Social Selling From Cold Callto Close Sirius Decisions 8 23 12

April 2012

Social Selling: From Cold Call to Close
Jim Ninivaggi − Service Director, Sales Enablement Strategies

Executive Summary

• Key issues
– There is still a lack of understanding on what exactly
“social selling” is
– For sales, the benefits have not always been apparent
– To date, sales organizations have not provided formal
social selling training
• What you will walk away with
– Why social media matters to sales
– How social media can be leveraged throughout the
sales/buying process
– Best practices in using social media to help create a
“personal social brand”

© Copyright SiriusDecisions.
All Rights Protected and Reserved. 2

Agenda

I. The New Buying Behaviors
II. Using Social Media Across the Sales Process
III. Controlling Your Social Media Brand
IV. Key Takeaways


A Long Awaited Trip To Italy


SiriusDecisions Customer Buying Cycle
Framework

Loosening Committing Exploring Committing Justifying Making
of the to Change Possible to a the the
Status Solutions Solution Decision Selection
Quo

Education Solution Vendor Selection


The Changing Sales Engagement Dynamics
SiriusPerspective: B-to-b buyers are engaging with sales reps later
in the buying process; and sales must adapt.

Buyers are using social throughout
① Loosening of the Status
Quo
Education
Phase
② Committing to Change

③ Exploring Possible
Solutions
Solution Point of
Phase Prospect
④ Committing to a Intersectio
Solution n With
Sales Rep

⑤ Justifying the Decision
Vendor
Selection
Phase ⑥ Making the Selection


Preordained Need/Preconceived Solution
SiriusPerspective: By the time a rep first meets with a buyer, need
may be preordained and a solution preconceived.

Need
Web sites and Blogs
Solution

The early dialogues we
have with buyers will
need to change.


Buyer Expectations
SiriusPerspective: Buyers expect that you have done your
homework before calling on them.

Research
drives the
Buyer’s call plan.
website

Salespeople need to
add value from the the
very first call.


Here Come the Digital Natives
SiriusPerspective: Generation Y (1984-2002) will continue to play
a larger and larger role in buying processes.

Fifty-six percent of college students who responded to a recent survey
said they would either not accept a job offer from a company that
blocked access to social media in the workplace, or would join and
attempt to sidestep the company policy.

Source: Cisco Connected World Study © Copyright SiriusDecisions.

Using Social Across The Sales Process

SiriusPerspective: While the focus on social media has been
primarily on prospecting, look for ways to us throughout the sales
process.

Find/Engage
Requirements Definition/Alignment

Value Demonstration

Proposal Gain/Share Insights

Negotiate

Close Nurture


Find and Engage: Social Intelligence
SiriusPerspective: Start using social tools to listen to your buyers,
partners, and competitors.

Prospects Geographies
Influencers

Competition

Business
Units

Products
Partners
Brand

Employees
Customers

Major
Accounts


Find and Engage: Another Tool
SiriusPerspective: Social media provides yet another way to find
and engage with prospects.


Find and Engage
SiriusPerspective: Social media provides yet another way to find
and engage with prospects.

• Build a LinkedIn network
Network • Who do you know who knows someone
• Look inside your own company

• Build a preliminary org chart before your
first call
Org Chart • Use it to understand the decision
dynamics

Monitor • Receive notifications on job changes
• Track changes to ownership or investors
Changes • Trigger events

• If you can, connect wit your competitors
Competitors • Monitor them for activity


Find and Engage: Best Practices
SiriusPerspective: Social media is still considered a “safe”
environment by participants.

Easy does it.

Don’t be a stalker.

Don’t be disingenuous.

Listen.

Gain/Share Insights: Understand Buyer Roles
Shepherd the buying
process; act as the key
sponsor for a particular
Champions purchase

Internal or external trusted
sources that play a behind-the-
scenes advisory role at critical
junctures
Evaluator
Executives (visionaries
or decision makers) who
generally are involved
very early or late
Decision Maker
End-users or consumers
Evaluators; individuals or groups that will be impacted by a purchase on a day-to-day basis

who will be the ones
directly interacting and for
whom the offering was
Users designed for.

