If you’ve ever heard me speak, you know that I have some strong opinions on things related to social media and what I would call “right sales behavior”. It isn’t that my way is the only way, because of course, it is not. Having sold professionally for close to 30-years, I do have just a bit of experience in this area. There are just some things that salespeople continue to do that drive me a little nuts. Add social media into the mix and well…more stuff to rant about.

My mission (and that of our company) is to help sales leaders and their sales team members bring their “A” game to the evolving world of sales. Though aspects of the sales process remain important…things like identifying and assessing needs, crafting solutions that help your customers improve their business or gaining commitment haven’t changed, other things about the process today have changed.

What’s different?

What has changed is that your buyers buy differently! That means that YOU as sales professionals need your sales A-game to include the smart use of social media as part of your overall sales process. Does it?

On to my rant about the little things…

• Take 30-seconds and personalize your LinkedIn connection invitation. I ignore the “friend” requests…save those for Facebook folks. I also pretty much ignore the generic “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. Really, why? Why are we good connections for each other? Why should I have to figure it out? LinkedIn’s policy is that you know the people you connect to, but honestly, I’m open to connect with people I don’t know just yet, but ONLY if you take a minute and let me know who we can help each other. If it isn’t reciprocal, I’m not interested.
• If you want to send me sales spam, could you at least do your homework? Yesterday, I received an email from a Salesforce.com rep asking for 15 minutes of my time to talk to me about the service. Guess what. I’m already a client and have been for several years. Hello?
• Show some respect. If I have explicitly stated on my LinkedIn profile that I don’t want sales pitches, then don’t send them! You only serve to annoy me, and I just tell my net to avoid you like the plague. I don’t care what LinkedIn says about the positive ratio of people willing to respond to your InMail. That only works if you are darn good at personalizing, which most are not, and the person on the other end really needs what you sell. Recruiters this works for but for salespeople, not so much. Respect what people put on their profiles about the type of mails they are open to. Be creative, find another way!
• Stop asking for favors and never offer to do one in return. You have no idea how many people want to “pick my brain” to get FREE information. I’m all for sharing, but too many people cross that line. I’ve learned to be very discerning and say no as needed. But hey, if you buy me an awesome lunch or dinner with a nice bottle of wine, sure I’m open to sharing my valuable expertise. All I ask if that people respect that I do this to earn my living…I can’t give you everything for free! I know people who reach out to me for help with introductions and they NEVER offer to do anything to help me. Don’t even get me started on the people who show up every couple of years looking for help securing a job. Really? You haven’t talked to me in 3 years and the first email since is to send me your resume and ask that I ask my network to help you? Uh…not going to happen.
• Be relevant. Might mean you need to do some homework. I am soooo tired of receiving spam emails that have zip to do with me or my business. It’s lazy and a time waster to shoot out hundreds of email to people that you don’t know and that you haven’t bothered to learn about. Oh, and don’t school me if I have not responded to the sales crap you sent me last month. I didn’t respond because what you offer has nothing to do with me.
• Follow the rules of email marketing. The CANN-SPAM act is very clear…don’t send spam email to people who’ve not opted in to a list. And, you MUST give them an easy way to “opt out”. When you send me email without that option, it really makes me mad. The act says you are “forgiven” if you spam someone once, as long as they can easily opt out. Follow the protocol. In another blog post, maybe I’ll rant about the people selling Opt-In Database services who spam me – I didn’t opt-in to their list – and then give me no way to get off their email. Do you get the concept of opt-in?
• Say, thank you. Is it really that hard to acknowledge people and thank them for mentioning you, sharing your content, tweeting about you, helped you get that introduction, speaking gig or whatever? No, it isn’t. Do it. It is the right thing to do!

Folks, sales is a people business and people buy from people that they know, like and trust. In today’s social world, your prospects also buy from people that their colleagues and friends know, like and trust. Isn’t it time you figured out how to put social selling to work for you in a way that’s focused on what you can give versus what you can get? Relationships matter.

I’d like to suggest that it is time to play a bigger game! Bring it!

