social selling
How to Build Relationships Using Social Networks MICHAEL IDINOPULOS
It’s now common for salespeople and BDRs/SDRs to find targets by running searches against LinkedIn profiles. For many teams, that’s where social selling ends. Once they’ve found the target on LinkedIn, they go back to business as usual – banging phones, lobbing emails. Yes, LinkedIn contains the world’s largest database of
professional leads. But that’s not its greatest value for sales. LinkedIn allows sellers to engage in personal inter- actions with the buyers they’re trying to reach. No other lead database in the world can do that. How can you coach your sales team to use social net- works not only to find buyers but also cultivate relation- ships with them? By making sure they do three things, according to expert social seller, Peter Strid, vice president of sales at PeopleLinx.
1) Start the day by looking at their social networks and commenting on updates. “I usually spot two or three status updates from buyers I’d like to get in front of,” says Strid. “So I read the status updates and com-
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ment on them. Usually the person will ‘like’ my com- ment, and often they even comment back. Then we’re in a conversation. That’s how I get most of my best meet- ings. It starts with a comment.” 2) Before client meetings, ask for a list of who’ll be
there and look up their social profiles. “Before every meeting, I ask for the attendee list and then I look at all their LinkedIn profiles,” says Strid. “Not only do I learn about them, LinkedIn also tells them that I viewed their profile. That’s very important. It shows them that I’m pay- ing attention to them. You’d be amazed how many con- nection requests I get from people because they saw that I was looking at their profile.” “It’s another step in the relationship, especially when the buyer initiates the request. Plus, I share a lot of articles on both LinkedIn and Twitter – provocative stuff designed to challenge people’s thinking and open up a conversation. People who are connected to me see that stuff, which is yet another touchpoint.”
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