are better enabled with insights on leads and prospects to have more informed sales conversations therefore increasing relevance of sales message

Social v EmailWhen 90% of DM’s do not respond to cold outreach (either by phone or email), social is fast becoming a better means to connect with your prospects…..in-mails/tweets are now an acceptable means of transacting in todays business world

Question 5 - Answers


Have you seen any differences in adoption across your teams – regionally ? Why ?

Question 6


Question 6 - AnswersYes – regionally and industry• France – Hierarchy – lower• UK – Flat – Higher• Ireland very high rate• Middle East High (2009)

Anglophone tools – prevalent• Germany - high adoption, International, Efficient• Austria less central to networking – less international• Media/gaming - fast• SMB V Enterprise

Metrics• Performance of Business – using camp. code