Off the Cuff: Random Rants about Sales and Social Selling

January 23, 2017 By Barbara Giamanco 4 Comments

Early in 2015, I put together a presentation called Random Rants about Sales and Social Selling. I was then, as I am now, fed up with the misinformation that floats out there about what social selling can do for you. To date, that post has had 44,492 views. Clearly, my message resonated with quite a few people.

Social selling is all the buzz these days, and though I still believe that integrating social media into your selling process makes sense, the bulk of social selling conversations have focused on, in my opinion, very basic, low-level tactics that aren’t generating enough results for salespeople. Part of the reason that is happening is because “experts” with an agenda would have you believe that a few social selling tactics on the front end bring deals rolling in. It doesn’t work that way. Yes, you can use social for prospecting, sharing content to create visibility for your expertise, engage with prospects (though not all of them are actively using social media) and create a nice brand impression if you’ve crafted your profiles correctly. The biggest problem though is that many salespeople have drunk the kool aid and believe social selling is some short-cut to closing business. Not true and never has been!

You can read any number of posts on my blog that talk about what it takes to be successful with social selling. Here’s one you might like. The truth is that even if you are the best at engaging potential buyers via social media channels, what really counts is what happens when you have earned the right to a sales meeting. If you are NOT a consultative, problem-solving salesperson and instead pitch features and do product demos, you are going to have a tough time sustaining yourself in a selling career over the long haul. In Salesforce.com’s State of Sales Report, they found that:

“Seventy-nine percent of business buyers say it is absolutely critical or very important to interact with a salesperson who is a trusted advisor — not just a sales rep — who adds value to their business.”

That’s the set up to the conversation that Doug Lehman and I had in March 2015. It was an impromptu conversation and we played off the content of the original presentation. We ranted about the things about sales and social selling that bug us the most. By the way, if you don’t know Doug, he is a master at helping people leverage video as part of the sales process. Visit him at www.douglehman.com

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Using Video in Selling – Part 2

March 14, 2016 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

In part 1 of my interview with Video Brand Ambassador, Doug Lehman about why using video helps drive sales opportunities, he shared 3 primary reasons why salespeople need to incorporate video into their social selling stack. Those reasons are:

-Use video to educate, demonstrate your credibility and expertise, provide social proof and promote your products and services. When buyers are doing their solutions research, they turn to video for quick, informative answers to their questions.

-Reduce travel costs and other expenses. Unlike back in the day, sales interactions don’t always happen face-to-face, which explains the rapid growth of video technology being used in sales and marketing and incorporated into CRM processes.

-A sales video can be used as follow up after a sales call or meeting. Guaranteed to be more engaging than a static follow-up email.

Bonus reason: Video is great for capturing user-generated content (UGC), referrals and testimonials that build on the social proof that buyers consider during the decision making process.

Now in part 2 of my interview with Doug, you learn about the common mistakes people make with video, the best platforms to host your video content and tips for building your audience.

BG: What are examples of common mistakes that people make when getting into video?

DL: Not having a video plan is a major mistake. Producing video that does not provide any value to the viewer is a major flaw. Video that is not watchable will not engage, inspire or influence the buyer. Video context is just as important as video content. Attention is a must when leveraging video in sales. Your message should be concise and direct. Does your sales video resonate with your sales audience? Ask for feedback and test.

Video production must be watchable, shareable and findable. Make sure your lighting and audio quality is up to par. Nobody wants to watch a video that is poorly lit or contains poor audio quality. Make sure your test both in pre-production.

Not leveraging Video SEO Metadata while hosting video or using social channels to engage and promote can be a huge mistake. Hosting video on your website, blog or LinkedIn profile needs to include, the correct title, description, keywords and tags to be for effective to be found in search.

BG: Is YouTube the best place to host your videos?

DL: Hosting videos on YouTube has its advantages and disadvantages. YouTube is easy to upload and use. The reach on YouTube is awesome. YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world and is owned by Google. If you are looking for extended reach, YouTube is great. Privacy and specialized content sharing with YouTube has it’s disadvantages. Other hosting video platforms like Vimeo, Wistia, Vidyard – to name a few – are great options. All have pros and cons, on price, reach and privacy. YouTube is great but there are other options to evaluate.