Professional purchasing,
procurement, legal or
negotiations groups
Approvers
All Rights Protected and Reserved.

Gain/Share Insights: Best Practices
SiriusPerspective: You can use social media to help build and
execute you opportunity strategy.
SiriusDecisions B-to-B Buying Cycle
Social strategy
1. Loosening of the Status Quo Ch DM
Education • Understand and
Phase prepare
2. Committing to Change Ch

• Position
yourself as a
3. Exploring Possible Solutions Ch E
trusted
Solution
resource
Phase
4. Committing to a Solution Ch E U
• Indirect selling

5. Justifying the Decision Ch E U • Leverage your
Vendor
network as a
Selection resource
Phase 6. Making the Selection Ch DM A


Nurture: Participate in the Digital Community
SiriusPerspective: Be a connector to create a network across your
client base.

Social Network
• Share success
stories

• Make virtual
introductions

• Curate content


Controlling Your Social Media Brand

How Do You Want to Be Perceived?
SiriusPerspective: Google yourself. Your buyers are.


Process, Skills, and Knowledge
SiriusPerspective: Sales will need to incorporate social media into
how they work, and develop new abilities.
Process:
• Prospecting
• Networking
• Pre-call research
• Deal strategy

Skills:
• Use of social tools
• Social etiquette
• Writting, I mean writing, skills
• New selling skills

Knowledge:
• Industry mavens
• Company information
• Social profile
• Competitors
• Governance

Key Takeaways

1. Social media enhances your ability to listen and
connect with buyers.
2. The use of social media in sales will not be optional.
3. Ultimately, social media should lead to richer and more
impactful conversations with your buyers.


Thank You!
jninivaggi@siriusdecisions.com
@JNinivaggi

June 2012

Social Selling: From Cold Call to Close
Jonathan Block – Vice President and Practice Director, Technology
Jim Ninivaggi − Service Director, Sales Enablement Strategies

Executive Summary

• Key issues
– There is still a lack of understanding on what exactly
“social selling” is
– Lack of centralized ownership has led to an absence of strategy,
training and governance
– Social platforms have been launched with the “fire, ready, aim”
approach, resulting in low adoption
• What you will walk away with
– How social media can be leveraged throughout the
sales/buying process
– Best practices in using social media internally for successful
collaboration and enablement
– The importance of training and certifying sales on social selling
effectiveness


Agenda

I. The New Buying Behaviors
II. Using Social Media Across Marketing and
Sales
III. Governance and Training
IV. Building the Social Sales Enablement Structure
V. Using Social Media Internally
VI. Key Takeaways


A Long Awaited Trip To Italy


SiriusDecisions Customer Buying Cycle
Framework

Loosening Committing Exploring Committing Justifying Making
of the to Change Possible to a the the
Status Solutions Solution Decision Selection
Quo

Education Solution Vendor Selection


The Changing Sales Engagement Dynamics
SiriusPerspective: B-to-b buyers are engaging with sales reps later
in the buying process; b-to-b marketing and sales must adapt.

Marketing starts the dialogue
① Loosening of the Status
Quo
Education
Phase
② Committing to Change

③ Exploring Possible
Solutions
Solution Point of
Phase Prospect
④ Committing to a Intersectio
Solution n With
Sales Rep

⑤ Justifying the Decision
Vendor
Selection
Phase ⑥ Making the Selection


Preordained Need/Preconceived Solution
SiriusPerspective: By the time a rep first meets with a buyer, need
may be preordained and a solution preconceived.

Need
Web sites and Blogs
Solution

While most marketing and
sales organizations have
recognized this seismic
shift, many have done little
to adjust.


Here Come the Digital Natives
SiriusPerspective: Generation Y (1984-2002) will continue to play
a larger and larger role in buying processes.

Fifty-six percent of college students who responded to a recent survey
said they would either not accept a job offer from a company that
blocked access to social media in the workplace, or would join and
attempt to sidestep the company policy.

Source: Cisco Connected World Study © Copyright SiriusDecisions.

Questions

• How have these buying changes impacted your
organization?
• What changes have you (are you) making to address
them?
• Where do you see Generation Y’s influence?


