SOCIAL SALES EXPERTS - Blog

Master Guide to Dominate Your Market

Mon, 20 Feb 2023 06:00:00 GMT

Guide To Dominate Your Market!

Do you want a marketing strategy that is hard and way more difficult for your competitors to replicate?
Yes - Then you need to keep reading on "How to Dominate Your Market" by Rick Rea

Steps to Dominate Your Market

Do you need an SEO & marketing strategy that goes beyond moderate cumulative growth?

Do you want an SEO and marketing strategy that is hard and way more difficult for your competitors to replicate?

Do you want and need an SEO & marketing strategies that set you apart from all your competition?

Then you are in the right place!
Businesses that make serious blogging effort are 13 times more likely to see a positive ROI (return on investment)

With Google having 88.61% of the Search Marketshare and with 1,518,207,412 websites (1.5 BILLION) in the World and In March 2019, over 4.4 million blog posts were published every day.

With that said and needless to say SEO is a must and SEO isn’t enough and you must do many tactics to have a winning strategy in today’s world to dominate.

More than likely you found this article on a social media platform, yes that is a part of SEO today.
To help prove that point, Google “Social Sales Experts”! We should be #1 or 2 Organically on Planet Earth. Without Social Media and the proper SEO Strategies, this couldn’t happen.

Many clients and businesses say, “I have an SEO Plan” or “I have a Marketing Plan or Campaign Plan”. I say awesome… All of which are usually needed.

But, those are just TACTICS… Understand the difference of STRATEGY!

If you are like most people they don’t know the difference, don’t feel bad as I even once thought they were pretty much the same thing once upon a time.

I frequently hear smart people use both words mutually in a conversation despite the fact that they have completely different meanings.

Here’s how I remember the difference between a tactic and a strategy: a strategy is a plan to achieve a specific competitive advantage, while a tactic is a method used to achieve it.

In our world, a tactic may be a marketing campaign or an SEO update, and or the social media posts and employee advocacy programs you implement. Where a Strategy how you need to meld all those tactics together in a way to dominate your market. All working cohesively together.

The Devil is in the Details. So Read On…

Tactics:

Example: Google!

Google’s Strategy was to become dominant in the search engine world in order to control or dominate the market. It’s certainly indisputable that they’ve been successful.

Some of the tactics Google used to achieve that include:

Developing a more effective link-based algorithm system that was less susceptible to manipulation than simple algorithms based on content alone.
AdWords funded their growth, which concurrently put their Google brand in front of more people and got more businesses and people involved with their brand and products.
Gmail was released as a free service to compete with Microsoft’s Hotmail, this alone put their Googe brand in the hands of millions of people.
Urchin was acquired and renamed “Google Analytics”, this gave Google undoubtedly gave them the data needed to master and refine their algorithms. Once again that got more people involved with the Google brand and their products.

Do you see a pattern here?

Major business decisions (tactics) made by Google directly played a part in accomplishing its goal (strategy).

Result:

Has anyone put a dent in Google’s “Search” Market Share? The answer is NO! Not even close.

Search Engine Market Share Stats: As of July 2022

Google: 88.61%

Bing: 4.98%

Yahoo: 2.72

Baidu: 0.74% (China Search Engine)

Yandex RU: 0.82% (Russia Search Engine)

Major business decisions (tactics) made by Google directly played a part in accomplishing its goal (strategy).

1. Rethink or flat out get rid of conventional thinking on keyword research and content development but don’t eliminate altogether.

Think, “You sell Software, so you want to rank for ‘Watchers.’”

Absolutely you should work to rank for the term “Watches,” as well as:

Type + Watches
Purpose + Watches
Function + Watches

No matter how many keyword variations you have and implement, you will be only scratching the surface!

One must go way way beyond traditional thinking and identity a greater number of lucrative, relevant topics and questions that people are searching around your products or services.

Most of which will deliver organic traffic faster, with less effort, than the obvious keywords that everyone else is competing for:

Here is a list of a few individualistic tactics to diversify your keyword and questions research to develop your content plan.

A. Answer Questions in Your Blog to Drive Your Content:

What Watches Can Measure Blood Pressures
What Watches Can Be Engraved On
Watches With Leather Straps
What Are The Top 10 Affordable Watches
List of Watches With Backlighting

(We have software to research your products and services to deliver the top questions people are asking today in your marketplace) Feel free to contact us.

B. Ancillary Products and or Services:

Do your customers use your software as a part of another function?

Do your customers need specific tools or other software to install or use your software?

Does your software require specific data input to function properly?

Did you answer “yes” to any of those questions, you’ve just exponentially multiplied potential topics!

Writing about the products and/or services that support or are highly relevant to your own opens a whole new realm of keyword phrases.
To be more clear, the concept of “keyword phrases isn’t the same here.” Think of this as buckets of topically themed words.

Benefits of producing how-to content on ancillary products and services:

1. Competition shares and links to your content. In my case much of my competition shares and links to my content in this area as it helps their brand in many ways especially since the content helps promote their products and services.

2. Attract visitors earlier in the buying process. Providing more useful searchable information that is shared across all social media platforms, preferably using an employee advocacy social share software across a broader range of topics within your niche and or geography will help you appear more knowledgeable and authoritative with a broader reach.

Using the SEO & marketing industry as an example. In the case of How-To’s, Question Answering Content, Ancillary Products, and services for you could and should produce content will mostly be marketing-related. These products/services needed might include:

Domains (URL)
Web Hosting
Premium website Content Management System with themes and plugins
Website Backup Services
Email Marketing Services
CRM software
Productivity Tools
CDN services (Content Delivery Network)
Employee Advocacy Program (software)
Printing
Social Media Tools
Podcasting Services and Equipment
Call Tracking
Reputation Management
Analytics
Conversion Optimization
Web Design
Interview Industry Leaders

You’re probably excited about having your name mentioned in the media. That’s true whether it’s the Local Business News Section to Forbes, The Huffington Post, or even an industry expert publication, and that feeling almost never goes away, plus it can drive revenue.

Like myself, being recognized as:

“Top 1% Endorsed For Advertising in the United States” by LinkedIn and being awarded many industry awards.

“Trust me it never gets old being an industry leader” — Rick Rea

Interview and or research industry leaders! Use this to your advantage.

This method gives you a way to produce outstanding content, the best thing here is to notice and recognize that your interviewees are actually producing most of the content for you!

This method makes you more trustworthy and authoritative in the eyes of your audience.

Facts: Just like this article, it is linked to real results and real statistics and real facts.

If you are like me, reading opinion and theory is just fluff.

I think the most famous quote of Tony Robbins that I remember most is:

“If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you’ll achieve the same results” Tony Robbins

One can’t argue with Tony’s success using this method, can we?

Why, because it works!

BONUS: Using this method you actually will rise to their level faster much much faster!

The Bonus Benefits don’t stop there, this method can also help you reach a new, larger audience because the interviewee will share and or link to their own interview. Backlinking is huge and we need that for ranking our websites.

This tactic also gives you a way to add value from the beginning of the relationship. Do not be the one that just calls when you need something, this method separates you from the majority.

Questions to Ask During an Interview:

Their background, education and work experience
How and why they chose to do what they do (The why is especially important)
Books they’ve written or recommend
Their mentors, heroes or role models
Podcasts they host or recommend
Events they speak at or attend as guests
Publications they contribute to
Products or services they recommend

I highly suggest recording the call, ask permission to do this of course.

Hire a transcriber on Fiverr to type it for you or anyone that can get it done for you in the right format right away. It helps you to be respectful of the interviewee’s time.

Review Competing Products and Services

Sound crazy, not at all!

People love to shop!

Comparison Approach to Value

Your customers need to know if they are comparing Apples to Oranges

I will refer to facts again, as the Second Approach to Value is the Comparison Approach. So why not compare…?

You need to know your competition products and services as well as you know your own in most cases.

Writing content in a comparison approach to value is a tremendous opportunity for you, as long as yours are superior in some way.

In fact, this tactic was and is the foundation for one of my most successful campaigns.

Never bash your competitors.

Clearly and objectively explain the differences, highlighting the pros and cons of each choice, allowing visitors to make an educated decision based on the facts. There’s that word again, yes FACTS!

When executing this tactic, you’ll need to produce two levels of content and build both internal and external links to that content.

I’ve found to work well is creating a landing page that provides a general comparison of your products/services to those of your competitors, followed by child pages comparing each feature individually.

Each child page should contain an internal link to the parent page, as well as to the other child pages where relevant

Think About How Customers Search

Have answers to your clients and prospects questions published for easy reference.

Friendliness with technology, the generation of mobile devices and the growth of AI (artificial intelligence), how people search has changed dramatically.

Now, instead of opening Google and entering the search phrase like “home builders,” a searcher may literally say, “Hey Siri, Hey Google”, “Which home builder in Fargo ND builds modern-style homes between $300,000 and $400,000?”

Why Voice Search Will Dominate SEO in 2023 and How to Dominate It!

By 2023, 30% of all website sessions will be conducted without a screen.

Great opportunity, for consumers and for business owners.

Searcher and or Home Buyer: Do you really want to go through tons of internet screen pages to find a few home builders who have on hand or build what you’re looking for?

Home Builder: Do you want to answer a bunch of people who are looking for a different style of a house than what you build?

Yes, we spoke to this earlier, we now need a number of relevant questions that people are searching around your products or services.

Searchers are using longer, more complex queries and search engines are using artificial intelligence to analyze the content on your page, along with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of additional data points to provide a single answer that will most likely satisfy the searcher.

Accomplishing this, you need to get into the heads of your customers. Find out what questions they have. What words do they use when talking about your industry, products or services? Do not use your lingo, you will fail.

How well do they understand industry terminology? Most of the time, not even close.

Get beyond the keywords themselves and get down to the thought process of what they want and or need and why.

For example, while an HVAC company would certainly want to rank for the term “furnace repair,” especially since we’re approaching wintertime here in North Dakota, a query that would bring a potential customer to them earlier in the buying process might be something like, “why does my furnace have a hot smell.” When a searcher finds out that the smell is caused by a few conditions, they’re already on the website of the HVAC company that answered that question.

Who do you think they will call first?

2. Build Your Industry’s Expert Hub

Build your industry’s expert hub that answers all your clients and prospects questions

This takes time and works as it requires you to build an entirely new website and fill it with loads of amazing content in order to become a hub for your industry.

Performed successfully, you’ll have the favorable circumstance to hold multiple ranking positions in the search results, you’ll have a robust powerful and relevant and very valuable website to link to your primary website.

You’ll have an autonomous web platform to improve your own authority, expertise, and trust.

You must be extremely careful when linking from one website you own to another website you own, you risk being flagged for manipulative linking practices, potentially damaging both URLs.

Successful Industry Hub Strategy

In order for this strategy to be successful, the new website needs to become the absolute authority in your industry. The idea here is that while continuing to improve your primary website, you will simultaneously build a second website that will contain information and resources like:

Resources and Tools
Interviews With Industry Leaders
Industry News
Industry Events
Industry-Specific Business Advice
Laws That Pertain To Your Industry
Forms, Templates, and Other Documents
Trade Publications (web, print, and audio)
Trade Organizations and Networking groups

You want visitors to be able to find anything related to your industry here. In order to maximize this strategy, you need to give visitors a reason to return frequently and to send other people there.

A members’ directory is a great way to do that!

A social network is an even better way.

You can recycle at least some of the research conducted for content on your primary website, but I would recommend different writers for each website to steer clear of duplication.

3. Be An Influencer — Build Your Personal Brand

Be an influencer in your industry niche

It’s easier said than done, right?

You can do it!

if you’re willing to put in the hard work, it’s well worth the effort. Once you’re a recognized industry leader within your target market, you won’t have to work nearly as hard to earn exposure and links. When done successfully, your target market will help to promote you and your company.

I’ll share a perfect example.

My digital career, started when my sweet bride Dawnette showed me how to turn on the computer at a time when there was only dial-up.

Then in March of 2009 I found Twitter and being an IndyCar fan I programmed all the top IndyCar feeds into my Tweeter account so so I had the latest news in one aggregated spot. It made my life much easier than hunting down all the news sites etc. Then I got a call from a reporter one day asking my opinion about IndyCar at the time, I asked, why call me? He said I was the top #IndyCar influencer at the time. I told him the story of what I did and he said, wow that’s a story in itself.

If you follow me Rick Rea on Twitter @RickyRea you will find I’m #1 in a few search categories there as well within my industry niches.

#1 for Advertising on Twitter in my network and Top 1% Endorsed for Advertising on LinkedIn did what for me? See my quote below.

Follow me @RickyRea on twitter and you may find I’m #1 for advertising

"I have found over the years being an influencer in my fields of focus made it easier for my current and past customers to find me instead of me finding them". — Rick Rea

When your followers see you outrank global verified companies you become a trusted advisor. Now isn’t that what you want and what your clients and prospects want?

Outranking global brands makes it easier for your prospects to want contact you for a solution.

Values: Being a trusted advisor is very very important to me and for most of all your clients and prospects. Being on top of the list next to some of the world's most trusted advisors helps your audience know your value and values. Walk the high road!

Value and Values — Be a trusted advisor in your niche

Being an Influencer is good, but being a Trusted & Endorsed Advisor Influencer is your goal and nothing else will work.

Like the title of this article, how to dominate your market.

Being an influencer is a must of your going to dominate!

Hey, I’m a displaced farmer from North Dakota who was in a special education class in grade school. So if I can do it, you can too!

And yes, I live in Fargo, and no we are nothing like the movie.

How To Become An Influencer?

I’ve been at this for a long time, and the story is always the same.

The key is to write original content and add value early and often.

Think about this, it is “Social Media” It’s all about building relationships and adding value long before ever asking for anything.

If you are working for a company, even better. If they have a good product and or service your passionate about, your expertise valued content will build your brand as well as your company’s brand.

You may want to ask your company if you can write content on your own time. That is what I did. Heck yes, my time, I was building my brand, that’s my time. My company gave me a reason to write and a place to put it. Yes, the content wasn't about me or like this article.

How I started becoming an influencer:

My content writing started by writing ad copy for my companies products and services. Then later in life, I wrote ad copy and content for my companies clients. First in print, then on social media and then on websites.

My job was to understand prospects and customers needs and to produce results for them! Bar none, and get results.

Learn the skills!

Your content on an influential company blog, wow, what a start! Then shared with all the social networks I listed above. Bravo… You are published!

Note: While you are doing the above you will need to do the steps below.

Steps To Be A Successful Influencer

Create a list of the influencers you respect
Choose influencers who are in or associated with your target market who share similar views.
Follow them! Subscribe to their blog and email newsletter. Follow them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social networks. Be thorough, set up a Google News Alert for both their name and company.
Share your content regularly.
Start engaging with them.
If they share a piece of content you think your audience would find valuable, share it.
Encourage your audience to follow them.
Ask your audience questions and answer theirs.
Be first to post a worthwhile comment on their posts (not “Nice post!”). Link to their posts from your own.

You get the idea.

Once you’ve established a relationship with the influencers on your list, you can build a new list and start this process all over, but continue nurturing the old relationships, too.

It’s important to remember not to look at the influencers on your list as a goal to be checked off. While you do want them to engage with you and share your content, if that is your only goal, please don’t waste their time or your own.

People will realize you’re using them, and that will hurt both your personal and company brand.

To Dominate in Today's Market You Need Massive Content Distribution

"With content and with any product or service, if you don’t have efficient cost-effective massive distribution you will not have a dominating product or brand. Period!" — Rick Rea

What Content Distribution Systems Efficiently Excel Past All Others?

I bet you said social media. Yes, those platforms are needed to help higher rank your websites, extend your content reach, etc.

Think about this:

The Kardashians, yes they are a family, but we forget they are a huge business. From mom to the siblings to all the staff involved, they have a lot of employees when you think about it.

A lot of those employees in that business are influencers as well in their company niche.

When one Kardashian posts another Kardashian or 3 shares that post as well. Not to mention many of their employees.

The Kardashians Mastered Employee Advocacy

What would it be worth if you could leverage with a bunch of internal influencers/employee advocates like the Kardashians did in your business today?

What would you say if I said you could, and much easier than ever before?

If you have a company or work for a company that has a good number of customer-facing people, this is one of if not the best way to get your content distributed if it is approved by the company.

Just imagine dozens of staff sharing your content along with other influencers all backlinking to the website where your content was written and posted from.

What Employee Advocacy Social Sharing Software Should You Use?

