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How One Sales Manager Is Getting Over 33% of His Pipeline from Social Selling! [Video]

Amar Sheth
Amar Sheth

Dale ZwizinskiIt took me about 6 months to get my act together, but I was finally able to interview Dale Zwizinski for this episode of The Social Success Factor.

Have you heard that phrase “a guy’s guy”? Dale is the “sales guy’s sales guy”. And I mean that with all due respect. He’s good at what he does because he’s got a lot of passion for his craft. He lives and breathes this profession.

Check out how he uses social media and why it’s a necessity in sales today.

Why Sales Should Use Social Media

I asked Dale why sales should use social media in the sales process and his answer was very revealing: because our buyers are.

And this is the thing that frustrates me. When sales experts tell sales professionals to do something BEFORE they do Social Selling, it drives home a very wrong message. What sales people should be doing is diversifying.

Sales Needs To Think Like Financial Advisors

Your Financial Advisor has probably taught you that the one big lesson and takeaway from the last economic recession was diversify, diversify, diversify! In fact, you may have heard this repeatedly from your parents growing up. If you watch CNBC, this theme dominates there too.

Sales is no different. Sales people need to diversify their sales portfolio. I love that Dale uses that analogy. It makes so much intuitive sense.

It’s no longer just about cold calling or e-mailing and going to conferences. It’s now about a strategic plan that you execute – one that includes all types of communication mediums – to ensure maximum success. It’s foolish to think that you should only use one particular communication medium to sell.

That’s just flat out ridiculous and dangerous!

What you should be doing is going where your buyers are. Dale is absolutely right about this. Let your buyers drive your behavior. If you know that buyers are likely to be by the phone at a certain day and hour, use that time to call them. If you know that buyers are likely to be online researching a particular solution that you offer, then be online and use social media to find and nurture them!

Where’s the ROI?

The other big theme that Dale and I touched upon in our discussion was around Social Selling ROI. A recent study pegged 21% as the amount of time a sales rep actually spends selling every day. In an 8 hour work day, that’s shy of 100 minutes.

Given this very real and finite number, it’s understandable that sales managers aren’t enthused about social media being used by sales reps. If you can’t prove the ROI of being on LinkedIn, why use it for business development reasons?

The tide is turning, however. There are now widgets and full-on technology platforms like KiteDesk to help measure and track and Social Selling ROI.

The Bottom Line

The key here, as Dale says, is to diversify! Don’t ignore social. Get started.

There are a ton of free resources online to help you on this journey. It’s time to make sure that you don’t leave any stone unturned by including social media, cold calling, email and any other sources of selling that you can.

Did you like what Dale talked about? If you agree or disagree with it, I’d love to know. You can tweet me @AmarSheth or reach out on LinkedIn as well.

Remember, Social Selling isn’t difficult. It’s just different.

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The Ultimate Guide to Social Selling