Using Social Across Marketing
and Sales

Building a Social Marketing Strategy
SiriusPerspective: Our MEAD model offers a framework for
developing a comprehensive social media strategy.

MEAD Model

Monitor

Engagement

Awareness

Demand


Social Intelligence
SiriusPerspective: Social monitoring tools can efficiently provide
powerful market and competitive intelligence.

Prospects Geographies
Influencers

Competition

Business
Units

Products
Partners
Brand

Employees
Customers

Major
Accounts


Market Intelligence: Strategic Monitoring
SiriusPerspective: Monitoring should be both proactive (research-
oriented) and reactive (defense-oriented).

Reactive Proactive
• Crisis response • Market needs
• Conversation/comment routing • Industry trends
• Sentiment tracking • Product opportunity
• Mentions/activity metrics • Partnership opportunities
• Network size (friends/followers/subscribers) • Competitive activity
• Campaign/program impact • Competitive strategy
• Social Web traffic • Conversation voids
• Competitive landscape • Influencer trends/interests
• Social personas
• Early warning system


Monitoring Process
SiriusPerspective: Monitoring should be driven by (and report on)
specific objectives and desired insights.
• Identify and implement monitoring tool and
searches

Prepare • Create a process for implementing social data
into dashboards and other reports
• Develop escalation and routing procedures for
support issues

• Track brand metrics (reach, share of voice,
sentiment)
Listen • Collect market, competitive, influencer industry
and market intelligence data
• Ensure employees follow governance policy

• Correlate collected social data and activity with

Analyze marketing campaigns
• Identify and score key or new influencers
• Identify key market trends or product insights

• Articulate and share market and product insights
Optimize • Target influencer communications
• Develop/revise content strategy


Integrate Social Components Into Demand Creation
SiriusPerspective: Targeted social media content should be used
beyond the top of the funnel within integrated marketing programs.

Identify thought leaders and content that can
SEED
be used as part of traditional programs

Use targeted content through social outlets to
CREATE
drive interest and self-qualification

Understand market segment social
NURTURE preferences and use targeted thought leader
content

Use social tools as part of an enablement
ENABLE strategy built around an internal community
platform

Access for specific late-stage prospects to
ACCELERATE
customer community or private blogs


Questions

• How does your organization use monitoring beyond
crisis intervention?
• How do you use social media for demand creation?
• How do your reps use social media?


Social Governance and Training

Governance Framework
SiriusPerspective: A well-socialized governance policy provides an
effective social execution framework with built-in oversight.

Create • Extend existing policies
• Functional-specific policies

Communicate • Socializing the social policy
• Staff and content permissions

Comply • Monitoring
• Escalation process


Governance in Action
SiriusPerspective: More often than not, at least some employees want
to be active on social media but need parameters and guidance.


Social Enablement: Training and Certification
SiriusPerspective: Create a modular curriculum that is flexible
and can be consumed in multiple ways.

Social Media 101 Social Media Best Practices Advanced Applications

• What and why • Deeper site dives • Role-specific training
• Social outlets • Site mechanics - Field marketing
- Sites • Land and expand (demand
- Tools • Content leverage creation, pipeline
acceleration)
• Policies and
procedures - Product marketing
(competitive
intelligence, market
requirements)


Developing Sales-Focused Social Training
SiriusPerspective: Embed social selling training into an existing
sales training curriculum.

Social Boot Training Mentor and
Social Best Role
Camp Curriculum 101 Practices Specific Monitor
All employees For certification
Social staff

• Level 1: Content mastery • Level 2: In Field Execution
– Pass the governance test – Ongoing monitoring for best
– Analyze LinkedIn profiles practices and governance
– Understand social monitoring – Share success stories
searches
– Training on new functionality
– Tweet and retweet and tools
– Sales manager’s certified separately – Linkage with existing tools


Questions

• Do you have a standard governance policy or one that
is tailored to individual functions?
• Do you have a training curriculum?
• Do you do this internally or with a third-party
company?


Building the Social Sales Enablement
Structure

SiriusDecisions High-Performance Sales Framework
SiriusPerspective: High performance sales organizations will need
to provide structure and guidance on how to use social media.


