Ep.4 – Social Selling: Why Your B2B Salespeople Should Care

The Sales Way

Hi everyone, so the topic of today’s episode is Social Selling: Why Should Your B2B Sales Teams Care? Over the next few minutes, we’re going to be diving into social selling, specifically for B2B sales teams. So what is social selling?

Well, it’s about using social media to connect and build relationships with customers and prospects. In research from CSO Insights, 33% of respondents said that social selling had enabled their teams to increase the number of leads they had, and 31% said it enabled them to build deeper relationships with clients. (Source: https://blog.hootsuite.com/what-is-social-selling/)

If your salespeople aren’t already incorporating social selling into their sales kit bag, now is the time to do so.

So why should B2B salespeople care about social selling? We look at 3 important reasons why reps should start thinking about incorporating social selling into their prospecting.

1) It lays the foundation for sales reps to go in and contact customers. So by posting on social media, connecting with the right prospects and getting known for sharing valuable and useful content that is pertinent to their prospects, sales reps are laying the groundwork for when they first make contact with those customers. Prospects are more likely to recognise your sales rep if they’ve been an avid poster about topics that the customer cares about on LinkedIn for example and if they’re connected into their prospect’s network already. So when that new business account manager then emails or phones the customer, they have some common ground already.

2) It helps reps to build a name for themselves We live in the age of personal branding, but not enough salespeople are harnessing this amazing opportunity to build a personal brand for themselves across social media platforms. The great thing about social media, is that it’s almost like a CV for sales reps – a tool they can take with them as they move into new jobs. Think about this – you’ve got two sales reps that you’re considering hiring. If, on paper, each of them has the same level of experience and skill set, but one has built up a following on LinkedIn and Twitter by regularly engaging in discussions about topics in your industry, they regularly share insights that are useful and thought-provoking to their customers and they have thousands of followers across social media – which one is going to be a more attractive proposition as a sales hire? Social selling is a chance for reps to build their own thought leadership platform – to help them connect with more customers, sell more and improve their career prospects.

3) It helps salespeople to build a bigger, broader network of partners, prospects, customers and influencers. Social selling isn’t just about connecting with customers – it’s also about building and strengthening your network so that you are connected to the people who matter. If you only sell into one contact at a customer, then social media can help you to expand your reach to other contacts, across other departments, at your customer. So maybe today you speak to the IT department at your customer, but in time, you might use social media to start engaging with different business units such as Finance and Marketing to ensure you’re involved in new discussions about their own IT requirements. Or perhaps it can give you access to more partners who sell into those prospects where you want to gain access.

In simple terms, it’s the door into a whole world of contacts who can make your job easier – and help you to be more successful. And again, reps should care because that network moves with them as they change jobs – so it’s a win-win for sales reps.

In future episodes, we’re going to look at how you can build a social selling culture across your sales organisation, how you can get sales reps posting and social selling, and tips and insights for how to get the best results. So to recap today’s key points for why your b2b sales reps should care about social selling, I’m going to summarise the points quickly: **

1. Social selling lays the foundation for reps making their first contact with customers

2. It helps salespeople to build their personal brand

3. It enables your reps to build stronger and wider networks

** For more information on B2B sales enablement, head on over to https://contemsa.com – and we’d really appreciate a share, follow or review on whichever platform you use to listen to us on! To find out where to listen to other episodes of The Sales Way – just go to https://thesalesway.com and you can get links to find us on iTunes, Google, Stitcher and Spotify.

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