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

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"

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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.

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Sales Versus Marketing? Wrong!!

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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?

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​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!! 

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EMPLOYEE ADVOCACY = TEAM SUCCESS!!

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"​Social Sales Training", provided by, "Social Sales Experts", will allow your organization to boldly move forward. 
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Learn how to maximize your content marketing through employee advocacy with our new social accountability tool SSHQPRO APP

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