The 7-step document outlines how to get ahead in social sales. It recommends getting involved in customer conversations on social media, building relationships and credibility over time, connecting with prospects on multiple platforms, and getting sales teams to think and act social by training them to engage customers, build personalized profiles, and make recommendations. An initial company effort to mandate social sales company-wide failed, but a pilot team that focused on relationships, connections, and patience was more successful in generating leads, engagement, and sales through social media.

1. The Social Sales Revolution: 7 Steps to Get Ahead
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Get in The Know Your Build your First Friends, Connect With Get Together,
Customer Social Tweet-up Your
Game Then Leads Pipeline Social Sell Smarter
Hangouts Market Value
Intelligence
The power is in the hands of the buyer
Earn credibility and respect to be a recommender - be helpful – trusted
advisor

2. 3. Build your Social Market Value
A social savvy rep needs to:
• Join social dialog
• Build credibility
• Have experience
• Know the industry
• Be transparent
PHOTO BY KEXINO 2

3. Credibility > Selling
3

4. Case Study:
WE SERVE OVER OPEN TECHNOLOGY AT
60%
4,500+
RACKERS WEB SCALE
Choice, flexibility and freedom
190,000+ from vendor lock-in
CUSTOMERS
OF
THE FORTUNE® 100
84,000+ SERVERS
SEAMLESS PORTFOLIO
OVER $1.2
120 +
COUNTRIES Public Cloud, Private Cloud,
Hybrid Hosting and Dedicated
BILLION $$$$ Hosting
Annualized Revenue
8 GLOBAL
DATA CENTERS

5. Sales injects social into the funnel to accelerate deals
Recommendations
Relationships
Referrals
5

6. Online Display
Trade Shows
Webinars
Whitepaper
SEM s
Events
Email
Videos SEO
Blogs Demos
Qualified Leads
CUSTOMERS
6

7. Department involvement
BEFORE
Marketing Sales
NOW
Marketing
Sales
7

8. THROUGH
Awareness Consideration Decision
8

9. How we do it
Intro
Connect Follow Listen
Groups
prospect prospects to for
with social and have prospects feedback
platforms them
follow us

10. Build
Advise
Content
prospects Including
on social case
media studies,
webinars
and more

11. We train our sales teams to think and act social
Build contacts by
territory and
customer list
Involve prospects
Join groups and
in the
gain credibility
conversation
Engage directly
Build and
with
maintain
recommendations
relationships
and relationships
Build
Research and
personalized
social profiles on
multiple platforms
How to: monitor social
media

12. Make your sales team:
1. Effective
2. Social
3. Self-reliant
1
2

13. % Who Think LinkedIn is a Good Resource for:
Getting information about enterprise software companies or products 56%
Getting advice on how to solve an enterprise software challenge 52%
Finding recommendations for enterprise software products 50%
Staying on top of the latest news or trends in enterprise software 43%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
Base: All IT survey respondents (N = 800).
“Do you agree or disagree with the following statements? LinkedIn is a good resource for:”
% of respondents who answered “Agree” or “Strongly Agree”.
IT Software Study – March 2011

14. % Who Would Trust a Recommendation From:
Work colleagues / professional network 93%
Industry analysts (Gartner/Forrester/IDC) 80%
IT publications (CNET, ZDnet, etc.) 59%
Consultants 58%
IT forums and message boards 51%
Vendor websites 23%
Vendor salespeople 22%
Base: All IT survey respondents (N = 800). 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
“When deciding whether to purchase a particular software product for your
company or institution, do you trust recommendations from the following sources?”
IT Software Study – March 2011

15. The Power of
Recommendations
on LinkedIn
1
5

16. Rackspace vs. Company X
554Recommendations
7
Recommendations

17. 1
7

18. Professionals recommending Rackspace on LinkedIn
work for these companies:
1
8

19. We failed before we succeeded

20. How we first failed:
• Our initial approach was too
aggressive in scale
• Mass mandate failed
• No instant results
• More planning needed
• Disconnect: tying social to
quotas

21. How we succeeded
• A pilot team that
• Understood
relationships
• Connected the dots
• Had patience

22. Key Results
Increased
engagement on social Increased event
platforms from sales attendance from their
teams and their customers
customers
More leads through
Increased downloads
referrals, relationships
and engagement with
and
content
recommendations