We couldn’t find a one and we spent a ton trying over 2 years.

Probably because of my history and background in the industry some of the major global software brands that courted in the social sharing space had to stop the meeting because they couldn’t answer many of my questions on why the software didn’t perform certain needed tasks. They needed to re-schedule the meetings with the software engineers on the line.

That's when my business partner and I knew I was onto something. When a huge global company starts asking me what they could do and should do… It's time to develop.

So we got with the software company that had something close to what we needed and they rolled up the sleeves and worked with us to bring the perfect solution to market.

Let’s Share The Valued Importance of Employee Advocacy…

Today, for example, Google Pay for Click for keyword: “Employee Advocacy” goes for $26.00

In our Social Share Pro Software SSHQPRO App (SSHQpro) we have 6 people/advocates on our advocacy team, with only 2 being active.

Those 6 people/advocates have a reach of 119,000 people in their networks that they connected to our SSHQpro advocacy software.

In our SSHQpro software, we can input values for actions. Such as advocates can earn points for writing original content, earn points for shares, engagements, etc.

This is where SSHQpro makes business sense like I’m sure the Kardashians would agree.

This is something we call Earned Media Value (EMV). This is the value that the software earned through advocacy social media sharing.

In the pictures below we are illustrating that with only 8 posts of internal content and 2 advocates sharing too many social platforms through the SSHQpro App with a reach of 119,000 people one advocate had an EMV of $24,835 based off the cost per click on “Employee Advocacy”.

8 Internal Company Content Published using SSHQpro

EMV Generated from 1 Advocate

With the 2 active reps, there was a combined EMV of close to $40,000 in one month.

What would your company’s EMV be if you had all your customer-facing people and willing advocates sharing your content be worth using SSHQpro?

Rick Rea

Written by Rick Rea

Contact:
LinkedIn
Twitter

Digital sales people needed!!

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 06:00:00 GMT

Certified Social Selling Professional

Certified Social Sales Training

I know what your thinking, another blog on the death of traditional sales people!

This is not that article.

In fact, we need Digital sales people NOW!

Most of our clients are looking for and need sales people right across North America. The problem is, most, 90%+ of today's salespeople have critical challenges:

1) they have been trained to develop new customers with outdated methods that in today's new world, simply no longer work

2) they are relying on leads to be supplied from their company and in today's world these are no longer as plentiful, in fact for many this has stopped all together.

3) they have not yet learned how to develop a never-ending supply of interested, qualified customers by using the same thing your customers are using, the online digital world.

This is absolutely not to say that ALL previous sales skills learned are no longer needed. This is to say that many are simply outdated and need to be replaced.

Your old and outdated company systems have been replaced with new faster and more efficient systems so why are your sales teams still working with methods developed in the 1970's!?

Outdated office systems

Cloud based network systems

You replaced outdated corporate systems!

Traditional outside sales rep

Certified Social Sales Professional

Now it's time to retrain and create certified social sales professionals

Your customers have changed.

Your sales people have not.

It’s really that simple.

Customers of every kind do the same thing you do, they google any question they have!

This is where today's sales process begins, because during this initial stage of interest if they don’t find you, you lose.

Game over.

So what new skilled activity do you need to ensure your found?

Content, content and much more content.

Whether your putting up content on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, twitter or others, it is this content that ultimately puts you in front of that customer when a question is asked via google or any social channel.

When done properly this can create a whole series of engagements that ultimately lead to a customer entering your sales process where your retooled sales team can close the deal.

This content can be blogs, shared articles, video’s, podcasts, pictures, etc., etc. This sounds much simpler than it is, after all if it was simple you would be doing it already!

However with a system and a process results can be achieved very quickly.

What you don’t want is corporate advertising!

What you do want is information and insight that you know your customers are looking for.

Employee Advocacy

Search Engine Optimization in 2023

,
You also don’t want just marketing doing this. In fact, the lines between sales and marketing are all but gone.

Sales & marketing teams need to be creating, sharing and finding content together, not separately. This is a discussion for another article but is also critical to success.

To get you started on how to write great content, here is a suggested Tip;

Write down the top 10 questions your prospects might google when they need your services or products.

Now, google these questions yourself.

What came up? Ads, maybe some of your competitors, what page did you come up on?

These are now the topics of your next articles!

Take each question and answer it in detail in a separate article. Do not sell but rather explain and answer the question completely as if you were explaining to a customer.

No flag waving as to how you and your company are the best, just the facts.

This process along with some other key steps will help you begin the journey of connecting with your customers and prospective customers.

This process also creates what we call “Inbound” and this is how you will ultimately know you are getting results.

Again, your customers have learned how to find what they need immediately, shouldn’t you understand this as well?

So, don’t hire another sales rep, hire or train them to be a Certified Social Sales Professional

If you would like to know more about how this can help your organization and or some of the tools we use to make this happen, just let me know

Contact Thomas
LinkedIn
Website
Twitter
Facebook

Contact Social Selling HQ
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10 Reasons Why Nobody pays Attention To Your Content

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 06:00:00 GMT

Written by Rick Rea "Top 1% Endorsed for Advertising in the US" - LinkedIn

Many don't know that only about 1 percent of all headlines get clicked on? Yes that means 99% of our content doesn't get read! Of the 1% that click on your content only about 20% of them read the entire content.

What Do We Need To Do To Get People To Pay Attention To Our Content?

Everyone Wants to Succeed Online and to Know How To Do It!

First off we have so many so called social media experts saying we need High End Video Content or and High End Photography and they put out a list of things come out everyday that these so called experts say we must do.

All I say to those so called experts is "why do those less than classy meme Instagram sites have over 3 million followers..."

You see YouTube Channels that have amazing high end video content and after a year or two still dont have 1,000 followers.

You can imagine the stammering in the room at this point when the so called experts are searching for words.

Take it from somebody that has tracked the analytics and studied content with human behavior for years.

The answer is not those brands and individuals that post content every hour or every half hour on twitter thinking that's the answer. I know first hand as I use to do that as a test on many accounts to see where it was effective. It was just a bunch of noise. What a waste of time, all that content being written and not being read.

It is not about just doing...

It's All About Purpose!

1. You May Not Be Teaching Anyone Anything!

Education, that's right, statistics show and our stats show the "How To" articles recieve way more clicks and engagements and leads than non how to content. Just posting content will not get you there. It is a waste of time and money. One must brand with a purpose and have content that helps and teaches your audience how to use valuable information you share.

Otherwise they have no reason to pay attention.

We all know that is the truth!

See in the images below how much better "How To" educational content performs across the board than non educational content.

"Make Your Content Educational"

2. Your Content is the Same as Everyone Else's In Your Niche

This is why you must do competitive analysis on your content and track how it performs against your competition.

Think about it, why would anyone follow you if your content was or is basically the same as everyone else's.

3. Your Content Has No Real Message

This happens so much and a lot of the time it is when the person writing the content has no passion about the topic.

One must have passion about the topic and be able to have the resources to back it up to make it compelling and stand out.

Sending out motivational quotes won't cut it.

4. You Don't Have a Refined Content Strategy

KPI's (Key Performance Indicators), after all these years of content marketing I'm so surprised by how many are putting out content without a KPI strategy.

Look at these facts: The Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs conducted a 2018 survey of B2B marketers. The successful marketers, 62% had a documented content strategy. The unsuccessful marketers, only 16% have a documented content strategy.

I recently heard a major content producer say they don't track any content. I track just about every piece of content and have since about 2009. It is a must if you are going to succeed in today's market. Branding depends on it 100%.

Use a System That Tracks All You Social KPI's - likes, shares, engagements and who in your company shared it and where.

5. You Are Probably Not Following Best Practices.

Filling your twitter posts with lots of hashtags and sharing your Instagram posts to Facebook is not a long term winning strategy.

Think about it, if this is your top strategy how are you going to get the hard things done.

6. Your Content Doesn't Provide Value

Ask yourself this:

How important is value?
What content is valuable to your audience?
What content would help your clients and prospects?

Yes, VALUE is huge and it is your job to know what is valuable you your audience.

Get it right and provide great value.

7. You are not reaching out and collaborating enough

Your prospects are not just going to look you up and find you. You must get yourself out there.

Many are just on Facebook and Twitter. You need to engage with your audience on many platforms like Pinterest, LinkedIn and Instagram to just name a few.

8. You Don't Know Your Audience

If your audience isn't engaging with your content you have something wrong. Pay close attention to what your audience is engaging with.

Get rid of the content no one is engaging with.

Produce more content that your audience engages with.

It is that Simple.

9. You Are Not Consistent With Your Content

If your audience likes your content and is engaging with with your content, your audience will expect you to produce engaging content day after day.

If you produce engaging valued content day after day it will produce dividends!

10. You Need To Improve Your SEO

If you are producing content and have poor SEO, you might as well STOP creating content. No one is going to find it.

If your SEO is questionable please hire a consultant or contact us here a Social Selling HQ and do an extensive audit. Then get the SEO in line and produce your content with confidence.

What is your Digital IQ? Take our Quiz

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 06:00:00 GMT

By Thomas Ross, Founding Partner SSHQ

2023 has arrived!

Take this quiz to see if you and your organization are Digitally prepared for 2023

With customer behaviors radically changed due to the pandemic, its now or never!

Social Selling HQ will score your QUIZ choices (*link button below) to evaluate your Digital IQ and determine your readiness for 2021
As a bonus option you can include your LinkedIn & Twitter profile links from your profiles from which we can give you further recommendations to help you build your networks and grow your business!
No Obligation to buy anything
This Quiz is for all those who want to learn more about Digital Transformation from experts. YES, real people! No auto responders here!
Once completed we will score your responses and send you your digital IQ score along with potential steps you can consider next...
The insights to all of these questions are available once completed at the bottom of the Quiz

What's so important about my Digital IQ?

Digital versus Analog

Customers are always right!

This is the premise we start with as this is the new world we live in
It is now a "BUYER's MARKET" and no longer a "SELLER's MARKET"
If you accept this, than the next question is, "what do customers want"?
There have been many studies done showing that the number one requirement is speed, they want it now
It makes no difference whether it's a product a service or just an answer to a question
In fact, it does not matter whether it's B2B or B2C, the number one requirement remains the same
Next, they want simplicity and competence, this they will quickly confirm from your online reviews...if you don't have any,

your out of luck because it's already over...they, your could have been customers, have moved on...

From there they want ease of access and helpful follow-up where required

https://www.pwc.de/de/consulting/pwc-consumer-intelligence-series-customer-experience.pdf

So what has this got to do with my Digital IQ?

Everything!
You see, for you to deliver what your customers want means very simply that you have to move completely

from the, "Analog world", to today's online, real-time, "DIGITAL WORLD"

This means everything you now do for your customers from the beginning of their journey

to the end, has to be practically instant and yet, uncompromising!

How can you accomplish this?
While the actual steps and requirements will vary from company to company, ultimately there is only one way
Through a complete and ongoing, "Digital Transformation", this is not something you do once, this is something you will be improving

on from now on as technologies allow you to do so

Your Digital IQ is the best indicator of how likely it is that you and your company are prepared to take the next steps
It does not matter what those steps are, if you are not ready they will not "Take Hold" and actually work until you are
Shortly you will receive your results and these will be accompanied with some recommendations you can begin

to take in order to catch up with your customers by becoming what they demand!

Thomas Ross / Certified Digital Transformation Facilitator

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WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF SALES?

Mon, 11 Apr 2022 05:00:00 GMT

THE END OF ANALOG SALES?

The Future of Sales

Why is Social Selling so important now?

The need for skilled digital salespeople will not diminish any time soon, in fact, it will continue to grow at an exponential rate.
That’s the great news.

The need for analog salespeople has now officially ended.

This has been coming or awhile but with arrival of the pandemic, we are all living through the final moments of traditional sales methods.
Think of it this way, “The asteroid was to dinosaurs what the corona virus is to business as we have known it”

Why is Social Selling so critical now?
The need to do catch up with our customers and meet them where they are can no longer be ignored.

What does this mean?

Far less travel
Far fewer trade shows and conferences
Significantly more online real-time communication with customers and prospective customers alike
Increased online support and content for customers tied directly to available online support
Far lower “cost of sales”
Increased use of Artificial Intelligence to support customers and sales alike
Much more emphasis on content marketing
Much more focus on customer experience
Completely re-imagined sales process for most industries
Updated and aligned customer journey
Realigned sales touch-points for all industries
These are just a few of the changes that are represented by moving to digital sales & marketing / social selling

In the traditional sales model for most B2B businesses, the sales process looks like this:

Traditional Sales Process circa 1980 - 2019, RIP

So what does a Digital Social Sales Process look like?

It seems simpler and in many ways it is. This because people responding to your content and engaging are already interested having found you while researching their needs.

Therefore, we do not have to convince them with highly skilled sales techniques designed to get agreement. In most cases, they close themselves because they are no longer passive but rather are very proactive in understanding their options.

Just like traditional sales they still require the confidence of a knowledgeable salesperson to lead the way and ensure they succeed in their decision.

Because up to 80% of the social sales process can be completed online the physical orientation of your sales force can be entirely re-imagined.

The questions you need to answer are:

How many salespeople do you need?
Do you still need outside sales people?
Can sales teams be virtual in a WFH environment?
Can online sales systems (CRM’s) manage all activity?
How many customer service people do you need?

These are questions than can only be answered specific to your organization and customer profiles.
Is it time to Re-imagine your Sales & Marketing process??
Only if you want to succeed.
We can help!

Contact Thomas
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What is virtual training and why it's so important

Mon, 04 Apr 2022 05:00:00 GMT

Written By : Thomas Ross

Virtual Certification

Is "Virtual Training" the same as “Online Training?"

Virtual training is most commonly understood to be “Online Training.”
However, there are significant differences in how these training sessions can be conducted
The various types of Virtual Training are;

Pre-recorded and automated training
Facilitated and live online training
Hybrid training leveraging both recorded as well as live segments
Lesson based training done in step by step segments or units, usually spread over time
Hands-on training, working on an individual basis / online sessions but "live"
Team training with larger groups but all working from individual devices
Collaborative training for teams working together with a facilitator, this type of training is meant to be highly interactive

Many of these can be very effective depending on the nature of the training and the topic
We find for skill-based training ie, where skills are being learned and actually practiced, the best format is facilitated with live online group training followed by Hands-on training for each individual
Depending on the length of the program this can be rotated every week to meet the requirements of the program
This also allows for certification to be offered as part of the program where applicable

Virtual Training

Key elements to successful virtual training

There are a number of key ingredients necessary to make for successful “Virtual Training” programs.
A) Technology

The right video conferencing environment for your needs / working from home, from an office or custom space?
The right hardware for your needs from computers to monitors and video cameras
The right software applications to ensure that your participants can easily work with and or convert to their own needs by way of materials or through an online library
Continued live virtual support, ie a separate Chat room or virtual space where participants can get help during or after session(s)
What equipment and or technology do your participants require? This too has to be considered and built in to your program

Here are a couple of helpful links to get you started:

https://www.lifesize.com/en/video-conferencing-blog/best-video-conferencing-equipment

https://tech.co/web-conferencing/best-video-conferencing-equipment

B) Skilled Facilitators
This is no longer about simple presentations done by a good speaker!

This is about a skilled facilitator who brings your material to life through all the tools, processes, and technologies you provide....all while keeping everyone ACTIVELY ENGAGED!
Depending on the nature of the materials, using a co-facilitator can make it more interesting and lively
These facilitators are not easy to find and in fact are more likely to be trained by you through your programs
The best facilitators are not necessarily the best speakers but rather those that keep everyone interacting throughout the program

C) Program outline and content

Like everything else in today’s world, it’s all about the content!
Your programs need to be engaging, enlightening, and most importantly, INTERACTIVE!
There are many tools available to do this including live polling, online breakout rooms, games, etc
Active and ongoing participation is critical as well as keeping the topics tight and focused, no speeches, please!!
For most 45-60 minute sessions, (and especially when there are groups) it’s important to have an interactive activity every 3-5 minutes, so build this in from the start!
Limit your use of pre-recorded content as this is generally not well received and does not have as lasting an impact on the participants
This means that the days of online autonomous videos are numbered!
Bring in outside personalities and resources where it makes sense to do so
Once you have a program in draft, test, test and test some more using real-life scenarios and even real participants
To ensure ongoing improvement, continue to adapt the program for new technologies as well as the changing needs of your customers

HOW BIG SHOULD YOUR SESSIONS BE?
Ideally, your group sizes should not be overwhelming either for your facilitator or for your participants
Generally, this means 3 to 10 is about max. Anything over and engagement will suffer badly
If your enrollment or group is larger, break it up and add more to compensate DO NOT TRY AND DO LARGE GROUPS if you do not have a process to ensure successful virtual training
Webinars of the past, or at least many of them failed for this reason

Certification

Why is Certification Important?

