If you’re looking to make a huge difference in your communication approach as a sales professional, you’ll need to learn social selling.
This post is a continuation of FAIL: Sales Pollutes EVERY Medium (Part 1 of 2)
Now that social media is the place where buyers are heading to research all types of products and services, I wonder what will happen. Will salespeople figure out how to send blind/unwanted mass messaging online too?
The same attitude and mentality that we take with every other form of communication medium should not be brought to social media.
Let’s not pollute this new and genuinely helpful communication medium.
But, How Will I Sell?
If you’re thinking that this means you can’t find buyers on social media, that’s far from the truth. If you practice social selling and help target buyers through their problems, you can convert them into clients.
Social selling can open up many doors for you, but the key is you can’t bring your hard-core, old-school, go-for-the-jugular sales approaches to this party. You’ve got to learn how to relax. The more you focus on helping people, the more your pipeline will benefit.
Today, the buyer has a lot of control because they don’t need much help from to do a lot of research and to make decisions. In the past, the buy may have needed the help of a sales rep with his/her entire army of sales engineers and product specialists, but today buyers are beginning to make solutions online.
Do you doubt this? Look at yourself as a buyer. Can you not find MOST information online about goods and services you want to buy? Chances are that your buyers are trying to do the same and succeeding most of the time!
New World Selling
The New World Selling approach that’s already working, proven and established is here. It’s just that you may not have heard about it. There are thousands of sales reps all across the world who have fundamentally altered their perception of what it means to add value.
They know it’s not just a generic line you rhyme off to buyers, but something far more serious. They’re practicing what they preach by adding value at every turn.
The Bottom Line
My message to sales reps is simple. We’ve pretty much ruined all the other communication mediums out there. We’ve especially abused the telephone. Let’s not ruin social media. It’s the one place buyers are coming to do a lot of research on their own.
If you’re looking to make a huge difference in your communication approach as a sales professional, you’ll need to learn social selling. In fact, think of it as playing catch up. Buyers are already online, now it’s up to you to help them get the information they need to get a shot at earning their business.
Are you ready for this new reality?
Remember, social selling isn’t difficult. It’s just different.