As long as I’ve got the subject of time on the brain, I thought I’d write a post about the biggest objection that I hear from salespeople with respect to using social media as part of their sales routine.

“I don’t have time”.

That always gets me a little riled, because it says to me three things. One, they haven’t accepted that social media is as critical to their sales business, as email and smart phones have become. Two, these reps still believe that running around to lots of networking events is what gets them the greatest return on their effort even though, at most of those events, their buyer isn’t even in the room. Three, they don’t understand how to use technology to their advantage.

Adapt or fall further behind.

Whether you like it or not, buyer behavior has changed. Your sales approach needs to change too. Buyers do a significant amount of research online before ever engaging with a salesperson. Can they find you? And, if they do find you, is the information that you’ve shared on your LinkedIn profile (as an example) compelling enough for them to want to talk to you at all?

I know, I know. You never thought we’d do business over email either. Well, you were wrong. You are wrong about social media too! Every day business is being transacted over social sites. Unless you want your competitors to step up and kick your bootie, it’s time to move.

Ok, so let’s talk about those networking events.

When is the last time you carefully evaluated if the events that you are attending is netting you any sort of sales return? In general, you can choose to attend events for two reasons. One, you want the education, because you think the speaker is going to be awesome. Two, you are going to make connections with people who can buy your products and services. Let’s hope that most of you are using your networking time focused on #2. But here’s the problem. Buyers aren’t spending time at networking events like they used to. A friend of mine – he’s the decision maker for the technology providers who get in at his company -  tells me that not only does he not spend much time at networking events anymore, he also doesn’t carry business cards to the ones he does attend. Buyers aren’t showing up, because they are tired of being pitched by sellers. Why are you spending so much time there?

What to do?

Free up some time by cutting out events you know aren’t getting you connected to sales opportunities. Spread that time throughout the week and use it to share content, post updates, research your target list of prospects, etc. using LinkedIn, Focus, InsideView, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, whatever. You can create some serious opportunities working social just 30-minutes a day. I know, because I do it. The key is to have a plan and know exactly what you want to accomplish.

Finally, use technology to your advantage. Unless you enjoy posting on LinkedIn, then jumping over to Twitter or your Facebook page, use Hootsuite as your social media dashboard and content organizer. Hootsuite’s free version lets you connect to five social media sites and/or RSS feeds. Got a blog you like to follow? Curate the content by setting up the blog RSS feed in your Hootsuite account. Every time a new post is published, a message shoots out from your account to your various social media sites. From your Hootsuite dashboard, you can send messages to LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc. and you can monitor the conversations from there as well. And, you have the ability to schedule messages in advance.

So, stop making excuses.

You do have time to integrate social media into your sales activities and like any change to the way that you do things, you have to decide if you will spend time on the activities that actually lead to sales – or not.

On a conference call recently, I was reminded of how often people confuse social media marketing with how to use social media over on the sales side of the business. I can understand why this happens. Just yesterday, I received an email from a company who is selling social media training and their blurb says that they can help you to increase revenue. But when you look more closely, the program focuses on helping you put a social media marketing plan together. That kind of messaging has confused people. Make no mistake about it, marketing and sales are different disciplines and how you apply social media to each of those disciplines is also different! Before you assume that you’ve got social media covered because someone in your company is responsible for social media management, be sure to look carefully at what they are doing. I’ll make a big bet that the focus is on marketing and not selling.

The American Marketing Association defines marketing in this way…

“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

Wikipedia defines sales in this way…

“A sale is the act of selling a product or service in return for money or other compensation.”

While sales and marketing should have the same goal of generating sales, revenue and profit, the two departments are approaching the goal in very different ways. As a salesperson, I’m the one who meets with prospects, crafts an actual solution to their business problem and negotiates and closes deals. Marketing is doing none of that. Their efforts are largely campaign driven and while their role is vitally important to the process of generating revenue, they are not actually selling anything.

Social media can be applied to the sales process on the front-end of the sales cycle. Using tools like LinkedInand InsideView, the focus is on network and referral building, prospecting for new opportunities, conducting research that leads to identifying key business initiatives (or drivers) that may be the trigger for why your prospect should by from you, better pre-sales call research and more. In other words, using social media to drive sales opportunities is not marketing to build broad awareness, it is being used specifically to get to the right person with the right message at the right time, thus shrinking the sales cycle and moving more quickly to close.