D) Certification and participant ongoing input / “Virtual Certification”

Providing the participants with both an overview of their success and a hard copy document certifying completion of the program is a must. You can also include a electronic certificate but for best results we find that both work best
In addition, it’s very powerful incentive to provide ratings of their new skill levels, where applicable, ie, Gold, Silver, Bronze...
Give all participants the opportunity to boast about their success on your social media pages, nothing is more powerful than first-hand, real-time testimonials
This is not only great for participants going forward but allows branding and marketing of your virtual training long after it’s been completed
This allows for branding and marketing to be more easily done while leveraging your successful participants to spread the word / Brand Advocacy

E) Marketing

In the end successful marketing will allow you to maximize both registration for the program as well as revenues, what's more important than that?
Creating a buzz about your programs, courses or training is all about working your networks effectively well ahead of time
What is the key value participants are to gain from your virtual training? (This needs to be built into your content)
What are the kinds of questions one might google when looking for this kind of training? (This allows for SEO to drive leads and participants to your program)
These are the questions you need to answer so that you can build your online social marketing plan
You also need to do a customer profile of those that would be participants so you can effectively communicate with them in their language and where they are most likely to see your content
Think content marketing and begin building an audience as well as participation at least “3” months ahead of time

F) Technology - yes, again!

Undoubtedly some of your technology choices will fail
Undoubtedly some of your participant’s technology or tools will fail
Have a contingency plan for as many circumstances as you can guess at and then practice these scenarios before you officially begin
Just because everything went perfect the one or two times you practiced is not good enough
Assemble random test participants and test again!
You won’t catch everything but you will catch the big or catastrophic fails
*Remember, in our new virtual and online world you only get one chance. Once participants are done they will immediately become great advocates for referrals OR your worst nightmare on social media!
So get as much right the first time as possible and treat your participants like gold because they are!!

Virtual Training - What's next

What are the Best Results?

So in the end how do you know your virtual training program (s) are successful?

Repeat customers. Are your customers coming back for more?
Growing enrollment for ongoing virtual training programs
Growing social media followers and networks on your social media pages
Excellent ratings on your google page, Facebook page etc
Revenue...you guessed it, your making more money! This could be based on the costs of the programs delivered and or from happy customers who are now buying more of your services

Lastly,
Don’t forget, virtual training is a defined and required skill set you need to develop to be successful
There are a number of ways to begin to practice this in order to become effective

Make short videos of your delivery of your "Virtual Training", so you and your facilitator can become highly skilled at this
As mentioned before practice, practice, practice…
Be very prepared and methodical, have your sessions laid out so you cover what is needed effectively
Be prepared to take individuals offline by way of separate sessions where required and needed. Trying to answer all questions during time will lead to overruns and lose of engagement, further simply wont' be as effective
Make sure to turn your best participants into "ROCK-STARS!" Make them famous to their networks and they will do likewise for your Virtual Training programs
HAVE FUN and be enthusiastic!

Thomas Ross / Pro-Certified Social Selling & Training Expert

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What is Business Development?

Fri, 01 Apr 2022 05:00:00 GMT

By Thomas Ross, Founding Partner SSHQ

Business Development has changed!

How has Business Development changed and what is it?
I know, I know, this seems like a very obvious and simple question, but is it?
Certainly for those who have been in business for the last 15 years, this resonates quickly and simply as a process by which new opportunities for revenue are developed
The goal of Business Development is to create new sales leads and revenue opportunities
This to be differentiated from closing or finalizing new business which is generally attributed more directly to “Sales”
“Sales”, tends to represent the actual transaction itself while “Business Development” is seen as the process leading to the opportunity in the first place.
For those going back longer than that “Business Development”, has less meaning unless it’s understood more directly as “Sales Development” and for some even, “Marketing”
This represents a time when the organizational chart for most companies had marketing, sales and customer service reporting through different channels in the company
This for many led to what we call a "Siloed" environment where departments that should have worked closely together, often did not
You may even have seen many humorous video's and meme's showing just how far apart many sales and marketing people were and still are!
This is because the hierarchy or organizational chart for most organizations today really has not changed in decades
Up until recently, you could still get away with this as business was still growing and why make major changes when you’re successful!?

Enter Covid-19 and everything changes

New Virtual World of 2020

Digital Transformation

With the recent changes due to Covid-19, everything has changed

Budgets - in many cases have been slashed or removed altogether
Sales teams - working from home or furloughed
Marketing teams - working from home or furloughed
Customer service - working from home or furloughed
Business Development - working from home or furloughed
Executive teams - working from office & home, often blended

What has changed with many customers? They have gone through exactly same changes as you!
So how does this change what we need as an organization going forward?
For many organizations, they are now seeing better results with lower costs as much of the waste build up over last 10 years is exposed
"Necessity is the mother of invention", this has led to companies making the most of less...
The biggest change is with, “Communication”, In the very recent past we were still communicating through traditional ways, with most relying on email
What’s interesting is that now we are all using Teams, Slack, Zoom, etc, and actually learning how efficient online communication can be!
Would this have happened without being forced...yes, but over a much longer period of time

Real-Time Communication 2020

Customer Experience

What’s even more interesting is that we can apply this same process with our customers and include social media as part of our communication mix
This creates AMAZING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE!
I know, I know, your already putting corporate content on social media. This is not communication, this is advertising
Communication is not advertising, BUT social media offers us the opportunity to talk to our customers and their teams in real-time with far better results
This is no different than what we gained by using Slack, Teams, or Zoom for our own internal teams so why would we not do the same for your customers!!?

So what does this mean for our corporate structure?
It means our existing organizational charts no longer match up with today’s marketing, sales, or customer service roles
In fact, many of the old positions can be redefined and or eliminated
This will cut costs significantly while increasing results dramatically
Some roles disappear while others evolve in order to maximize direct real-time communication with existing and new customers alike
We’ve always said that everyone was in “Sales”, well now it may be that everyone is in “Customer Service”
The more we help and educate the less we need to sell!
The trick is to drive "Inbound" by "Pulling" rather than pushing customers!
This also means that the days of corporate advertising are coming to an end, but this is a topic for another day!
So here’s a quick high-level view of the comparison between old outdated org charts and a new one for today’s digital world

Old versus New Organizational Chart

New Organizational Chart 2020

Re-Org 2022

Is this a dramatic and transformational change, ABSOLUTELY!
Is this what all organizations should do?
Not necessarily...this is an example of what can work for many but certainly not all!
“Business Development”, now happens almost entirely virtually
This does not mean we don’t meet with customers and key stakeholders as we are more able to do so
But what it does mean is that even this can be greatly reduced
Every organization is different and works with customers in their own unique way so this needs to be put in place with that in mind
In the end you will not only reduce your costs while greatly streamlining your organization, you will also greatly improve your revenues and growth!
To have your organizational chart and workflows reviewed for today's best results / Digital Transformation, just ask me!

Thomas Ross, Pro-Certified Digital Expert

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Hunters, gatherers, or Farmers? Which is most effective?

Tue, 22 Mar 2022 05:00:00 GMT

Social Selling is not like hunting

I’ve heard it a thousand times, “if we only had 10 more sales people like him or her!”.
Funny thing, if you did your sales team would be totally dysfunctional and perhaps even outdated.

There’s a real balance to be struck within your organization for all personality types. This is absolutely true of your sales team. In fact, what worked just a few short years ago has radically changed and no longer works.
It used to be you want your aggressive hunters out in the field bringing in the big deals by whatever means necessary as long as they got it done. Then it was up to the team to support and develop the customer to their maximum potential. So, you truly had “Hunters” and “Farmers”, but you likely did not have gatherers yet, more on this later.

Traditional sales methods

Hunters relied on amazing cold calling & networking skills along with the ability to talk eskimos into new ice makers. This, while farmers were able to develop close knit relationships with the key contact within the customers organization.
Problem is that most of the methods that hunters traditionally used are simply no longer effective. Activities like trade shows, networking events, cold calling, even a friendly game of golf, just don’t get the results they used to. In fact, it’s too the point that the cost of these activities now outweigh the results, leaving many organizations wondering what to do now?
This is where more modern social selling and social branding become options for every company wanting to develop new customers.

Digital Transformation creates new paths for sales

The most common answer we hear is they should hire more hunters! This is the wrong approach as adding more of something that is already losing it's effectiveness only amplifies the problem.
The days of outside hunter who only shows up with a carcass strapped over the hood of the car, are over. Good riddance. He or she was a problem at the Christmas party anyway…
Buyers have changed, customers have changed, but sales people have not.
Now to be successful it’s not a rolodex you need it’s 5000+ contacts on LinkedIn with another 5000 on twitter and likewise per Facebook and Instagram.
All our key contacts and customers are now online, either directly or indirectly through “changemakers”.

Modern buying process

Today’s hunters are likely in the office 80% of the time and closing most deals as such. This does not mean they don’t go out and meet customers, it simply means they can be much more efficient and cost effective about it.
Today’s hunters are also gatherers, only instead of gathering nuts, they are gathering connections to make their networks bigger and more powerful.
Farmers are also needed, and they can work much the same way but now using social channels to keep in touch with customers. This in "real time" while they penetrate their accounts much further than they ever could before. Many contacts can now be developed instead of just one or two…
Your sales team needs to be balanced. What is the best balance for your company, that’s where having a social sales strategy and plan comes in.
Today’s hunters don’t look anything like yesterdays and that’s a good thing!
What’s more important, hunters or farmers?
Is it the person who opens the account or is it the team that expands and keeps it?
Your call, but either way they will all get extraordinary results by working as a team on the online world leveraging brand advocacy and social selling

Social Sales Training provided by Social Sales Experts will allow your organization to boldly move forward.

Learn how to maximize your content marketing through employee advocacy with our new sales tool SSHQPRO APP

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How To Improve Sales With Online Customer Service

Mon, 21 Mar 2022 05:00:00 GMT

Account Growth & Client Retention are critical for Business Survival

You already spend a great deal of money on getting new customers, can you afford to lose them?
Worse can you afford to let them languish as poor accounts that no longer grow?
Whether your business is B2B or B2C, there is nothing more important than your customer service

Old School Customer Service

Traditionally it has been the work of account managers, inside sales and customer service to ensure that customers were happy and growing in their use of your services and products.

In addition, this has been done primarily with a combination of in-person meetings, phone calls, and emails

Up until a few years ago, this was still working well for most companies and their customers

Recently client retention rates have deteriorated for many companies relying on these traditional communication channels

Account growth, that is, the growth of revenue from individual accounts has also been difficult to manage and for many has shrunk using only traditional methods.

So, what’s going on?

Old School Customer Service

Customer Communication in 2022

Courtesy of Simon Kemp / Kepios / HTTPS:DATAREPORTAL.COM

Things have changed!

Customer service today is no longer the same as traditional old school customer service

Yes, technology has created a new digital world where practically everything we do as customers or for customers can now be done online

But it’s really been our new reality of social distancing, working from home with no face to face meetings that has suddenly forced us to find our customers!!

What does this mean?

Customers now research anything and everything online, often verbally using google voice rather than typing into search engines

Customers are much more likely to answer a text, a direct message or video call than they are any other form of communication

So… "This is now how it is and how it’s going to be in our new post-pandemic world "

Keeping in touch with customers is now more important than ever as they too are going through enormous changes which in turn, changes their needs.

So how do you stay in touch with them and provide real-time customer service?

The answer is best explained by asking this question while offering the following example.

When you need to reach one of your friends fast,
how do you quickly do this?

For most people (certainly not all) this is the order of preference

Facebook Messenger

Facebook message
Text / Mobile
Instagram
Snapchat
Phone call/mobile
WhatsApp
Viber
Alternative VOIP app

You will note, email was not included on this list.

How quickly would your friends see an email? This is not to say they would not respond but how quickly, is the real question?

This is certainly not a complete list and different geographies can change this dramatically, BUT generally, people do not try to reach out quickly to their friends by email.

In fact, email for this use did not crack the top ten

Now, let’s think about what we have all been told for literally decades when working with customers

Customer service, sales and business development are all about …. “Relationships”

You simply do not build relationships through emails and yet this is how most sales and customer service is still conducted today!!

OK, the point is hopefully made.

Now, how do you reach or rather how should you reach your customers, the ones we have, and or we are developing relationships with?

That's right!

Facebook messenger
Text / Mobile
Instagram
Snapchat
Phone call
WhatsApp
Viber
Alternative VOIP app

And I would add: (where applicable)

Zoom
Slack
Teams

You get the picture

All communication moves to online in real-time

Customer survey

Reach out to your customers and connect with them!

The trick is to find out what your customers prefer...here’s a really important hint, it could be any or all of these platforms!!

So just learning or using one or two of these tools will not suffice for all or even most

You need to be on and proficient, in all that are representative of your customers and what they use (this is where your customer profiles come in)

So as someone whose responsibility it is to maintain, nurture, and grow customer accounts this is what you need to know

Reach out to your customers and connect with them on Facebook NOW, not tomorrow
or when it seems like a good time...NOW

Do the same on Instagram and or any of the other applicable apps that your customers may use

Here’s another key tip. (Really more of a must-do!)

The moment you meet or talk to a customer the first time ask to friend them on Facebook

If they do not use Facebook ask what channel would be best for them

If they ask why, and many will, simply let them know this is the quickest and most responsive way for you
to make sure whatever they need in the future is done immediately so they do not have to wait

For 90+% of our customers, this answer is effective every time

After all, people want to know that you take their needs seriously

This is the beginning of a “Real & Trusting Relationship” with your customers!

Customer Relationship

How to get immediate benefits?

Repeat this exercise across all of your customer lists using the social platform that best suits your customers

For example if your business is mostly or all B2B, than LinkedIn may be one of the networks to connect with as well

But...remember the behavior in terms of communication on LinkedIn is not the same as Facebook messenger and in fact messenger is a much better and more effective way to communicate with most customers

This is why you do not see LinkedIn on this list for customer communication

Twitter can be another very useful option to consider for some of your customers and is also an excellent channel for ongoing social selling for new customers.

However, this will be a much lower percentage of your customers for the purposes of communication and customer service

Benefits:

The key benefits of communicating directly with customers in this fashion are:

Excellent client retention
Significantly improved customer account growth
Much stronger relationships with customers
Far greater account penetration with all customers
Much lower communication and account management costs
Lower cost of sales
Lower marketing costs
Significantly increased market presence
Much more engaged sales and customer service teams
Lower recruiting and on-boarding costs for new team members
More flexibility in working from home or not depending on what works best
Simply the best customer service you can have!

To summarize:

For existing customers reach out and ask what channels they may prefer to be contacted through in order to stay in real-time contact. Then immediately friend them via corporate and or personal profiles as appropriate.

Track and build out tracking for this social communication as you would any other. This will require a CRM or social advocacy platform that allows you to do so.

Tracking and measuring this activity is no less important than it was with emails and phone calls only now it’s in real-time and much more impactful to your ongoing client retention and account growth.

For new or prospective customers upon the first contact inquire directly as to which channels they prefer to communicate through. Begin to follow up immediately in this way so as to establish an effective and productive relationship.

Next Steps

We know that most people are very willing to test new ideas and concepts but are less willing to drastically change all of their current processes without first seeing results for themselves.

So here are some immediate steps you can take to test the effectiveness of online customer service. The key results to look for are improved account growth through sales and client retention

If you are not tracking these metrics, start now!

1) Pick a couple of your inside sales or customer service team members

2) Arrange to have them trained to work online effectively with the platforms and tools relevant to your customer profiles.

You are in luck as we offer this training for $297 / person

3) Set up their customer lists so that they can be tracked for all communication using a social CRM

If you do not have one we can recommend a free trial for this test

4) Over a 90 day period (after being trained), gauge and measure all results

5) Once you begin seeing the results, begin planning how you can replace the current process with this new online customer service program

You are in luck here as well as we can help both reconfigure your current process and get your remaining people trained

Let’s Get Started!