BG: How do you build your audience?

DL: Building your brand audience comes down to defining the characteristics of your ideal buyer, understand what pains they are encountering, so you can craft your messages around what they care about. This is why it is so important that you start with your plan. You need to be clear on about the approach you’ll take and determine how you will deliver value to your targeted buyer. Your content is importance, but message context is just as important.

Remember that numbers are not as important as engagement and conversions to sales opportunities. Videos that deliver value, that are findable and shareable is the starting point. Engage with your video community, respond and share insightful information. Leverage other websites, blogs, and social networks to promote and share content. Video Collaboration with peers and subscribers can go a long way in building your audience. It takes time, work, collaboration and value to build an authentic audience that can lead to measurable results. Positioning your video with the right VSEO, delivering value in your messaging and using the right video sharing platform is necessary for building your audience. But, don’t forget that you can use your video to reach buyers 1-1 in a more engaging way. An engaging video that speaks to the problems you help solve for buyers, yields most positive results than simply attaching a whitepaper for someone to read.

Breaking it down…in Lehman’s terms, as Doug would say.

There is no question that using video as part of your selling process is a compelling way for you, as a salesperson, to stand apart from your competitors. Don’t keep waiting. It’s time to get started!

Make sure you connect with Doug. Talk to him about his services. He can help you get over the getting started hurdles. Reach Doug at:

Website
LinkedIn
Twitter
YouTube
Social Selling Video

Tech Talk: Meerkat & Periscope

May 1, 2015 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

This week, I want to talk about the live streaming battle taking place in the social sphere. Live streaming isn’t new – there’s Vine and Instagram – but over the last month, I’ve observed with keen interest the showdown between Meerkat and Periscope. What I was more curious to learn about was how users of this live streaming video technology are choosing to use the platforms. In some ways, I’m reminded of the very early days of Twitter. I mean, really, does anyone actually care that you are now drinking your second cup of coffee on a Sunday morning or that you are wandering around the streets of Los Angeles?

Before I talk about the user experience and feature differences between the two platforms, let me share my thoughts about some of the benefits that live streaming video provides.

Conference participation – during Social Media Marketing World various people were live streaming many of the conference sessions. I thought it cool that I could see Guy Kawasaki on stage sharing his thoughts with the audience, and I felt like I was there.

Training – these live streaming platforms provide opportunities for quick, short bursts of training tips. For example, I could talk about the how to of social selling and actually show people live how to put my tips into practical application.

Expanded audience – people may not necessarily be following you on LinkedIn or Twitter yet, but they could be exposed to one of your live streaming events and you end up connecting and engaging that way first.

Meerkat

Everything that happens on Meerkat happens on Twitter.

PUSH NOTIFICATIONS: Streams are pushed to your followers in real time via push notifications.

NO PLAYBACK: The beauty of Meerkat is that once your broadcast is done, it’s done. All live and there are no reruns. However, as you might expect, the geeky types have figured out how to create apps to address that issue.

RE-STREAM: If I happen to be watching a particular stream that I like, I can re-stream that content to any of my followers in real time.

SCHEDULE: Unlike Periscope, you can scheduled broadcasts in advance and distribute notification of an upcoming event to your subscribers. Streams of your own broadcasts can be kept locally on your phone.

NOW AVAILABLE FOR ANDROID: And, in breaking news, Meerkat just beat Periscope to the Android store and is available for download now the Google Play store.

Periscope

When you go live with Periscope, you will instantly notify your followers who can join, comment and send you hearts in real time. The more hearts you get, the higher they flutter on the screen. Personally, I’m not a big fan of this feature. Seems a little junior high schoolish to me. Some of the other features of the platform include:

REPLAY: When your broadcast is over, viewers can watch later if you make your broadcast available after your program is over. But be aware that the playback experience only lasts for 24 hours. .

PRIVATE: If you want to broadcast only to specific people, you can press the lock icon before going live and choose who you want to invite to your broadcast. Those are the only folks who are going to see your broadcast. I could see this being cool if you wanted to bring together…say…the clients in your sales coaching group and you just want to do a mini-tutorial on a new approach to social selling.