On the sales side, I’m not giving away an iPad to generate “likes” on the company Fan Page. That’s marketing. As a salesperson, I’m using social tools to:

-Create a targeted list of potential prospects to pursue

-Dig into my prospects LinkedIn and InsideView profiles to learn more about them. I’m looking for the best point of connection. Who do I know that they know? What have learned about their company or their industry that might lead to securing that first meeting?

-Participate in groups where my prospect is likely to be and then contributing to discussions to create visibility for myself and demonstrate my expertise in my field.

-Do detailed homework before the first meeting. I’m learning as much about their company as I can, which will demonstrate to my prospect that I understand their business.

As you think about how to put social media to work for your company, remember that you need to focus attention on both the sales and marketing side of the business. And always keep in mind that the goals and practical applications of social media for sales versus marketing should compliment each other, but the “how” you use the tools will be different and serve vastly different purposes.

Business partner, Kent Gregoire shared a blog post with me that was written by Greg Alexander over at Sales Benchmark Index. By now, many companies understand the concept of creating content that is compelling to move opportunities from awareness, interest and desire into action that turns into a tangible result. The blog post focused on helping a client to evaluate over 100 pieces of content to try to determine what content was moving people through the sales funnel. Interestingly enough, the content that was having the greatest ROI was in the middle of the sales funnel. At the same time, the company had very little content actually attributed to that portion of the funnel.

After the marketing folks climbed down off the proverbial ledge wondering how in the world they could rally the resources needed to crank out the content they most needed but lacked, a deeper look was taken to better understand if it was the content or the way in which the content was communicated that made the difference. Hint: it wasn’t the content!

This story got me thinking about how important it is to determine if you are taking the right sales approach, based on the changes we now see in buyer behavior.

Social media fits the sales funnel and has the greatest potential, I believe, on the “front end” of the cycle during the prospecting, opportunity qualification, pre-sales call research and get that meeting scheduled phase. Done correctly, you get in front of the right buyers faster and significantly shrink the sales cycle.

To be successful requires an innate understanding that slamming out a few LinkedIn status updates, Tweets or Facebook posts is NOT what it takes to move a sale from awareness to interest and meeting to close. With respect to succeeding with a social selling approach, here’s where a little strategic thinking comes into play.

The start of the social selling process all begins when your potential buyers are in the “I know that I have a business problem, who can help me solve it mindset”. This is the point in which they surf the web, search out options on LinkedIn and ask their colleagues what to buy and from whom. These buyers are not initially engaging sales people, but they will down the road if they like what they find.

This is why compelling presence and content is critical for today’s sales professional. If your buyer lands on your LinkedIn page and it’s devoid of anything relevant or compelling, game over. They are moving on and you probably don’t even know it.

Here is a 7-step process that I use myself, and I recommend that you and your salespeople follow suit.

Step 1: Create great content – or leverage what marketing has already done for you – and showcase it. If you are in B2B sales, your LinkedIn profile is ideal. Jazz it up with a SlideShare presentation, add a video, share white papers, press releases and case studies using box.net or host a book list. Check out the amazing array of apps available to you within LinkedIn with the FREE service. These applications do not require an upgraded account.

Step 2: Create a list of people you are targeting using “advanced search”. Next, save your search results and then week to week let LinkedIn do the heavy lifting for you. A saved search means that on a weekly basis you will receive an email listing the names of the new folks entering your network who match your search criteria. This is real-time information that gives you the ability to contemplate a strategy for engaging with them.

Step 3: Do some homework to determine what matters most to the people on your targeted list. What drivers are happening in their business?  What are the key initiatives that have been put in place to address the drivers?  Do you have a solution that could be integrated into the business environment?

Step 4: Based on your homework, evaluate the real potential for getting in front of a sales opportunity. Do some digging…does it look like they have budget? What do they have to gain or lose from taking action or not? Decide if moving ahead now will yield the greatest results. Ask yourself if the consequences your prospect faces are dire enough to warrant them taking action? If not, you are likely wasting time.