Thomas Ross / Pro-Certified / Social Selling HQ

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THE FUTURE OF VIRTUAL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Mon, 14 Mar 2022 05:00:00 GMT

Re-imagined Virtual Customer Experience

A common phrase from many CEO’s over the last 20 years has been, “Everyone is in Sales!”

Today this needs to be re-imagined and re-written as, “Everyone is in Customer Experience!”

For most B2B companies the sales process is as old as their business

No need to spend too much time on this other than to outline what this has looked like for
many years

So let’s look at the most common model for sales, marketing, and customer support systems

Traditional Sales & Marketing Organizational Chart

Original equipment manufacturers (OEM’s)
*Includes:

Suppliers
Distributors
Resellers

Sales:

VP Sales, CSO
Sales manager(s) / Regional
Outside sales teams
Sales engineers
Inside salespeople
Customer service and warranty people

Marketing:

VP Marketing, CMO
Marketing manager
Marketing coordinators
Graphics and or website personnel
Outsourced agency support

Technology companies
Sales:

VP Sales, CSO
Sales manager
Outside sales teams
Sales engineers
Inside salespeople
Onboarding and customer service people
Technical support

Marketing:

VP Marketing, CMO
Digital marketing manager
Content coordinators
Lead or sales funnel qualifiers
Outside agency support often including marketing services such as PPC advertising

Service industries
Sales:

VP Sales, CSO
Sales manager
Outside sales team
Technical sales support
Inside salespeople
Customer service
Technical customer support (where applicable)

Marketing:

VP Marketing, CMO
Digital marketing manager
Content and marketing coordinators
Outsourced agency support often including marketing services such as PPC advertising

B2C / Retail
Sales & Marketing:

VP Sales & Marketing
Retail salespeople directly communicating and working with end-user customers
Customer service and support
Outsourced website support often including marketing services such as PPC advertising

Virtual Customer Centric Organizational Chart

So what’s the problem?

The Customer Journey has radically changed from analog to digital, “Absolutely everything is now done Online”

These old traditional models no longer support or follow today’s customer journey

You see, all of these models assume that new customers were found and developed. This was done by disruptive advertising, push marketing and to some extent, pay per click advertising depending on the industry.

This completely ignores the fact that customers are no longer “Found”

Today, customers find you! (*assuming you have a strong online presence allowing google to bring you up on page 1)

They do this by researching online by simply googling either verbally or in text whatever they are searching for

The evidence to support this is everywhere but here are a few key examples:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/02/14/the-customer-journey-then-and-now/#1b17d3d83f41

https://www.modernmarketingpartners.com/2014/04/16/7-types-of-marketing-organization-structures/

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/our-insights/leading-and-governing-the-customer-centric-organization

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/global-surveys-of-consumer-sentiment-during-the-coronavirus-crisis

So, what does this mean and how does it impact an organizational chart?

Well, things have changed as we can now communicate with customers who are actually interested in our products or services and we can do so in real-time.

So let’s try this on: (*Sales & Marketing become one / Virtual Business Development)

VP of Virtual Business Development
Virtual Business Development Manager (s)
Brand Managers (s)
Customer experience manager
Customer experience representative
Virtual Customer experience representative
Virtual Customer experience representative
Virtual Customer support

You will note that two distinct silo’s (departments) of traditional companies have now become “1” team all with one focused goal.

“AMAZING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE!”

Does this mean that some positions will disappear? Yes, however, the number of positions required to now communicate with customers virtually in real-time has greatly increased!

What’s the most efficient number of front line Customer Experience Representatives?

Every industry is different but it comes down to how many customers can one person manage so that ALL customers receive amazing service in real-time.

Add to this the inflow of new customers from all online sources and the time required to create an amazing experience for each and you begin to get the picture.

Virtual Customer Service

Now, how to do this? "Digital Transformation"

First, you must break all your old habits which have been part of your business model since inception.

Begin and complete a full Digital Transformation accross your organization

Far fewer trade shows, (perhaps none) or external events unless they can be proven to provide exceptional customer value and or provide a platform for new product introductions

No need for traditional outside salespeople. Now to be replaced with more in-house or virtual customer experience representatives

No need for separate Sales & Marketing silo’s or departments

All positions become customer-centric, even yours!

All communication is online in real-time

Very little if any email

Much more focus on online events, demonstrations, and experiences

Retooling for all customer-facing positions in order to function in this new world.

In-person meetings are still important! But now where they add to the customer experience and not just because we have always done it this way!

This is a simple example of how you can re-imagine your team based on your customer’s actual journey in 2020 post-pandemic and beyond.

As you can see your customers are now number “1” across every area we have addressed and you now have much closer relationships with all of them.

This is not to say that customers were not already number “1”, it’s to say that we need to communicate where they are and not where they used to be...

Online customer recommendations, referrals, testimonials and customer reviews will now build more sales for you than any advertisement or PPC campaign alone ever could.

What are you missing?

The decision to catch up with the 21st century customer experience and sales growth!!

We look forward to creating an amazing experience for your customers by helping you and your organization re-imagine the

“Future of Virtual Business Development”

Contact Thomas
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Advanced Social Selling Strategy

Wed, 09 Mar 2022 06:00:00 GMT

By Rick Rea: Top 1% Endorsed for Advertising in the USA

The Benefits of Social Selling

Proper social selling generates higher quality leads, increases your sales pipeline, and exponentially increases your closed sales rates with higher revenue sales. Most think of social selling as a process for sales teams only, social selling has expanded well beyond just sales teams and is now a critical component for most all organizations today.
In my experience I would estimate 95% of businesses could execute their social selling program with their current staff!

Social Selling And How Do You Do It?

Social Selling / Social Sales is in more demand today than ever before. Especial since the COVID19 Coronavirus Pandemic, and for so many other reasons. Stopping by an office or business for a sales call, or calling a person at a business is going to lead you nowhere in today's world.

Being active doing social sales since 2009 when I opened my first Twitter account I can honestly say in todays world, Social Selling is where it's at... BAR NONE!

Social Selling is so authentically awesome, Forbes and other amazing business publishers often write about the benefits of organizations utilizing a good Social Selling Social Sales plan.

Proper Training is key...

Today's consumers are well informed and in this modern age we are all way more informed than ever before. With just a few clicks we have a world of research at our fingertips.

Hubspot research shows that 74% of B2B buyers conduct most of their research online before contacting a salesperson or making a purchase on their own.

Since social buying is so common, YOU NEED TO BE WHERE THE BUYERS ARE! It is a no brainer. We are not advising or recommend that you use some social automated software to get leads either. Especially since the coronavirus pandemic people are wanting real conversations and connections with real people online when it comes to B2B sales.

The most successful Social Selling Sales Programs are real employees connecting with real clients and customers online. This is where social selling comes into play.

What is Social Selling?

Social Selling is a way to connect sales teams with prospects on social media platforms providing valued content and engaging with them. Your goal is to engage buyers on an on-going, long-term basis creating a relationship where you are considered a valued resource for the prospect.

And this engagement definitely pays off.

LinkedIn research concludes that 78% of social sellers outsell in comparison to colleagues who don’t use social sales. Social media can help you immediately and actively engage and communicate with accounts, and develop your prospects. You will have the ability to look for opportunities or signals when it’s a good time to reach out to your prospects. This allows you to have a greater understanding of when to send that message you’ve wanted to send and have it well well-received. Social selling definitely helps you connect to your prospects and remain relevant which will develop valued long term relationships.

6 Social Selling Fundamental Steps:

Making Sales Through Social Media. A huge part of the sales process is establishing relationships and getting to know your prospects. Social media helps you accomplish relationships quickly and easily.

Follow these steps to make sales using social media easier.

Social Selling Step 1: Join a social media community

Always start by spending some time with the social platforms you plan to use in the communities that interest you.
Build up a personal account.
Have conversations, and become acquainted with expectations of the social media communities that interest you.
Do not misrepresent yourself, create a persona that's likeable and trustworthy within that community.

If you're a none tactful person or non relevant when I see you on a social media site, myself nor is anyone else going to do business with you. If you just comment a lot to get people to go to your site, I will not listen to you nor will worthwhile prospects. You can't abuse or misuse social media. Many do not know the do's and don'ts of social media edicate to create a network that see you as a trustworthy resource.
Note: Seek "social sales training" from "social sales experts" to get this right!

Social Selling Step 2: Decide the ideal way to connect with the community

B2C (Business to Consumer): Facebook is an ideal arena for B2C sales.
B2B (Business to Business): Probably the most effective for B2B sales is LinkedIn for products and services.
B2B and B2C: I personally like Twitter as it is effective for all types of sales. Twitter can be employed for all kinds of sales of products and services in all parts of the world.
B2B and B2C: I'm a FIRM BELIEVER that you shouldn't limit yourself to the big 3 social media platforms. Live Chats, website blogs such as your websites and Tumblr to name a few are awesome.
Branding: For brands one must absolutely consider Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook to increase their reach which leads to sales.
increase their reach and branding efforts, all of which leads to sales.

For all my and our clients I really stress it is not about posting products and services for sale. One must present valued information that fits your community in a fun way that drives engagement. You must engage with the community, and more importantly connecting with the user or potential user of your products or services. if you are not connecting with them you will not get the results you want or deserve.

You can and will make sales where the conversation is happening, so go where your prospects are having conversations and join into the conversation.

Social Selling Step 3: Connecting with individuals

Many don't know a good way to find, friend and connect with the right people. So many people just search social media platforms, I will let you know there is a much easier way. I have used many tools and recently discovered Social Searcher and really find it very good. Best part you can sign up for free. I recently did a search and found most of the contacts were on Reddit, and the client didn't even know what Reddit was.

You will want to comment on their posts and reshare the posts when appropriate. Answer questions on posts and when it becomes apparent the contact is a good fit you should follow them at this time after a relationship has somewhat been established.

Social Selling Step 4: Building Relationships

Focus on Developing Relationships more than focusing on just getting leads. The more true relationships you build the more leads you will develop!
Monitor and understand to what people are really saying so you can engage into a meaningful conversation.
Once you develop a relationship you can then tell the prospect about your products and services may help them.

Social Selling Step 5: Engage in Conversation

Everyone seems to get a ton of Direct Messages with a pitch and a link to a site. This leads to a lot of uninterested people. PLEASE think about this: If you are only pitching your products to people you have built a relationship with you will ONLY HAVE INTERESTED PROSPECTS. In my point of view people who just pitch and send links, most of which is an automated app solution, I CONSIDER THEM AS SPAMMERS! You don't want to be known as a spammer.

Engage in conversation that they are already having and develop a relationship based on value and you will NEVER COLD CALL AGAIN!

Social Selling Step 6: Post Valued Content

As you are engaging into conversations with people that are on others peoples posts you will need to post valued content as well. This is where you will shine if your write on your own website blog post, you know what they say; "Content is King"! Yes, content is king. I find the more how to and tips pieces you write the better. Great headlines get clicked, and boy do they. Did you know that less than 1% of headlines get clicked. We have an extraordinary Social Selling employee advocacy software that tracks clicks and I can personally average around a 30% CTR (Click Through Rate) on articles. So practice and follow industry leaders and learn how they do it. I and we at Social Selling HQ offer training on this. I have found this as one of the biggest ways to excell your Social Selling efforts.

How Do I Do Social Selling Successfully

Follow the Social Selling HQ steps and get training from Social Selling HQ if possible.
Don't be creepy, don't be the one sending un-invited direct messages without building a relationship first.
Engage with prospects daily with valued points of conversation.
Write and post content.
Share and post relevant content from others.
Join LinkedIn and Facebook groups.
Use relevant and proper hashtags. Do not abuse!
Measure your results, there are a few decent programs out there. We were disappointed with many we researched in the market but we did find an excellent solution. So, we partnered with them and Social Selling HQ now has an app for Social Selling that incorporates employee advocacy at the same time, called SSHQpro.

Rick Rea
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Why do you act differently with business friends vs. personal friends on social media?

Mon, 07 Mar 2022 06:00:00 GMT

Being Human is just as important at work as it is in our personal lives

Why can't we be FRIENDS?

Why do we forget to be human when we begin working?

I noticed that a funny thing happens to people when they begin working

They forget to be human and begin acting like some kind of worker zombies!

Most forget how to communicate quickly and easily and slip right back into the 1990’s without even knowing they’ve done it

It’s like we all step into a time machine and go back in time so we can begin to do our work

What do I mean?

Well, let’s go through just a few of the habits and tools we use when we begin to do our work just to help make the point

By the way for many of us going to work may be going into the kitchen with your laptop these days but we still follow some of these same old patterns

If we are doing a presentation than it’s likely we are using PowerPoint which simply does not provide what we need in today’s online world

In fact we have been using this and other similar tools for so long we have totally forgotten how to tell stories and get people actually interacting with us!

Instead, most people are stuck watching our slide presentation just waiting for it to be over!

If we are reaching out to customers we are generally writing an email or trying to reach them by phone

If we are doing a report we are generally doing up a separate document that is later emailed out rather than an interactive document that our team can all be working on or have access to online in real-time

In fact most of the work we do is done using outdated methods with some new features that make us think we are working as teams when in fact we are more like work zombies

WORKER ZOMBIE!

How to be human at work using Social Media

I could go on with many more examples but the key message here is that we are the same people when we work as when we are off the clock so why do we
suddenly forget how to quickly and easily communicate with our friends and associates?

Is it true that everyone is on one or more of these Social Media platforms:

Mobile / texting
Facebook & Messenger
Instagram
LinkedIn
Twitter
Snapchat
Viber
WhatsApp
Etc, Etc...

So what’s with the email?

I understand WHEN there is an important document to send but this is a small percentage of emails

Further, most emails today have links instead of attachments…

So, why are you calling when you can reach instantly by one of these platforms or others without disrupting them?

For most, this works best and now you can set up a call, or zoom meeting, (if needed), at a time that works

Isn’t this what we do with our friends?

Why would we not do this when we are working?!

Why do we become work zombies when we clock-in?

Friends in 2020

"Change" is very hard until it's the only choice!

So, Yes it’s true we are all using Zoom and this is a very productive change, but this did not happen voluntarily!

No, it happened because we had no choice but to use it or others like it

Without a major disruptive change, its clear, we simply will not change until we have to

Nothing is as difficult as change especially when it’s ingrained into a culture and make no mistake, “Work” has and is a culture

So, I challenge you, that the next time you want to do that presentation deck, try another way, maybe a collaborative platform that gets everyone involved in your story?

Maybe even a video of you telling the story is going to have much more impact!

The next time you need to reach that customer that takes days to answer emails and is never available by phone...message them on Facebook, or text them

You will be so shocked at what happens next, that you might even do it again!

Thomas Ross / Social Selling Pro Certified

Contact Thomas
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What is "Digital Transformation"

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 06:00:00 GMT

By Thomas Ross, Founding Partner SSHQ

If you can't measure it, Don't Do It!

Why Digital Transformation is critical for your business

For all businesses, the key consequence of the COVID-19 crisis has been a dramatic uptick in the use of digital technologies that greatly reduce or eliminate face-to-face interactions
These digital technologies include consumer-facing applications such as grocery and food delivery services, as well as business-to-business e-commerce applications.
In addition, applications such as video conferencing that have completely taken over our consumer, business, and not-for-profit worlds.
Google searches for terms such as, “Contactless” & "Virtual", have increased by over 10 fold in the last 9 months.
While the stocks of technology companies aligned with our now 100% online digital world have skyrocketed.
In fact it’s been a great time to invest in many of these stocks!
So, in discussing the COVID-19 pandemic with many senior executives, a recurring theme has become clear.
Just how quickly and severely it has affected organizations, forcing many to respond with extraordinary speed and focus.
“Slow & steady” does not work, given the dynamics of a pandemic and the immediate need to stabilize revenues and customer needs.
By contrast, prior waves of digital transformation had provided more opportunities for experimentation built around scalable, but carefully planned, pilots

Digital Triage

In some sense the current rush to Digital Transformation by many organizations can be compared to how a Triage is set up to deal with a sudden influx of medicalpatients.
First up, you have to stabilize the patient then you need to address the bigger issues which may involve further prioritization and or more radical changes to allow the patient to both survive but once again move forward.
The key is to recognize and address those changes that are here for the long term and not just try to put Band-Aids on more critical injuries
The digital revolution has been coming for awhile, but now it is here for good and requires immediate attention!!
While COVID-19 represents an acute disruption today, it may recur or become a more chronic disruption over time.
This increases the challenge for executives who are trying to lead their organizations through complex digital journeys.