Social Media Becomes Part of the Enablement Fabric

Processes Skills Knowledge

Methodology
Definition and Talent and Content and
Technology Competencies Programs

Sales Sales Training/ Product
Departments Operations/ Human Marketing/Sales
Training Resources Communications

SFA Models Sales Assets
Deliverables Forecasting Workshops Content
Opportunity Mtg. E-Learning Portals
Call Process Certification SME Collaboration


Enabling Social Selling
SiriusPerspective: Sales enablement efforts will need to
incorporate social media.
Process:
• Prospecting
• Networking
• Pre-call research
• Deal strategy

Skills:
• Use of social tools
• Social etiquette
• Writting, I mean writing, skills
• New selling skills

Knowledge:
• Industry mavens
• Company information
• Social profile
• Competitors
• Governance

Social Operations
SiriusPerspective: A balance of centralization and decentralization
is necessary to enable functions to best leverage social media.

Social Operations Functions

Communications

Governance Training
Product Marketing

Field Marketing
Social Media
Strategy
Channel Marketing

Innovation Measurement
and Insight Sales

Support


Questions

• Who “owns” social media today?
• What is the interlock with sales enablement?
• Best practice stories and examples?


Using Social Media Internally
for Sales

Fire! Ready! Aim!
SiriusPerspective: The first attempts at introducing internal
social platforms were often less than successful.


Efficiency and Effectiveness
SiriusPerspective: As with any sales tool, there must be a clear line
of vision to revenue.

Show how the tool will provide
reps with more capacity to sell
Efficiency (time & activities)

and/or manage more
opportunities.

Show how the tool can impact
sales performance by improving
sales talent.

Effectiveness (quality & results) © Copyright SiriusDecisions.

WIFS – What’s in It for Sales
SiriusPerspective: Show how your internal social platform can be
used to enhance current enablement initiatives.
INITIATIVE LEVERAGING SOCIAL MEDIA
Onboarding • Create a virtual new hire sales “class”
• Allows new hires to share best practices
• Creates “esprit de corps” and healthy competition
• Connect new hires to subject matter experts (SME)
• Monitor group to understand challenges and direct training

Sales training • Create a group for each training class
• Use social media to promote early wins
(e.g. introducing a • Use social to direct class to reinforcement events and resources
new methodology) • Connect vendor to field
• Monitor group to understand challenges and direct enablement
efforts

Account planning • Create a group for account team (with a leader)
• Incorporate use of social media into account-planning process
• Encourage ongoing plan assessment across account team
• Connect account team to SMEs and coaches

Opportunity • Create a group for opportunity team (with a leader)
• Incorporate into existing opportunity methodology
management • Connect team with SMEs

Coaching • First-line managers use social as part of their coaching “arsenal”


Innovation: Leveraging Social Media Internally
SiriusPerspective: Only 16 percent of an organization’s social
media budget is allocated to using social media internally.

Blog Podcast Community Wiki

Sales and Product training Sales and Content creation
marketing best and new sales marketing Roadmap
practices/case rep hires community collaboration
studies

Collaboration
Knowledge Management
Enablement


Questions

• How many of you have deployed a social collaboration
platform? How successful has it been?
• Any examples of other applications used for social
collaboration platforms?


Key Takeaways

• Marketing
– New buying behaviors are forcing new sales
enablement approaches
– Close alignment with sales is required for monitoring
activity and sharing best practices

• Sales
– Social media enhances the ability of reps to “listen” to
their buyers
– Internal social platforms require clear purpose to be
adopted by the field


Recommended Research

• Social Selling: The Newest Sales Skill
• The Virtual Approach to Onboarding
• Building the Social B-to-B Organization
• BANT: Need Is Good
• Certifying the Sales Force: Best Practices and Benefits
• New Sales Skills for a New Selling Environment
• Social Enablement: A Sirius Introduction
• Three Pillars of Best-in-Class Social Media Governance
• Sales Social Media Governance: Applying the Three Pillars
• Choosing the Right Social Media Monitoring Solution
• Inside a Successful Internal Community

Social Selling From Cold Callto Close Sirius Decisions 8 23 12

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