Do Salespeople Make the Best Social Advocates?

The Customer Journey

From John Jantsch’s perspective, marketing has changed so completely in the past years not because of social media but because buying has changed. The focus, therefore, should not be on the tools or the tips for marketers.
Marketers and small business owners should instead be changing their approaches to selling and to marketing.
“Nobody wakes up ever and says, ‘Gosh. I hope a salesperson calls on me today,’” John says. But people do wonder how to solve problems in their lives and in their businesses, and therein lay the opportunities to solve those problems for them with your product or service.
The question then becomes how to get involved in the customer journey at much earlier point. This point is before they’ve even realized they have the problem that your product solves. By positioning yourself as a thought leader, or just a business who provides them with the types of information they’re looking for, you’re earning their trust and their brand loyalty before they even decide to spend money with you.

The Real Challenge

Implementing this tactic is easier said than done. If you have a sales force 200 strong, for example, how do you get those salespeople involved in social media marketing? If you’re asking them to build trust with customers, not necessarily close deals, then it becomes difficult to quantify their efforts.
If you do choose to monitor this type of effort with concrete metrics, be careful not to incentivize the wrong behavior with the KPIs you measure. “When we start measuring that way, people start gaming the system. They’re no longer concerned with what would actually be a useful engagement.”
Foster a mindset of creating useful engagement. This is the most concrete path to success with reorienting your sales force to the new way of selling. More details on this process are, of course, available along with other invaluable tips in John’s newest book Duct Tape Selling.

Holy Social!

U.K. telecommunications company Orange has come out with a new app that allows you to speak with your 20-years-future self. The Orange #futureself app is a weird combination of expanding the conversation and just downright creepy.
The app itself doesn’t talk specifically about phones, but it’s certainly an expansion on the idea of communication. If the #futureself tweets are any indication, Orange has at least gained itself a good deal of chatter with the tool.

Social Media Number of the Week: 78.6

Using social to sell increases profits, and this week’s Social Media Number is here to prove it. 78.6% of salespeople who used social media to sell outperformed their counterparts who weren’t using social to sell.
Social is a great tool for both prospecting and selling, but only if you use it in the right way. Using the social platforms to broadcast hard sells, like a newfangled cold call, is not the way. Like John said: it’s about building relationships first and engaging with the customer before they even realize they need you.

See you next week!