The Digital Cloud

Why is Digital Transformation so misunderstood?

In part because It’s been hijacked by so many industries to represent their own interests!

For example

The Cloud-based service industry has hijacked the topic in order to suggest that when you move your business to the cloud you are Digitally transformed!!

Is this true? NOT NECESSARILY!

SaaS (Software as a Service) industry, have done likewise as they help companies streamline their software solutions online, they too have made similar claims.

IT service organizations have also suggested that by using their services you are digitally transformed.

Now, Add the ERP (enterprise resource planners) and CRM (customer relationship management) and you have more than enough to create a complicated confusing picture that now seems much more scary and unreachable than it should.

So what does it mean when we say a company is digitally transformed??

To start with, this is not about a product or a service you are providing or using.

A complete digital transformation can cover all aspects and areas of your organization from,

Executive management and across every department or business unit.

The internal communication and seamless way information needs to move instantly across all your teams should be one of your primary objectives.

But It starts with a mindset and an understanding that the old ways of communicating and working internally and externally are over.

This mindset needs to flow across your teams, not just across department heads and leaders.

Next it’s critical to understand where your customers are today.

The key understanding required is around how your organization now communicates with all of it’s stakeholders.

As well as customers and prospective new customers.

Employees and prospective new employees.

Suppliers and vendors.

Media and PR channels.

Social media.

Partners, resellers, and distributors.

Etc, you get the picture...

What do Customers care about?

What do customers want?

This slide helps us to understand that our customers have changed!
Customers no longer care about our brands or our corporate advertising.
NO, now their number 1 concerns are CONVENIENCE and EFFICIENCY.
How fast can you solve my problem and get me what I want!
Further, if I have a problem how quickly are you in getting back to me?
This is why Covid-19 has accelerated digital transformation by an average of “6” years!
Again, Up until very recently, we could get away with still being all or mostly analog and getting back to customers by email.
This in large part because of the one of the strongest economic cycles in history, we simply did not have to change because business WAS great!
SO What do I mean by analog…?
Basically using technologies, systems, processes, and communication methods that were common before the digital age.
email, landlines, standard office phones, fax machines, voicemail, snail mail, etc.
So, as our economies and industries were growing and doing well over the last 10 years this was not seen as important as we continued to grow anyway
Along comes, Covid-19 and those not able to quickly adapt have suffered badly.
Funny how the first thing most companies have successfully changed is how they communicate internally and with most of their stakeholders...
Meetings are now all done over zoom or other video conferencing tools while much of our communication is done over "Slack", "Teams" or others.
Those that quickly recognized the changes required have been able to continue but have not yet done enough...
Now, think about what changed with our customers

B2B Goes Digital

With so many people working from home and so many businesses working remotely our old analog ways no longer work.
In fact Gartner expects that by 2025 fully 80% of all B2B interactions will be online over digital channels

Re ; Hubspot / 98% Failure Rate!

Email and phone calls simply don’t get the responses they used to.
This recent graph from, "Hubspot", shows this dramatic shift very clearly.
While marketing emails being sent since the beginning of 2020 have increased greatly, the response has fallen dramatically!
Again, traditional ways of meeting and communicating with customers like trade shows, networking events, are no longer available.
For those companies with resellers and distributors, this has become an equally challenging time for all these same reasons

Customer Reviews

What has social media got to do with my business growth and survival?

So, how can Social Media help and how do we leverage it?
Firstly, ownership and leadership teams need to understand the fundamental shift that has occurred, and not just because of COVID
From a sales and marketing perspective, this is no less disruptive than when email took over from traditional snail mail.
Now social media and online applications like zoom, slack, teams and many others have completely taken this over!
Customers are no longer waiting for your return phone call or email, they have already googled the answer to their questions.
Customer behaviors, expectations, and demands have radically changed with COVID simply amplifying this into areas not previously as affected / B2B.
Digital Communication has become the new lifeblood of business with 95% seeking new ways to communicate with customers.
This is where an even bigger shift has taken place and is why your sales may not be what they used to be.

What is the one thing that drives most corporations? "FEAR"

FEAR

Disruption, is not new!!

In fact watching the nightly news has shown us business after business that have closed or are now under creditor protection.
This has been a wake up call for many businesses whether retail or B2B.
But this is not new!
Since 2000 over 41% of the S&P 500 consumer centric companies are gone!
Further, it's estimated this will grow to 50% over the next "10" years!

Traditional Sales & marketing methodologies are not enough!

Calling people whether customers, prospects or even stakeholders can be a game of cat and mouse leading to voicemail jail.
Emailing as we showed earlier has become the new digital junk file for most.
Pay Per Click advertising has become so expensive and ineffective that your budgets have doubled with less results!!
Many many companies are simply “STUCK IN A RUT”.
Today there are simple steps we can learn to take in order to begin our true DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION.
Educating instead of selling.
Building personal as well as corporate brands in order to build enormous online networks.
Leverage Employee Advocacy as well as brand advocacy to dominate your markets.
Engaging constantly and in real time with new and existing customers.

"We Are Social / Hootsuite / Digital Around the World 2020"

WHY Digital & Social Media???

BECAUSE 49% of PLANET EARTH actively use social media all day long.
If you want to really communicate with your customers you better find out where they are!!

Here are some fun facts in 2020

There are 190 million LinkedIn users in North America.
There are 292 million people in North America actively using text messaging.
There are 120 million people in North America actively using Facebook messenger.
There are 256 million users on Facebook in North America.
74 % of Facebook users login daily.
52+% North Americans get their news from Facebook daily.
87% of North American marketers use Facebook.
80% of North American marketers use LinkedIn.
46% of website traffic comes from LinkedIn.
**Facebook accounts for over 80% of e-commerce site referrals in North America** WOW!

Which platforms are the most used?

Recent data shows the following percentages of adults who use social media by popularity

1) YouTube at 73%
2) Facebook at 69%
3) Instagram at 37%
4) Pinterest at 28%
5) Linkedin at 27%
6) Twitter at 22%

It's Social Media!!

So, why do you need to do a digital transformation while becoming proficient on Social Media?

38% increase in productivity and this value was calculated before COVID 19!!
Lower costs
Much improved internal communication
Significantly improved customer retention
Shorter sales cycles
Amazing customer experience
collaboration
Innovation
Improve employee retention and far less costly recruiting (in fact we have customers who have dropped their recruiting costs to zero!)
Much more efficient organization workflows

Fastest Growing Company in History at one time

Digital is efficient

Slack at one time was the fastest growing company in history! This was long before COVID-19.
Companies were beginning to realize just how important seamless and instant communication is internally.
Now they are doing likewise externally, you can too!
That’s the kind of growth chart we all want and again this only goes to end of 2019!
Leveraging Digital through Social Media builds successful teams and breaks down silos!!
Silo’s are one of the most damaging results of a closed culture and can effectively silence the voice of any company.
Digital and social media eliminates these barriers and allows communication to flow.

Social Builds Successful Teams

When we communicate with friends we do so instinctively and spontaneously through social media.
Why can’t we do this with customers, stakeholders, employees, etc????
This is not a physical barrier, it is a mindset that must be changed.
Can you imagine how much better your customer service would be if you communicated with customers in digital time instead of analog time.
Further, can you imagine how your customers will rave about your company when their experience is brought to that level?
YES, it’s hard! If it wasn’t you would have done it already!
The challenge is “YOU” not technology, which is actually on your side.
The only risk.... is continuing to miss out on the biggest opportunity you and your organization have today.
Now, how do we make this happen?
Where do we start?

On Your Mark!

Start by creating a “Digital” plan and road map.
This plan is based on the priorities that you identify for your organization.

What are your priorities?

1) New customer growth
2) Existing customer growth
3) Brand presence
4) Online presence
5) Employee Advocacy
6) Recruiting
7) Lower costs
8) Increased internal efficiencies and communication
9) Amazing Customer Experience
10) Amazing User Experience

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION CAN ACCOMPLISH ALL OF THE ABOVE!

Once your priorities are in place, you can now begin to put a detailed plan in place to meet it.
For example, your current organizational chart may not have changed in decades.
It may be time for a Re-Org of your old analog chart to a new Digital Org Chart!

The idea is to go from this old analog approach which tends to be siloed :

Old analog organizational chart

To this updated Digital approach with communication flowing across the entire organization

New Digital Organizational Chart, no silo's!

This is what we are striving for!
The key question to ask here is how deep your connection with customers is?
Gone are the days when we only needed one or two contacts with any customer (depending on their size).
Think about that...how many contacts do you have with your key customers?
For optimal customer management and growth we can now have dozens of active contacts.
This is not generally achieved by any single team or person but rather by a combination of all teams.
If this is not yet true in your case, it may well be time to consider changing up your organizational chart.

Analog VS Digital organizational chart

What Does Your Organization Look Like Today?

This may be what your organization looks like now with as many as “8” to “12” roles all working to accomplish the same goals.
What if you could combine many of these old outdated roles into today’s digital world allowing for a much more streamlined and focused team?
For many companies they can now combine what used to be departments and siloed roles into a much more streamlined and proactive Customer Experience approach.
This is a dramatic change but one that could potentially drop your costs dramatically while increasing revenues and customer satisfaction and retention.
The first step is to identify the goals of each role and then look closer at where there are overlaps and synergies with others…
For example, traditionally outside sales teams are out in the field physically developing new customers based on their own efforts and skills.
Meanwhile, Inside sales are upselling customers and following up leads from marketing and websites in order to bring new prospects forward to outside sales to close.
Customer service tends to be responsible for managing customers day to day needs and supporting the service or products they have purchased.
In addition Business Development and Marketing are responsible for developing leads and market opportunities by way of marketing and targeted campaigns programs that can be followed up and closed by Inside and or outside sales teams.
In this new digital online age, many of these activities can now be combined to make for a much more streamlined and effective process.
All of this while leveraging digital tools and social media to make it all work.
Once you have made these changes, getting your teams successfully transitioned is the next step.
This is not as difficult as you might think!
In fact, most of your teams are a lot more proficient with the skills they need already.
This is because everyone, including YOU and your executive team are already proficient to some degree with communicating online as soon as you leave the office!
Now, your ready to truly become digitally transformed while growing your business with Virtual Business Development.

Welcome to the Digital Age!

What's in Your Pipeline?

Here’s an example of what a digital sales and customer pipeline can look like today all based on a complete digital transformation
The key to this transformation in your sales & marketing process is realizing its all done step by step using social media and digital communication
Is it as simple as this, of course not, but following a regimented and planned out strategy like any other process, works!
So a very real and defined process that gets results needs to be developed, refined and continually improved based on results.
How do I know?
Not only do I do this myself with our team but we have many customers and clients doing so as you read this article.

MEASURE EVERYTHING!

Last but not least, you must, you must, measure and track absolutely everything!
For those interested we have an App we put in place before we begin anything, this to measure where they are as well as to measure the results of the digital transformation.
If you primary goal is customer experience and interaction, we measure this.
If your primary goal is employee advocacy or brand advocacy we measure this.
If your goal is recruiting, we measure this.
If your goal is new and growing sales revenues, we measure this by those activities that drive them.
If your primary goal is to improve marketing results, we measure this too!
Whatever your main objectives are by way of the digital transformation, MEASURE your progress against your key metrics as we do.

Review & Recap

1) Digital Transformation goes across your entire company.

2) Customers demand digital, online and immediate results.

3) Digital Transformation and Social Media are interlinked.

4) Social Media is our new reality, YOU HAVE TO BE THERE!

5) Start with your priority DON’T DO ALL AT ONCE!

7) Everyone used to be in sales, now it’s “Customer Experience”.

8) Everything on digital is measurable, if you don’t know how, just ask me!

9) What’s stopping you? “You” might be your own worst enemy!

LET'S GET STARTED! REACH OUT TODAY!!

Contact Thomas
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How To Use Social Selling For Customer Service in 2022

Fri, 25 Feb 2022 06:00:00 GMT

The Heartbeat of Customer Experience!

Customer service today is the heart of customer experience.
By leveraging Social Selling and Social Media you can transform your customer service!
How to Change from being "Reactive" to being "Proactive".

By now we all have an idea what “Social Selling” is...

In simple terms, it’s using social media platforms and online tools to reach, engage, and ultimately sell to customers.

Customer experience can be more complex in that a prospect or a customer's experience speaks to every part of the customer journey from beginning to ongoing support and customer service.

For both sales as well as customer service the primary tools have always been using email and phone calls

Most customers do not respond well to either of these tools as their preferences have radically changed

Even though most B2B companies have not yet come to realize this, here are some links to further support what is already common knowledge to the B2C & the retail sectors

Millennials prefer texting

Communication channels most used in 2020

Customer service today is at the heart of the customer experience

By leveraging social selling and social media you can transform your customer service from being "Reactive" to being "Proactive"

Instead of getting back to customers by email you can respond in real-time conversations that capture the customer's immediate needs while providing an amazing customer experience through whatever online channel your customers prefer

Using social sales techniques and skills as part of our customer service process can be a great way to improve the customer experience

Before we can begin to do this we need to understand the actual customer journey for your business

Let’s begin

If you think about your customer’s journey in 2022 it might look something like this:

Customer Journey Mapping

“Varies by demographics as based on averages”

You’ll note that this journey did not begin with a cold call or any disruptive form of advertising.

This journey began with information that “pulled-in” the customer by way of the digital world we live in. There are now “3” full generations of customers who have grown up depending entirely on our digital online world. Further, Boomers are now online as much or more than millennial's meaning 90+% of your customers are online!

By comparison, think of it this way, your subscribed email list only reaches the people who have subscribed. This is push marketing. Many in generation X, Y, or Z very rarely use email.

Now, when we post content that is optimized for customer search via SEO we are Pulling them towards their own interest.

Further and more importantly when they like, share, and comment, ("through active engagement"), many more in fact, exponentially more people see it beyond our own networks.

So if our subscribed email list has an open of 10% while our content has an engagement rate of the same 10% but is posted across our teams who have another wave of engagement. How far did our posted content reach?

Much further and broader than any email could ever hope too!
No matter how large the subscribed list may be. Now can an email be shared, yes...but this does not even come close to matching the exponential reach of social media.
Not even close!

The potential reach through the network of your organization and its teams dwarfs any other method available.

This leverages “Employee Advocacy” but that’s another topic for another day!

How does this impact the customer experience?

So, the customer experience needs to be smooth while it travels the customer journey most of our customers now take

Therefore, phone calls and emails will not be as effective as the digital route your customers expect

Sending emails to a generation that does not use them, or calling people who rarely take calls is simply not effective.

Relying on these tools alone will lead to a lower level of customer experience and provide much poorer customer service reviews.

Customers today want to deal with people that are online and available to help them when they need it. The world has truly become “On Demand”, for all needs and expectations

You might have noticed that many customer reviews focus on the time it took to respond and the ability to communicate efficiently with them

So how does this new customer service process look?

Here’s the good news, it can be much more cost-effective and much more focused on new revenue generation than ever before.

Lower costs and higher revenue, that’s a good start.

Further, your customer attrition rates will be lower while account growth will be higher

Now your teams can be outfitted to work entirely virtually, or on-site, or some combination, whatever works best for your business and your teams

The total customer experience can now be built around highly interactive teams that can truly help customers in real-time. Further, not only are your customers directly connected but so are your teams, providing a world-class "Top Drawer" customer experience

Being online and 100% connected allows for instant access to all the information and data they need to fully support your customers

All interactions are now online in real-time automatically updating all of your systems and maximizing revenue opportunities

How does your current customer service experience compare?

Are you getting great customer reviews on a consistent basis?

Now you know why!

Contact Thomas
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Your recognition of change today is your success tomorrow

Sat, 05 Feb 2022 06:00:00 GMT

Are legacy sales & marketing tactics killing your business?

A very brief history of where we have been to where we are now...
Sales is one of the oldest professions in the world

Sales has gone from being a low-status job from peddlers to being recognized as the engine that keeps most businesses going and growing
Now with highly trained professionals helping their customers to make the right decisions...

Not that long ago going door to door to sell your goods or services was the only way to sell whether you are selling directly to consumers or to companies
In the 1970's telemarketing and phone-based sales (cold calling) began to come into play

At first, this was met with much resistance as many industries relied on the door to door model until their last breaths (literally)
However, as it became more and more obvious that people were no longer home to answer the door, these techniques slowly faded into history

Door to Door Sales

Similarily knocking on business doors also slowly faded as it became the accepted rule to book a meeting first

The first gatekeepers were born!