TWITTER: You can choose to share your Periscope broadcasts on Twitter by tapping the bird icon before you start broadcasting. When you go live, you’ll tweet a link so that your Twitter followers can watch on the web (or in the app).

MANAGE NOTIFICATIONS: Periscope will suggest people for you to follow based on your Twitter network. You can always follow new people, or unfollow them if you don’t want to be notified when they go live. You can also adjust notification preferences in Periscope Settings (in Profile).

HEARTS: Periscope keeps track of how many hearts you get from your viewers. The more hearts, the higher you get in the “Most Loved” list. I guess this is the equivalent of Facebooks Likes, but I find the heart thing extremely distracting during a broadcast and it often cuts off the Twitter messages that viewers are posting. I want to watch the people conducting the broadcast and engage in the chat conversations. I don’t want to see a bunch of hearts floating all over the screen.

Final thoughts…

Live streaming has tons of potential but aside from some of the mundane broadcasts being posted out there… news flash… some reality IS NOT that interesting, there are also legal and safety risks to consider.

On the legal front, you cannot just stream anything live that you care to. At that conference, if you are streaming people speaking and their presentations, you are breaking copyright law, not to mention that you need someone’s permission before you film them publicly. I encourage you to read a recent MacWorld article on the topic.

From a safety point of view, I guess I need to be the one to point out the obvious. STOP the madness of doing these live streams when driving your car. Yes, people are doing it. If all someone was doing was talking while driving, that would still pose a safety risk, but it isn’t as bad as when the driver is actually answering questions from people chatting in during the broadcast. Exactly how are you reading the questions without taking your eyes off the road? This is completely irresponsible behavior, and I hope we don’t read about some horrific accident – during a live stream – before people finally wake up to how stupid and dangerous this practice is.

Okay…that’s a wrap for this time. Go live stream something and tell me about your experience!

Tech Talk: What I Like This Week

February 11, 2015 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

I admit it; I’m a tech geek. No, I don’t do the coding thing, but I can navigate my way around most technology platforms pretty quickly. Tinkering and learning what makes things tick is in my blood. I give credit to my dad for that one. He was the fixer upper type and prided himself on getting his hands dirty.

Lucky for me, I serendipitously fell into a career selling technology solutions, and I absolutely loved it. Today, it is no accident that I work with sales teams to teach them the fine art of social selling. Given that buyers are harder to reach, all sellers today must integrate relationship building activities that lead to sales opportunities through the power of social channels. Fight it all you want, but this is the world we live in today. It is a mashup of online AND offline sales activities that start you on the path to closed deals. However, online activities may get you in the door, and what really counts is what happens when you get there.

So, in the spirit of loving technology and how it can benefit all of us in sales, here are my 3 pics for this week.

Vidyard

I believe the use of video in selling is still a largely untapped market. I know I’m more likely to pay attention to a short, focused video that engages me with something relevant that I care about versus reading another boring email. Notice I said “engages me” not “pitches me”.

I was introduced to Karl Ortmanns by Eric Mitchell. Eric had mentioned Vidyard during the weekly @SocialHangout, which is a lively Google Hangout/Tweet chat that he hosts along with Kevin Thomas Tully and Jack Kosakowski. Karl and I had the chance to talk last week and he walked me through their platform. Impressive. Sending someone a video is one thing, but how do you know if and when they watched it? Vidyard shows you how viewers interact with your videos. This means you can continuously improve your engagement strategy based on measurable results. Salespeople using Salesforce as their CRM, are able to see the video’s each of their contact watches from within the CRM and can track how long the prospect paid attention. With detailed viewer analytics and engagement data, sellers will know when the time is right to suggest a sales meeting. Vidyard offers solutions for marketing, sales and corporate communications.

InigoApp

Another great app that I heard about from Eric, Kevin Thomas and Jack, and this one is not going to make printers happy. This app completely does away with the notion of printing and carrying business cards. And, how many times have you found yourself in a situation where you didn’t have a business card to hand out? It’s happened to me.

Available for iOS and Android and soon for Windows phones, InigoApp changes up the way you think about business cards. With the app, I easily created and customized a cool business card that I can share on the spot with someone I meet through email and text, and I can also share my card with my various social channels if I care to. With all the ways that someone can connect with you made incredibly easy, there is a much higher likelihood that they will. With one click, someone can easily follow me on Twitter, connect with me on LinkedIn, drop me an email or call me. Brilliant!

