What is Social Selling?
Social selling consists of using social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to research prospects and then make initial contact with them before any pitch is brought up.
It enables sales professionals to interact with their prospects and add value up front without having to invasively interrupt them to introduce themselves over the phone, email or in person.
Is Social Sales a replacement for Traditional Sales?
No. Social sales is simply a tool.
It’s another weapon in your arsenal of researching prospects and having more meaningful conversions with them.
Other than being able to do a little more research, social selling doesn’t have any other impact.
For the moment anyway…
What about the future?
It’s entirely possible that spammers and newsletters ruin email for everyone.
As Gary Vaynerchuk famously said –
“Marketers ruin everything” – Gary Vaynerchuk
Therefore other communication platforms could become more main stream as the old guard become less used.
Perhaps video calls will replace voice communication (although this has been promised from the 1980’s and has never materialised, with high speed and reliable 4G networks it’s becoming more os a serious possibility).
Perhaps millenials would rather be tweeted than emailed as it’s forces salespeople to be more direct due to the lack of available characters.
Perhaps something new is going to come along and blow minds.
The point is social selling is not new.
Humans have been selling socially forever. The only difference is that we spend more time on social media now than anywhere else and so that’s the place where you have the best chance of connecting with a potential customer.
The Expert
Barb heads up Social Centered Selling and is the co-author of The New Handshake: Sales Meets Social Media, the first book written on social selling.
Learn more – BarbaraGiamanco.com
For more expert sales training check out – SalesSchool.org