Sales went through many new conceptual and delivery changes along the way with many leading companies having their own sales techniques and programs which soon became predominant

Xerox, IBM, Dale Carnegie, and many others drove this process and became the Universities of professional sales training for a number of decades

I know this all too well as I took practically all of them!

In addition, Customer psychology became and still is one of the highest researched indicators for both B2C and B2B sales

The disciples and successful practitioners of these became the senior leaders of the sales industry in the 80’s, 90’s and even today

Some still practice many of these same techniques as I write this article

Of course, along the way there continued to be many changes in technology such as the cell phone becoming the smartphone and the word processors becoming PC’s and laptops...

Add to this the development and the complete overtaking of all by the “Internet of Things” and you can see how much things have changed!

Constant Change

Social Media Marketing & Training Certification

Throughout these constant changes, elements of Sales Process have been developed that will remain in place for decades to come no matter what medium they are practiced through

For example, my absolute favorite is the “Trial close”... these work no matter where or even when they are used, when done properly

There are many other examples that are as effective today as the day they were developed

The point here is that while much in Sales, Marketing and Customer Service have changed there is in fact much that has remained effective

So, here we are today and another tumultuous change has occurred, not just because of technology but because a Pandemic has finally forced reality upon those caught sleeping

It took many years in fact decades for many of the changes to sales methodologies to finally change

The same is true for online selling today

Those that have mastered "Virtual Business Development", "Social Selling", "Digital Marketing" and "Online Customer Service", are reaping the rewards

Amazingly, there are still those who prefer the equivalent of knocking on doors ie, cold calling and there likely will be for some time to come if history is any indicator

Just as door knocking died hard, so too will the sales methods of the 90's...

However, the reality is that this method alone will simply not keep most companies in the sales and revenues they need to survive today, period

Again, just as it took the door knockers and the Xerox training methods many years to finally go by the wayside it will likely do likewise with those still promoting traditional methods of the 1990’s today

That said, there has never been a pandemic in modern times but here we are...

The great news is that we have at our fingertips easy and effective solutions to fill in the gaps created by social distancing and working from home.

Times have changed as they always do

Are you still in Denial?

What to do?

Social Selling / Techniques to influence BUYERS and CHANGEMAKERS - Authors - Tim Hughes & Matt Reynolds

First, may I suggest you buy a copy of “Social Selling”, Techniques to influence BUYERS and CHANGEMAKERS,
by Tim Hughes & Matt Reynolds

https://www.amazon.com/Social-Selling-Techniques-Influence-Changemakers/dp/0749478012

This will begin to give you insight into a world that you may not yet understand and will allow you to begin your journey of
catching up with your customers

Once on this journey and through our training certification programs, you can begin to regain your footing and again feel in control of your business

https://www.socialsaleshq.com/university.html

This is a journey that can also include a “Digital Transformation”, as it relates to your sales, marketing, customer service, and all customer-facing teams

As you might have guessed, we provide this as well!

https://www.socialsaleshq.com/social-selling-sales-training.html

The world is at your fingertips!

Now, think about this

"You cannot fix what you do not yet know is broken"

If you have not realized that many of your customers are being stolen away by your savvy online competitors, then you are not yet ready for this change

Try this,

Google the number #1 question you think your customers might type into google when looking for a product or service like yours

Think about this through your customers eyes, that is, what would they type or ask google to search not as yet knowing of your organization?

If you do not come up organically (other than paid advertising, which very few click on) on page 1 or at least page 2…

YOU DO NOT EXIST!

Worse, it’s quite likely your seeing your competitors on page #1!!

Let’s talk...

Contact Thomas
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Are you digitally transformed?

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 06:00:00 GMT

What is "Digital Transformation?"

Interesting article to write as I realize how bipolar we are when it comes to being Digital
We all assume that everyone has the same understanding as when it comes to digital transformation and social media. In fact most people think they are already digital.
WRONG!

Your understanding is based on many factors, here are some, although not exclusively:

demographics
job title / type
industry
B2B or B2C (retail or commercial)
Education
geography
financial
personality type
technology oriented or not
internet access
Whether you work from home or from the office (before, during or after the pandemic)

What does Digital Transformation look like?

For many, being "online" is simply part of everything we do all day long without giving it much thought. We live on our mobiles with the real world sometimes considered a distraction.

This does not mean we are "Digital" or “Social” as we may only be consuming information rather than contributing. For me this is the line in the sand that needs to be understood before moving further.

To be "social", is not to sit in a tree with binoculars watching people as they pass by, or being on Facebook, (as my kids say), "creeping". No, being social is a two way or larger conversation between individuals or groups of people.

Whether this conversation or communication happens in person, over a phone, by voice, by text, by chat, by liking, sharing, commenting or posting...all of these and more are part of living in our social and digital world.

As consumers, (and we are all consumers), we know this as surely as we know how to take our next breath...it's almost an involuntary response at this point.

What do I mean?

Well, if ask you what the latest pandemic statistics are, OR how old Clint Eastwood is...what do you do without so much as a thought?

You "Google" it. As a consumer and an active member of the human race in 2020, that's what you do.

So how does that change when you go to work?

For some, it doesn't, but for most (90+%) it certainly does.

Some of us have been so perfectly conditioned by old habits, / advertising and marketing of old, that we suddenly revert back to the days of i Pod's. Or worse earlier, and completely forget about all of our social skills we learned as active consumers.

Yup, we go right back to all our old ways using emails, PowerPoints, files, documents, endless meetings and company silo's. Not to mention, my favorite, creating disruptive corporate advertising whose days have long since past.

Why is it that as soon as we want to market for our business we forget how much we as consumers despise ads?

Ask yourself why you bought (or want to) that TiVo DVR?

Right... so you could record your favorite shows and skip the ads!

I could go on, but the point is that being social does not change once you begin your day job!

Digitally Transformed!

Being social and or digital is about taking all those skills and habits you have developed as a consumer and applying them in your work environment.

Instead of using email, try, Slack, Teams or some other internal online communication tool. Email is to Slack what mail is to email. We've advanced way beyond it and now do things in real time not email time!

Instead of another unproductive meeting in a boardroom where everyone is pulled from where they are to devote precious time to what we all know will go longer than needed...
Why not do what we've all learned because of the Pandemic, set up a zoom or video meeting that can quickly and efficiently get everyone together. This is far more productive and we can actually get things done!

Instead of having your marketing department or agency do up another "why we are the greatest corporate ad"...Why not provide real value-added insight for your customers where they really are ... Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn??

Instead of paying for another sales conference, trade show, unqualified sales travel or out of town sales meetings...Why not use Zoom or video tools to qualify, present demo's, meet with customers and prospects...at a fraction of the cost??

Digital transformation looks like this!

I could go on...but you get the point.

As a consumer, you are a social expert and you are digitally transformed!!

As a business owner, manager, executive, stakeholder or team member...well I'll be nice and just say ... NOT YET!
You can do better.

You can simply take the skills you already have and put them to work for you in your business and not just when you’re a consumer.

Customers, whether they be commercial or retail do not want to see another email or your annoying corporate advertisement. They want you to meet them where they are!

Let us show you how.

Contact Thomas
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How & Why to use social media for b2b

Sat, 01 Jan 2022 06:00:00 GMT

Social Media for B2B

Social Selling for B2B

A quick overview for those just starting to understand the opportunity of Social Media
We often get asked how will social media help us, we are a Business to Business (B2B) company?
This is a common misunderstanding, where many businesses believe social media is only for Retail business and or Business to Consumers. (B2C)
Social media has been growing in reach dramatically for years now, but recently this growth has become exponential due to Covid-19
To see and understand just how the world has moved online to become a truly digital world there are no better links than these
WearSocial
Global Visualization

Questions before you get started on Social Media

There are very few who would argue how much social media has impacted our lives.
For those now wanting to understand how to use social media for the purposes of growing their business’s I have put together some questions to be answered first ;

Are you concerned about where your next new customers will come from?
Are you concerned with maintaining and growing your existing customers?
Are you able to get your new products and services out to your markets and customers in real-time?
Are you able to work with your own teams in real-time?
Are you concerned about your costs today for marketing, advertising and sales? Are they going up while results are getting worse?
Are you able to communicate with your customers in real-time?
Are you as connected with your customers as you would like to be?
Are you able to measure your brand presence in your target markets and how well you are doing compared to your competitors?

The answers to these questions very much determine what you need to do next...

Customer Service in Today's Digital World

What's your current understanding of Social Media?

There are many steps that will begin to help you address the best answers to these questions but here are some additional questions that will help you to start your journey.

1. Are your corporate profiles on social media active and well managed?

LinkedIn
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
YouTube
Any others important to your customers

2. Are your various departments and teams leveraging social media?
For recruiting?
For customer support?
For sales?
For marketing?
For internal communications?
For corporate and community messaging?
For product development and market intro’s

3. Do you REALLY understand why Social Media is important for your business?
If not, you are in good company...However, do you understand that you MUST do so?
We can help here with a full day virtual DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION SESSION for you and your management teams

Once you understand just how critical social media is to your business you can begin to plan your next steps.

What are these steps?

1) Set your goals and objectives / write these down and get your teams actively engaged

*Hint...Please don’t just list “To grow our revenues!”

2) Build and train your team to assist you in bringing your business into today’s digital world

This does not necessarily involve expensive training courses, it does require interactive real-time activity that trains as you make progress

3) Provide any tools that will assist in this process so that your teams can see success quickly

These tools can be free or low cost and need to provide immediate ROI (return on investment)

4) Create a Social Media Plan for your organization. This is the most critical part of your digital transformation!

5) Measure everything you do!

6) Lastly and most importantly, take an active role and leading role in this process.

The degree to which you personally succeed in understanding and leveraging social media yourself will determine the same for your organization. Your teams will only actively engage in this process if you do likewise.

"8" Steps to start using Social Media for B2B

So, finally, how to use Social Media for B2B:

Build out engaging and fun corporate profiles on all relevant social media
Create a personal profile for yourself while asking the same of your team members on these same social media platforms
Actively contribute, engage and spend time on all social media platforms consistently
Write your own articles and have your teams do the same to build personal and corporate branding on all relevant social media
Content, content and more content! From your industry, your customers, your teams and of course from you!
Set a goal for yourself and your teams to communicate at least 50% through online means in real-time (Slack, Teams, Facebook messenger, texting, etc)
Measure all activity to effectively determine your level of market penetration and new inbound opportunities
Finally, lead the way for your team. If you walk the walk, they will too!

Remember, your ability to communicate has never been easier, BUT not through traditional methods!
With Covid-19, face to face meetings have dwindled, traditional networking has as well.
Emails are less effective than ever, while no one answers a call today without knowing the caller ID first!
You have to communicate with your teams and customers where they spend most of their time...online through social media!!
Social media is here to stay.
No doubt there will be many new platforms to come and the way we access them will continue to evolve.
Traditional marketing for B2B business has had it’s final death blow delivered by COVID-19.
This does not mean that your company needs to suffer the same fate!
Begin the journey today and start asking the right questions so you can begin taking the right steps.
Your customers are already making the most of this new digital world and you can too!
Here are a couple more B2B corporate examples you can learn more from;
https://socialnomics.net/2019/08/25/b2b-social-media-case-studies/
https://trueinfluence.com/b2b-social-media-case-studies-for-2016/
As you begin taking your first steps, don't hesitate to ask any questions you may have!!

Thomas Ross / Pro-Certified Social Selling & Training Expert

Contact Thomas
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Why your customers need to hear from you NOW!

Wed, 18 Mar 2020 18:43:31 GMT

Why your customers need to hear from you during a crisis

I know, you're asking for a friend...

So let’s bring you up to date...

Let me know if this sounds familiar...

Not that many years ago, maybe ten, maybe fifteen, we began to hear that you could stay in touch with customers more efficiently with social platforms, especially Facebook. Further and more interestingly we were hearing that you could even attract new customers to your business by just being more active and informative on some social platforms.

This thing called "Twitter" was pretty interesting too although we really never understood why.
Most, still don’t.

Some companies even found someone they knew maybe through a marketing company or their nephew who could put their social platform links (icons) on their website. Now, they too could be part of this new age of cool websites!

It was quite expensive, but seemed like the right thing to do.

Further, having all those new icons on their website meant they too were ready for the new digital and online age. Or so they thought.

Suddenly,
we began seeing invitations to "Like" companies on their pages everywhere we went, although primarily from the retail sector. In fact retailers went on to dominate and master this new way of communicating and selling. At this point we still had not yet seen a big move with online communicating in the B2B markets.

Now add to this, the age of PPC (pay per click) marketing which was really coming into its own. With more and more companies realizing that there was real money to be made if only they could show up on page one of a google search.

But how to do this?

Search costs soared from a few cents per click to $30.00 and higher depending on the competitive nature of any given product, service or industry. Even so this was a whole new era of using online marketing to drive leads and opportunities for both retail and B2B companies alike.

Enter the age of LinkedIn and business networking, creating for many, the very beginning of B2B communication online.
Sure, this was still primarily for job searches and finding new talent, but it was and still is the largest and most up to date CRM (customer relationship management) in the world.

Today, LinkedIn has just over 660 million users with a massive 20 million jobs being advertised!! Pretty impressive but does it create new customer opportunities?
Depending on who you talk to, the answer can be a resounding, "absolutely!" to a more subdued "it helps".

The answer of course is somewhere in between and is entirely dependent upon the skill of the user along with the combined usage of other social platforms.

At this point being "Online" changed dramatically even in the B2B world. But still only to the extent of "being there" rather than really learning the skills necessary to leverage the power of being "online".

Make no mistake, beingsuccessful online requires an entirely new set of skills.

All of this and we have still only told but one part of the story...the real change did not happen with companies, but rather with their customers.
Customer behavior changed, B2B marketing did not.

Some fundamental changes were occurring that have radically changed everything

Today, every question is now answered online / google, mostly through a mobile device or a new voice activated home appliance.
Today all customers look up what they need along with all the options and reviews, online, in real time
Today, “attention spans”, have shrunk down to where interest rates are headed today, zero…
In the past we all disliked disruptive ads, we now absolutely abhor them, in fact we will literally do almost anything to avoid them. So much so, that many services now earn their living by charging us to ensure we do not see ads while using their applications.
Today, once people find what they want, they read, read and read more about it from many different sources. This includes reviews and market insight from a very wide array of sources.
Today, more and more devices are available that provide instant access to the world's information source simply by asking a question via text or verbally. The internet of things is truly our world today as predicted by, "Intel", not so many years ago.

There are many amazing and eye popping stats to illustrate all of this but the bottom line is that absolutely every human being you want to work with is online constantly.

We live in what I call a “Real Time” world.

Now, all of this is actually universally known and accepted and yet...wait for it, many and I mean "Many" still hang on to old thinking.

Why?

Because we have had the strongest and longest growth period in history and well many simply did not need to change, so they didn’t.

That brings us to today. Things have changed dramatically.

Because of this, many find that they no longer have a choice and they have to figure out this new online world and fast!! All of their people are working from home or will be and they have not yet learned how to make this all work.

Many tools are available to help but that's not the real challenge.

The challenge is that most company leadership teams still do not understand or believe in all of these changes...Why...because up till now they simply have not had to.

Today we face a new world and frankly we do not yet know what it will look like but we do know that it will never be the same.

So why do your customers need to hear from you?

Your customers need to know that you are OK and want to stay in touch with you!!

So what to do?

We are here to help! The difference today..., time is short.

Both you and your teams need to learn and learn quickly not just how to communicate more efficiently with each other but also with your customers.

Your customers are in just as much pain as you are and they want to hear from you!!

Nothing is more important now than staying in touch with and helping your customers and friends in any way you can.

Welcome to the online world

When we get through this and we will.

Will you be ready to continue in this new world or will you go back to your old ways only to fade away into your former glory?

The choice is yours, while you're busy getting online today, maybe it's a good idea to learn, I mean really learn why it works as well as it does and what this actually means to your future and the future of your business.

There are so many new skills and powers we need to show and teach you!

Let’s get started.

Contact Thomas
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Contact Social Selling HQ

How To Do Business Development During a Crisis [ 10 Tips ]

Wed, 18 Mar 2020 15:32:55 GMT

10 Tips How to do Virtual Business Development During a Crisis

Fear. Worry. Concerned. YES, WE ALL ARE!