Step 5: Figure out what groups or forums your prospect likes to participate in. Join those groups and observe and contribute. A client just told me a great story that relates to this point. They are trying to reach a prospect with XYZ title in the companies that they target. A member of the marketing team recently attended an event that included a panel made up of their targeted buyers. During the session, the panelists were asked what the best way to connect with them was and they said, “Don’t cold call us and don’t bother us with email. If you want to connect with us and demonstrate your credibility, join our LinkedIn groups and connect with us on Twitter.” Need I say more? Today, smart salespeople will adapt to the ways in which their prospects want to connect.

Step 6: Assuming all goes well in Steps 4 and 5, determine who you know inside the company that can “sponsor” an introduction or find out who has the strongest external connections that can “refer” you to your targeted prospect. Did you know that when a credible sponsor inside an organization introduces you, 84% of the time that business decision maker will take the meeting? It’s 44% for referrals. As you might imagine, things like cold calling drop into the single digits in terms of securing the right meeting. These 2 suggested approaches significantly reduce sales cycle time, so it’s a smart move to begin there.

Step 7: Let’s assume that you’ve secured a meeting. Put a plan together for what you specifically want to accomplish. This is not the time to deliver a boring; one dimensional sales pitch that is all about you. And while you are at it, skip the lame questions that you should already know the answers to. If you hope to have a shot at moving a deal forward, your agenda must focus on what matters most to your buyer. Buyers want to know that you understand their business and you need to show them that you’ve taken the time to learn as much as you can (refer back to steps 3 & 4).

Social media has implications on the back-end also, but that’s more in line with customer retention and loyalty, which is typically something that marketing owns.

For salespeople, focus your attention on the front-end of the funnel and integrate social media as a strategic approach that blends strong off-line techniques too. Today’s buyer demands a different sales approach.

How much longer will you wait to adapt?

People don’t buy WHAT you do; they buy WHY you do it.  –Simon Sinek

If you haven’t checked out Simon’s TEDx video, you have to…now. The fact that it is in the top 20 TEDx videos watched is impressive on its own, but what Simon says (couldn’t resist) may seriously challenge your thinking. It has mine.

Let me ask you something…

Can you answer the question, why do you do what you do? I don’t mean what; I don’t mean how…I mean WHY.

Why do you sell cloud computing?

Why do you sell image consulting?

Why do you sell home services like plumbing repair?

Why do you sell books at Barnes and Nobles?

Why do you sell sponsorships to conferences with a cause?

Why do you sell social media marketing?

Why do you sell hotel rooms and conference space?

Why do you sell leadership programs?

Why do you sell coaching?

Why do you sell whatever the next wiz bang technology of the future is going to be?

Get the idea?

Famous leadership and motivational guru’s too numerous to name here have all preached about what they believe inspiring others is all about. Many have complicated theories, elaborate approaches or long lists of the tenets of great leadership.  But I have to say that when I listened to Simon talk about his concept of The Golden Circle, I had a serious “ah ha” moment. The concept is elegant and simple, but don’t be fooled. The concept is quite powerful, and if you, like me, really let the magic of Simon’s words sink in, I’m betting that you can’t help but be challenged to think differently also.

What is your why?

Meet someone at a networking event and ask them about their business and it is quite likely that the answer you receive focuses on “what” the company does and “how” they do it. Pretty standard and sometimes boring approach isn’t it? What’s really that inspiring about either one? What you do is merely the proof of what you believe to be important. The how…well, that’s just the process for getting it done.

Which leads to why…

Why do you do what you do? Simon suggests that using an inside out approach produces far greater results. People buy what you believe he tells us; not as much as what is accomplished or the results delivered. When you focus on the why, you realize that your goal is not about doing business with anyone with a pulse who can buy your product or service. Instead, your goal becomes one about doing business with people who believe what you believe.

There is no way that I can do the matter justice, so I want you to go and watch the video and then….come back and tell me what you think.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0HIF3SfI4