Yesware

Email isn’t going away anytime soon, and sending email to prospective buyers is still a strategy used by thousands and thousands of salespeople. The challenge is in knowing if the email is not only getting to the person intended, but you need to know if anyone actually opened it.

Imagine being able to time your follow up based on knowing when your prospect opened your message, the attachment you sent; i.e. proposal, clicked on a link or viewed your presentation. You can also leverage email templates that other sales team members may have created that are being opened more often. Yesware works with Outlook and Gmail and integrates with Salesforce.

If you want to learn more, you can visit the Yesware website, or reach out to Dakota McKenzie and tell him I sent you! By the way, Dakota was paying attention online when Yesware was mentioned in a sales tweet chat I participated in last week. Seeing that I had in interest in learning more about the platform, he connected with me. That’s how it’s done peeps!

Today’s Social Selling Moment

April 3, 2014 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

I recently decided to do a little experimenting with media. Being the social selling gal that I am, I know how important content is to your overall strategy. Video, in particular, can really drive additional traffic and engagement.

But what if you think you look better on audio and hesitate to do video? Well, that’s me.

So I said, what the heck, let’s get creative and have a little fun. That led me to team up with my friend, colleague and video brand ambassador pal, Doug Lehman to create a mash up of video and audio to bring you the Social Selling Moment of the Day.

Enjoy!

Tell a Story that Matters

April 1, 2014 By Barbara Giamanco 1 Comment

I’ve noticed more people talking about why it is important to use stories in selling. I don’t mean the kind of stories that are focused on you. Sales and marketing messages need to focus on what matters to the prospect or customer.

I suppose I never thought of myself as a “storyteller” per se, but there is no question that I have the gift of gab. When sitting down with a prospect, it just seemed to me that we were having a conversation. Never one to pitch, I focused on determining what was important to my prospective customer and spoke to that.

When I present, I share stories of what I’ve learned from customers or experiences in my life and work. I think people appreciate someone who is genuine and can poke fun at themselves. Through the years, I’ve made enough silly mistakes to have endless stories to tell for years to come. LOL.

We now live in a world completely different than when I first started selling, and I love the evolution!

The multitude of ways that we can tell our story is staggering. The best part is that “stories” don’t need to – and maybe shouldn’t – come from you. Here are three ways that stories can be told without being some boring, generic, push piece of content.

Visual sells – video (YouTube, Vimeo), micro video (Vine), presentations (Slideshare). Forget the bullet points and “look at me, I’m so great” promotions, get creative in telling your story with visuals that capture attention in short, snackable bites (a term I learned from Mack Collier today). Attention spans are short. Keep your story short too.

Peer reviews rock – what comes across as more genuine…me raving to peers about products and services that I love or the company that makes them? Trick question. You know the answer.

Nimble is a Social Selling platform that I really came to appreciate today. As can happen, this user – me – wasn’t even close to tapping all the power of the platform. With a new widget release being unveiled tomorrow (more on that) and an app that ties in Outlook and Office 365, as well as your social networks, salespeople will be unstoppable in their ability to gather information, create relationships and share stories with the people that matter most.

Let customers tell the story – over on Mack Collier’s blog, he writes of how to mobilize your brand through storytelling. When Buick wanted the change the perception of their brand – I always think of their cars as for the elderly, retired set (probably not fair) – they asked their customers to share their stories. The love came pouring in as over 1,600 letters were sent in by loyal Buick advocates. Get this… 16% of advocates have now shared those stories on Facebook. Changed my mind.

There are a variety of suggested ways to tell stories well. A pitch isn’t one of them.

What you need to constantly ask yourself is…

How can I tell a genuine story that draws people in with a compelling idea of what is possible?

How can I convey an idea – through stories from colleagues and customers – in a way that sparks someone’s interest, hooks them, gets under their skin and keeps festering until it finds some form of expression?

What can I do to uncover the gems of meaning and story in information that can be translated into real value for prospects and customers?

The question isn’t how can I go viral, but how can I be authentic. The acres of diamonds are there, but you have to care enough to want to find them!

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