10 Virtual Ways To Be There for Your Clients During a Crisis!

Do you think these are the feelings your clients may have right now?

Of Course, It Is!

It is the same feelings we all have during a crisis!

Being a person who has been in an area of a 500-year flood, where whole communities were evacuated and where winter blizzards go on and on and stop commerce in its tracks. Also being in an agricultural area where the bottom fell out of the market and cash flows slowed to a point where businesses seem to close daily, I hate to say I have seen these feelings almost daily throughout my life.

Being in business development and thriving yet today hopefully some of these tips will help you.

First off, these feelings we are having right now can and will bring out some Real Emotions for good reasons. Be ready for it!

Being a trusted advisor and your relationship with your client and prospects is they must believe you are very competent, right?

Your clients and customers must sincerely believe that you ultimately care about them!

NOW is the TIME for YOU to SHOW YOU CARE. I cannot stress this enough!

It’s not always about presenting solutions.

Let’s be real here, for the COVID-19 pandemic, what business offering could you actually offer to help with their feelings? NONE!

Isn’t it the time to just say you are there for the client?

Yes, it is, it’s about really hearing them and listening to their concerns.

It’s all about you offering to be a trusted and valued resource.

Now, when you think about it, isn’t this what a trusted advisor does day in and day out.

Your customers and clients are worried about similar things that you are. Customers are worried about their loved ones who are at high-risk due to age and underlying health issues. Your clients are worried about job losses. Clients are also worried about family and friends. The list of worries goes on and on.

Your Top Clients Need To Hear From You Now!

10 Virtual Tips To Do For Client During a Crisis:

Pick up the phone and call: ”I was thinking about you – how are you holding up during all of this?”
Send them a personal direct message on social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) stating the same as in tip 1.
Email them a Virtual e-Card (Google “send e-cards”)
Virtual lunch date: Sit at your desks and talk on video while you eat your lunches.
Buy services and goods from their prospective businesses.
Have snacks, dinner or lunch delivered to them at the office.
Introduce them to another client in a similar industry sector (perhaps they can be a resource to each other).
Have them join a webinar.
Send them an article or articles on preserving cash flow or any related topic.
It may not virtual but very effective, so much so it always makes the list. Send them a card in the mail. You will be one of very few and they will remember you really care!

All 10 tips are easy to execute, not very expensive, or take much time.

Put time and careful thought into this, and make sure it shows you care above all else.

The goodwill you will generate from these tips will go a long ways and pay you dividends for years.

You, the trusted advisor can and should be there now for your clients in a selfless careful manner.

Get your client list out now and get going. You will be glad you did.

Written by
Rick Rea
Social Selling HQ

8 Reasons Why a, "Do It Yourself", Social Media strategy won’t work

Thu, 06 Feb 2020 06:00:00 GMT

Why your Do It Yourself plan won't work

While on our own journey to master Social Selling we learned to work with many others whom had mastered their own processes within.

By far our most revealing revelation was that while practically every client we have or will ever work with, has first tried to do on their own. The attempt has never worked as they hoped.

There are many reasons for this and here are but a few. Hopefully these help to make you think about why it's so difficult to "Do it yourself"

Confused?

1) Lack of cohesive company culture

Generally, “Social” and or digital transformations are not understood by most organizations

Most business's still think digital transformation is moving to the cloud! Now, if your wondering to yourself..."isn't it?" Yes, we are talking to you.

In fact, digital transformation covers every area of your business and has everything to do with the "online" digital world and nothing to do with the technologies used to create it.

You will know when you are on the right journey when your teams are excited to tell others about the great place they work, online! This is what "Employee Advocacy" is all about.

2) Lack of empathy and "Servant Leadership"

Because of this lack of understanding, the whole process get’s allocated to marketing or worse a junior person charged with creating and growing the company image. Wow, no pressure there!

We've all seen this, in fact this practice of putting a new marketing grad in charge of a companies social future is as prevalent today as ever.

Think about this...the entire future of your business in the hands of a brand new marketing or business graduate?? Not sure who should be more nervous!?

We know of many companies still doing this and many of these poor grads fail and change jobs after only a few months. For those that don't quit, they are often end up creating and posting inconsistent content that fluctuates between employee pics and corporate propaganda. Neither of which does much but does get a few likes!!

3) Company "Silo's", you may not admit it, but they exist in most business's today. Marketing Versus Sales, is disputably the the most damaging.

"Marketing", in general does not really understand or even like “sales” or sales people. (come-on admit it!)

This is a fact that is not always understood by most executive teams. In today's world both of these silo's have to be integrated completely but because they are not in most companies the results are catastrophic.

Sales wants content that drives engagement with great information and insight. Marketing on the other hand is still pushing corporate content with those oh so familiar statements like,
"we have the best service in the industry"! Of course these agendas do not mesh and there are simply no real results with both sides pointing fingers back at each other!

"Do it yourselfers", simply don't yet get this or understand how to bridge this gap in order to create real results and revenue.

4) Escalating costs. You may think DIY is cheaper, but nothing could be further from the truth!

Sales people do not understand or like marketing people! (you know it’s true!)

This is a two way street and neither side is right! In fact if this does not get fixed, your sales will continue to slide and your marketing team will be left with no results to show for their budgets!!

Further, your, "cost of sales", will continue to grow while your revenues and margins shrink.

Sales Versus Marketing? Wrong!!

5) Poor communication

Business owners and Executive Management generally do not understand sales or marketing people…

So this is a real problem. If you don't understand their process, how can you productively manage either?!

It get's worse...even if you do understand one or the other, it's all changed! In fact there really is very little difference between the two today. Their objectives are the same.

Grow revenues through sales!

This is the goal for both and by using the same tools, namely social media they can work together to get real results while helping to get everyone else in the company on-board as well.

Brand Advocacy & Employee Advocacy through, "Digital Transformation", are the keys.

6) Lack of a Plan or strategy. More growth and revenue is NOT a plan!

If you knew how to integrate “social” across your organization, you would have done it already

Yes, the ultimate goal, complete integration. This is not just a change for a few but also for the culture of the organization.

7) Untapped potential!

Marketing professionals want to tackle this opportunity so much, but alas nothing they do gets followed up by sales…

Again, this is not their fault! they were not taught nor have they yet learned how to communicate effectively with today's customers, "ONLINE", where they all live!

This has to be changed. If you don't know how to reach your customers, go home.

Who are your customers? Where are your customers?

8) Sales teams trained for the wrong century!

Sales professionals are incredibly enthusiastic about the promise of social selling but alas they don’t know how to leverage the great work marketing does. Worse they think marketing is providing all the wrong support.

We recently did some sales training at an amazing organization whose sales and marketing departments decided on very different paths.

Sales is all-in for learning and developing new social selling skills, while marketing is taking the, "Do it Yourself", approach.

Now, even if it was the other way around the result would be the same. It won’t work.

Sales and marketing need to be on the same page and need to work together to bring the power of social to their organization.

Therefore, we recommend that both the Sales and the marketing teams take part in Social Selling training programs.

From there it’s on to the rest of the organization, but the low hanging fruit by way of a quick Return of Investment lives in the sales & marketing departments.

So if you are thinking you can transform your organization into a social selling powerhouse with a, "Do It Yourself", it won’t work. You need a guide for this journey.

Lastly if you are a marketing professional take heed, your skills and knowledge are critical but Social Selling truly requires absolute synergy across the entire organization.

The good news is you can lead the way.

If you want to be able to take actual revenue-based results back to the executive management team then put down the, "Do it Yourself", program that looks so much cheaper and go for real results. What's even better is you can truly measure these results!

Lastly and this message if for all business owners,stakeholders and managers.

"Digital Transformation", sessions are meant for you. This is a one day, "Social Boot-camp", that will change your life and the trajectory of your business.

You too have to be trained!

If your teams don't see your buy-in and efforts, good luck getting them on board!!

EMPLOYEE ADVOCACY = TEAM SUCCESS!!

"Social Sales Training", provided by, "Social Sales Experts", will allow your organization to boldly move forward.

Learn how to maximize your content marketing through employee advocacy with our new social accountability tool SSHQPRO APP

Contact Thomas
LinkedIn
Website
Twitter
Facebook

Contact Social Selling HQ

Social Advocacy: How To Build A Brand Advocate Program

Mon, 13 Jan 2020 17:16:43 GMT

6 Reasons To Start A Social Media Advocacy Program Now

Larger companies have a large following on social media due to their brand awareness and know how to reach their audience. To get the most out of your online presence, you need to expand your content using social media. A strong social media strategy is made even better by a social media program supported by your employees. Here are six reasons to help you figure out why you should start implementing your social media advocacy program immediately.

Content That Your Employees Share Will Be More Personal
Social Media Advocacy Can Help Build Trust
Employee Posts are Less Promotional
Creates Brand Awareness Without Much Effort
Increasing Your Employees Online Exposure
Your Followers Are Bound to Bond with Certain People

How to Create a Social Media Advocacy Program

Employee social network leads convert seven times more often than any other lead. Under the guidance of a social media specialist, your employees can improve and reinforce your brand message on their own social networks and beyond.

Here are five steps to building a successful social media advocacy program.

Define your goals
Establish guidelines
Provide incentives for employees
Monitor progress
Adapt the program to improve results

Why is Employee Advocacy Important?

Most organizations have made investments today to increase their social presence. As a result, employee advocacy has become an important marketing strategy for leading companies. One struggle that these organizations face is to keep noise out on social media. By using the voice of your employees, companies can increase the reach of their brand content on social media. For this reason, employee engagement and advocacy are essential components of an effective social media strategy.

Identify the benefits of leadership in social networks and develop an actionable strategy to consolidate brand presence in social networks. Plan content to shape your company's perception of being a social media workplace. Watch the brand sentiment on Twitter and measure the ROI of social media activities on the main social platforms.

A social media advocacy program is a structured strategy for building a network.
Instead of simply using the free exposure and marketing potential of these advocates, a social media advocacy strategy involves taking their feedback and entering into a mutually beneficial relationship with them.
A social media advocacy program is much more effective than relying on traditional advertising methods.

There are a variety of social advocacy platforms on the market that you can use to identify your ideal social media advocates and track the success of your program. When choosing a platform, you need to identify the main requirements and the type of proponents you want to connect to. Some tools offer an internal library of content that you can provide to your employees, while others focus on building an influencer relationship.

Nielsen reports that 92% of consumers believe suggestions from friends and family more than advertising - a trend that is bound to grow over time.

Now, of course, other marketing efforts like paid advertising can strengthen your company's brand, but this can be seen as a compliment to your lobbying. Instead of spending so much money on these paid placements, let people manage your brand marketing in an organic way. While traditional marketing continues to apply to your audience, people like and trust the familiar human touch to large companies or companies that advertise their own services or products. In addition, a key aspect of branding is to find your dedicated brand representatives and then ensure that advocacy continues by promoting their success.

The clothing retailer Showpo is an excellent example of a brand that does an excellent job with trademark lawyers. Your customer loyalty strategy is in a nutshell, as they promote their buyers quickly and regularly. The team also endeavors to send direct messages to those who mention the brand on social media.

Employee Advocacy Software Importance!

Use advocate marketing software to find and mobilize your brand (this overlaps with formalized programs such as brand ambassador programs, so you may also get help building such structures). Having all the benefits of employee and brand advocacy in one software will help add to your bottom line and make managing advocacy much easier.

For the customer, your company is just another business trying to sell them something. One of the most effective ways to build trust and develop new business is to implement a branding program. They are available in all shapes and sizes, but they have the same goal: it is easy to reward customers for promoting your company. Some marketers may be concerned about implementing a brand advertising program because it removes messaging control from the company and delivers it to customers.

Measuring the actual impact of social media marketing and employee recruitment ensures that the program continues. If employee advocacy is measured using only these vanity metrics, it is difficult to prove whether the program is delivering results, justifying expenditure, and showing ROI.

Written by: Rick Rea

Twitter

Social Selling HQ enters partnership with Socxo

Mon, 13 Jan 2020 14:51:55 GMT

Employee & Brand Advocacy Software Press Release

Social Selling HQ based in Fargo, ND, is excited to announce our new partnership with SOCXO.

Digital Transformation and Social Sales Training in North America is now taking the next step by adding world-class Employee & Brand Advocacy solutions to the portfolio as a one-stop-shop solution provider.

The fastest-growing digital revenue growth area today is digital transformation. Social selling, now combined with the most advanced employee & brand advocacy SaaS solution clients now across North America will benefit exponentially.

Social Sales training provides superior growth opportunities, customer experience as well as employee advocacy. When combined with a program that creates accountability the results are spectacular.

This association aims to bring along a mutual goal of offering the most comprehensive suite of consulting, strategic services and technology-enabled Social Selling and Brand Advocacy solutions. North America is a rapidly evolving market for Social Selling and Advocacy and both companies intend to deliver a superior client experience.

Says Rick Rea, founding partner at Social Sales HQ and top endorsed for advertising in the US & LinkedIn Sales Advisor; “When you can empower your employees to boost awareness of your brand, you can exponentially grow your business. While we were already in the business of offering consultative and training services to help our clients achieve this, we see this partnership taking it to the next level by actually helping them execute the strategy as well."

Says Sudarsan Rao, Co-founder and CEO Socxo, “Ours is a technology platform to bring the distributed enterprise stakeholders together as teams. Be it Employees, Customers, Partners or Fans. We have been evolving our product with a focus on last-mile attribution to the Brand Advocacy space. What we were missing is a full suite, training and consulting services in North America. Through Social Sales HQ, we will now be able to offer the full suite of solutions to help our clients go beyond technology adoption.”

International Press Release

It's not just a new year, It's a new decade!

Tue, 24 Dec 2019 06:00:00 GMT

Strategic Social Sales Planning for 2020

So, it’s here, 2020 that is.

And what will you change to ensure your success for this new year?

If you’re like most executive and management teams you have relied on a budgetary process to provide the revenue targets for you and your teams and are now working feverishly to convert this into the activities required.

Or worse, maybe you’ve simply taken the total revenue targets and broken it out among your team based on last year’s results assuming the same average performance levels with required growth?

Either way, this is a make-work process that will yield poor results. Let’s be honest, this is what you did last year and the year before that!

Was there really a significant and lasting improvement?

Your organization and your team need to plan out all activities in the upcoming year down to individual KPI's (key performance indicators) to ensure results.

What are these activities and should they be the same as last year?
OR,
Should you be including activities as related to reaching and engaging customers and key contacts online?

This is what we commonly hear from many companies today;

“That’s a big change and sounds like a lot of work when we are doing, "OK", now. We have higher priority projects to complete first"

Here is a common planning view we see from many companies today:

Traditional Sales Planning

So, what’s wrong with this plan?

Where to start...well as common as this is, it’s also what’s wrong with executive management today as it neglects to look at any other potential activities that could be considered.

Further, rather than understanding why any one category of activities is providing less results it simply puts less emphasis on some while increasing others.

Sadly this kind of shallow planning is very common especially when overall sales results have still grown year over year for the last 5+ years or more.

Even though growth for most is lower than target, it's "GOOD ENOUGH"!

Let’s face it, the economy remains strong and for most organizations, they have been able to hold on to low levels of growth lulling them into a false sense of security.

Because of this, they have failed to notice how their customers and prospects are actually buying.

They assume that what worked 10 years ago or 5 years ago must still be working today we just need to adjust our spend on those areas that are stronger than others.

Even worse, when it comes to paid advertising, most companies have been doubling down or even tripling down.

This has led to a spiraling of higher costs per click across almost every industry, with far fewer results based on much higher competition.

In fact while results have grown slightly or remained static, costs have significantly increased

The answer is, don't throw even more emphasis on those areas with a deteriorating return,

BUT we need to understand why?

Old School Thinking

Why are cold calls less effective?
Why are trade shows less effective?
Why are email campaigns less effective?
Why is paid advertising less effective?

Customers do not answer calls from those numbers they don’t know and Apple along with Android now have software built-in so they don’t even have to!!

Trade shows have been slowly losing their impact for years like a slow leak in a tire...putting more air in the tire won’t fix the problem!

Email campaigns unless authorized are either spam and blocked accordingly or worse are in some geographic regions, illegal.

Paid advertising such as pay per click are simply not as effective as people actually ignore the paid result instead they are opting for the organic results.

So then,

How do we engage with our customers?

Confused?

SO WHAT'S GOING ON?

Think about this. Customers are doing exactly what you are doing!

They are ONLINE researching absolutely everything they are interested in.

This means they don’t need to roam trade shows or scan emails looking for your amazing solutions.

Simply put, they can find exactly what they want, when they want it, on their smartphone.

The only question you need to answer is this....

“Do you and or your company, product or service come up when they search for what they need on google or any platform they may be looking on? “

If the answer is NO than you need to throw out all the planning you have done and start again

NEW PLAN!

LETS START AGAIN!

What is social sales planning?

How do we measure what happens and adjust?

Below you will see a chart that lays out a planning guide we use for those activities that do work.

Social Sales Planner

Download FREE Planner

*If you would like a copy of this planning tool, Click here

Now while putting these activities in place will make a huge impact, just recreating this for yourself and your team will not work.

Why is that?

Because let’s be honest, you don’t believe in social selling !!

Further, you don't know how it works, yet.

So what to do.

Firstly, you need to understand not only how it works and how to use it, but also that it is critical to your future no matter what your current role is. From there you can learn what the steps are and begin to plan out how to move forward as an organization and teams.

This is going to require not just yourself but all the amazing people in your marketing and HR department as well.

This is another seismic shift.

Sales and marketing are no longer separate, they are one...

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE, YOU NEED TO ASSIMILATE!

Social community

In the many articles and blogs here on our website, will find many of the answers you seek.

Further, there are many other leaders in the industry you can also read on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

From there the next step is to reach out directly and find out how to really change your results for 2020 and beyond!

Change may be hard, but it's the one constant we can all agree on, look forward to hearing from you!

Thomas Ross | Co-Founder | Social Selling HQ

Social Selling: What is it and How to Increase Sales

Mon, 23 Dec 2019 16:26:11 GMT

What is Social Selling

By Emily Woodman Creative author and long time digital marketeer

What is social selling? Simply put, it’s the practice of using social media to find and connect with customers and prospective customers. Social media allow for a tremendous benefit in that they allow for instant responses, thus deepening the communication every brand needs to polish.

Another benefit of social media is that it provides customers’ feedback, without you having to ask for it. Brands apply various approaches to get to know customers’ peace of mind, including paid surveys and giveaways. Social media allow for a seamless communication with feedback included.

Connecting these benefits with social sales is the key to boosting a brand’s ROI in the long run. Given that all kinds of follow-up can be provided directly via social media channels, it makes sense to invest a bit into social media campaigns to increase a brand’s visibility.

Differences Between Social Media Platforms

Different social media platforms present a brand in different ways, so it is important to know how to market your products/services on each of them properly. I.e., LinkedIn should depict how your brand is beneficial and why it should be trusted and include contact information.

By using multiple social media channels, you can present your brand as a solution to people’s issues and needs simply by listening to their feedback. And that’s the first step for successful social selling - providing a solution in an affordable, reliable way. By doing it publicly via social media, you eliminate the risk of sending random messages and offers to random people, who may well flag them as spam.

For one thing, social media followers follow brands they are interested in. By simply polishing the offer to suit their specific needs, you can increase your sales dramatically.

Social Media as a Means to Build Long-Lasting Relationships

Communication is the center of any good business practice. In the most basic sense of the words, they replace cold calling (which is rarely welcome or answered) with targeted offers appealing to the audience. The audience gets to choose whether they are interested or not at their own convenience.

That is, perhaps, the greatest benefit of social media selling. It rarely runs the risk of being observed as spamming.

Further out, a well-planned social media campaign connects the dots across multiple channels, creating new sales opportunities. A business advertising on Facebook and not bothering to create a professional LinkedIn profile is rarely taken seriously.

Conversely, managing only a LinkedIn profile will do nothing more than show your company info, without dicing deeper into the offer.

According to LinkedIn data, the value of social selling lies in:

45% more sales opportunities
51% more likely to hit quota
78% of social sellers outsell peers who don't use social media

The outline is on building trusted relationships with a strong social selling index (SSI) that results in return customers and a dramatically increased performance.

People Are Already Interested in Your Offer

As mentioned above, social media followers are already interested in your offer; they’re just looking for the most beneficial variant. It is only natural that buyers will compare offers and prices to determine which brand suits their needs best.

That translates into continual research, just like in all other aspects of running a successful brand. It is common practice to follow successful competitors’ social media pages and subscribe to their newsletters. Staying on top of the competition is a hard work, social media selling or not.

Of one thing you can be sure: the best performing competitors are already engaged in social selling. Building a reputation of a brand may be a continual process, but it has to start somewhere. Normally, email marketing offers should feature contact information and links to your social media pages, especially if you target younger audiences.

Be Active on Social Media

Simply creating social media profiles will not do the trick, however. While this practice may increase a brand’s visibility, it will do nothing in terms of boosting sales.

It is important to actively engage in communication and it needs to be done by real, breathing people, not by bots. The businesses using automation to communicate with customers have learned, to their woe, that the practice has permanently damaged their reputation.

Follow up with social media communication in a timely manner and listen to what people are saying. This will help you build relationships with your customers, which will prevent them from looking elsewhere for their next purchase. For, let’s face it: why shop around when there’s a trusted brand available?

You’ll want your business to stay relevant, trusted and responsive.

Demonstrate Value

Setting up social media campaigns is a hard work. Albeit the process is highly customizable, it applies the same principles other sales funnels do, notably - insights. Since social selling calls for investments, unlike, say, email marketing, you’ll wish to optimize your campaigns for best results.

The trick is in not appearing overbearing. As ever when marketing is concerned, you should demonstrate value rather than just be another annoying salesperson. They key to doing that lies in building credibility and trust, which is, as already mentioned, an ongoing process.

The practice goes hand in hand with posting meaningful content, which means you should build your brand carefully from the very beginning. All new content appearing on your brand’s webpage (which must be responsive and professional) should be advertised via social media channels.

It will show the followers that you are indeed an expert in the field, not some upstart out to rob them out of their money. You’d be surprised to learn how many such brands exist out there.

Social Media Best Practices

Each social media channel should be used in accordance with its purpose - it’s a no brainer. Using LinkedIn to sell products would be as unwise as using Pinterest to post images of your family, so there.

LinkedIn is extremely useful in the B2B context. People will turn to it to determine whether your brand is trusted. Don’t shy away from asking for recommendations from clients and extending your network (use LinkedIn advanced search to that end). Finally, joining LinkedIn social groups will both increase your brand’s visibility and create new prospects in the long run.

Facebook is usually the first choice for social selling, but keep in mind that most people use Facebook either privately or professionally. The two groups rarely mix, with most people desiring to keep these two aspects of their lives well apart. Creating a Facebook Business Page is, therefore, highly recommended. Through this practice, your brand will be able to seamlessly connect with both other businesses and followers. Tip: don’t be afraid to be direct. Asking direct questions will get you direct answers. On top of it, people will enjoy participating in the survey (again, compare the practice with paid surveys).

Twitter is great in terms of staying on top of the developments, as the social media tool features Twitter Lists, which filter content from the target groups. Use the insights for research purposes to boost your sales across all social media channels.

Last But Not Least…

Coupling multiple marketing strategies is always the best approach to achieving long-term results, boosting your ROI in the process. Email marketing campaigns are always a good idea, and even better when the offer is shared on social media channels.

Think in terms of discounts and special offers, which are bound to be seen by a greater number of people if advertised across various channels.

And while there’s no general recipe for long-term success, the key, as always, lies in maintaining healthy relationships, showing customers that they are special and that their feedback matters, and in continually improving your offer to stay ahead of the competition.

Emily Woodman
Creative author and long time digital marketeer

How does social selling work on Twitter, facebook & instagram?

Wed, 11 Dec 2019 16:24:57 GMT

How Does Social Selling Work? What is social selling?

In a nutshell Social Selling works by connecting, engaging and converting potential customers online.

There are a number of key actions that we need to understand, learn and take in order to be successful at social selling.

Social Selling for Dummies

1) What is your Social Selling Index
So this is a score provided by LinkedIn and helps to provide some guidance as to your proficiency in using the platform for the purposes of social selling.
Ideally, your score should be above "70" but don't put all your eggs in the LinkedIn basket, it is only one of the important channels for you to be using.

2) How many contacts/followers have you developed on:

LinkedIn? You need to have a minimum of "600" to truly begin getting traction
Facebook? Depending on how it's being used, separately or as a managed page, should have "300" plus
Twitter? Again depending on whether you have multiple twitter accounts that are being managed but a good following here is "500" plus
Instagram? Depending on the nature of your business this could be one of your most important channels and a good starting number is "1000"

While there is no magic number for any of these there are levels you need to be at to effectively drive engagement and lead generation.

3) How much time do you currently spend researching companies and contacts on Social networks?

< 1 hour/week (really a minimum for those more in front facing customer support positions)
> 2 hour/week (a good amount for managers looking to connect to the right people from a business perspective)
> 5 hour/week (really a minimum for salespeople whether inside or outside, this is only 1 hour per day and allows you to maximize your results using account-based marketing)

Again, there is no perfect amount of time you should be spending but there is definitely a minimum which is very dependent on your role and objectives. For example, if you’re an inside salesperson or account manager it would be quite different than if you were focused on new business development where you could easily spend 20% of your time online researching.

4) How much time do you spend engaging with contacts online?

liking
sharing
connecting
direct messaging
commenting
warm phone calls
online meetings

This is one of the most important and yet misunderstood set of sales activities. Not only do you need to be spending significant time on these, but if you are not then you are not social selling. Not surprisingly, if we don’t engage with people, nothing happens!!

In total and to be effective you should be spending an equal amount of time engaging as you are researching. Often these two activities will overlap when developing contacts with a target prospective customer but it's important to be supporting the companies you work with as well as those you would like to.

Social Selling Plan

5) Do you have a target set for new contacts made / week or / Month?

So, the answer to this question tells me how serious you take the opportunity of social selling. If you are not consistently building your networks than your market opportunity will stay small or worse, it will shrink!

What is a good number, that depends entirely on how many new customers you need to be developing? On average you should be developing "10" new contacts on each of your active channels/week.

6) Do you share content from your organization through your networks?

This is how we show our networks and more importantly all the contacts our network has, how credible we are. Further it shows our expertise and why they need to be talking to us!

Are you Social Selling on LinkedIn? then you should be sharing industry-relevant and informative content while tagging key contacts as well as hash-tagging key groups.
Primarily a B2B channel

Are you Social Selling on Facebook? then you should be sharing similar to LinkedIn but important to include even more human related content as a lot of sharing occurs here.
Very effective for both B2B as well as B2C

Are you Social Selling on twitter? then you should be liking, retweeting and sharing to those groups within twitter that match up with your industry and those of your customers.
Very effective for both B2B as well as B2C

Are you Social Selling on Instagram? then you should be sharing the same as you would on Facebook with an emphasis on B2C and social branding.

7) Do you as yet write and share your own content?

So, this is one of the tougher activities as most people simply do not want to write their own content. Think of it this way, for every piece of content you write you can skip an hour of cold calling!! Which is easier!?

Original content is our opportunity to showcase our knowledge and expertise on the subject matter.

Ideally, this content needs to be over 1200 words or more in length and needs to speak to questions being asked by your industry and customers. It's important to know what primary questions are being queried about your products or services so you can be as relevant as possible while driving activity and engagement. When done properly this is also a primary SEO activity that will help you improve your google standing.

Social Selling Employee Advocacy

8) Does your organization actively support your social sales activities

This is not in your control but is still very important. We can absolutely be successful either way, but with our organization behind us, we can be much more successful and likewise so too can the company we represent. If this is not the case you can begin to show them how powerful “Social Selling” can be by your amazing results. Worst case, let us know and we’ll help you!

Is your organization’s idea of social selling is to continually plaster their corporate message about how great they are across social media? If it is, than you need to differentiate yourself in order to gain credibility within your network.

9) How much time do you spend/week making warm calls and follow-ups/engagements?

What is a warm call?

This is a call you make once you have established a good online relationship with a contact and now it's time to develop into a lead or sale. Because this is not a cold call, you have ussually prearranged the call before hand.
- warm calls > 8 hours / week or 1.6 hours / day
- Direct messaging and emails > 8 hours / week or 1.6 hours / day

This is a measure of your success because the more skillful and proficient you get at social selling the less cold calling you’ll be doing. Now all your calls will be warm calls developed from customer interactions online.

Oh, did you think social sales meant never phoning prospects, think again!
The difference is, now they know you as you have already begun to develop a solid relationship online and you have already been able to establish their interest.

10) How many leads per week or per month are you generating via social selling?

This again is a measure of your success but is also determined by your role. If you are inside sales the measurement would be different because you are much more actively communicating with existing customers. So, the metrics here would be more around account growth and referrals via social selling. Whereas with the business development role it’s all about those new leads.

So, having answered these questions you now know what social selling is and what you need to be doing BUT just how ready for “Social sales” are you?

If you feel you need some help, reach out to me, it’s easy just click!

Contact Thomas
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Website
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Contact Social Selling HQ

SOCIAL SALES EXPERTS - Blog

Master Guide to Dominate Your Market

Guide To Dominate Your Market!

Steps to Dominate Your Market

Major business decisions (tactics) made by Google directly played a part in accomplishing its goal (strategy).

1. Rethink or flat out get rid of conventional thinking on keyword research and content development but don’t eliminate altogether.

Benefits of producing how-to content on ancillary products and services:

Interview and or research industry leaders! Use this to your advantage.

Review Competing Products and Services

2. Build Your Industry’s Expert Hub

3. Be An Influencer — Build Your Personal Brand

Hey, I’m a displaced farmer from North Dakota who was in a special education class in grade school. So if I can do it, you can too!​And yes, I live in Fargo, and no we are nothing like the movie.

Steps To Be A Successful Influencer

To Dominate in Today's Market You Need Massive Content Distribution

What Content Distribution Systems Efficiently Excel Past All Others?

What would it be worth if you could leverage with a bunch of internal influencers/employee advocates like the Kardashians did in your business today?

What Employee Advocacy Social Sharing Software Should You Use?

Let’s Share The Valued Importance of Employee Advocacy…

Digital sales people needed!!

Certified Social Sales Training

You replaced outdated corporate systems!

Now it's time to retrain and create certified social sales professionals

Search Engine Optimization in 2023

10 Reasons Why Nobody pays Attention To Your Content

Everyone Wants to Succeed Online and to Know How To Do It!

It's All About Purpose!

1. You May Not Be Teaching Anyone Anything!

2. Your Content is the Same as Everyone Else's In Your Niche

3. Your Content Has No Real Message

4. You Don't Have a Refined Content Strategy

5. You Are Probably Not Following Best Practices.

6. Your Content Doesn't Provide Value

7. You are not reaching out and collaborating enough

8. You Don't Know Your Audience

9. You Are Not Consistent With Your Content

10. You Need To Improve Your SEO

What is your Digital IQ? Take our Quiz

​​

Take this quiz to see if you and your organization are Digitally prepared for 2023

What's so important about my Digital IQ?

Customers are always right!

So what has this got to do with my Digital IQ?

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF SALES?

THE END OF ANALOG SALES?

Why is Social Selling so important now?

In the traditional sales model for most B2B businesses, the sales process looks like this:

​So what does a Digital Social Sales Process look like?

What is virtual training and why it's so important

Written By : Thomas Ross

Is "Virtual Training" the same as “Online Training?"

Key elements to successful virtual training

Why is Certification Important?

What are the Best Results?

What is Business Development?

Business Development has changed!

Enter Covid-19 and everything changes

Digital Transformation

Customer Experience

Old versus New Organizational Chart

Re-Org 2022

Hunters, gatherers, or Farmers? Which is most effective?

Social Selling is not like hunting

Traditional sales methods

Digital Transformation creates new paths for sales

Modern buying process

How To Improve Sales With Online Customer Service

Account Growth & Client Retention are critical for Business Survival

Old School Customer Service

Things have changed!

Reach out to your customers and connect with them!

How to get immediate benefits?

Next Steps

THE FUTURE OF VIRTUAL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Re-imagined Virtual Customer Experience

Traditional Sales & Marketing Organizational Chart

Virtual Customer Centric Organizational Chart

Virtual Customer Service

Now, how to do this? "Digital Transformation"

“Future of Virtual Business Development”

Advanced Social Selling Strategy

Hey, I’m a displaced farmer from North Dakota who was in a special education class in grade school. So if I can do it, you can too!

And yes, I live in Fargo, and no we are nothing like the movie.

So what does a Digital Social Sales Process look like?

Why is Digital Transformation so misunderstood?