Posts Tagged ‘Selling with Social Media’

I just have a few minutes this morning as I rush off to a presentation on SocialTech and Compliance at an insurance company.

It’s an honor to be asked to lead a Webinar on Social for PIMA, a 30-year old association I’ve been involved in.  Without going into too much detail, I hope it suffices to say that I deeply appreciate the opportunity to snowplow the road a bit for the group.  But I know that the group will quickly catch up to me once they see the potential of all this.  It’s a group of VERY bright people that I am very pleased to associate with.  And much of what I will be discussing I’ve chewed on with some of the members over the past couple year at meetings and on phone calls.  So I definitely can’t lay claim to much original thought.  I guess that make me a Content Curator!

A word on logistics:

Learn and Register here.

Pre and Post Webinar dialog here.

Twitter Hashtag for the group – #PIMAAssn

It’s impossible to cover everything on Social in about 60-70 minutes – of course.  So my goal is share some of the things I’ve learned about the magnitude of Social as well as a few practical examples of how sales and marketing organizations are using SocialTech.  Understandably, and IMHO unfortunately, the nature of the health and life insurance business means there are not a lot of examples on the insurance side.  The business is highly regulated with the threat of losing your license always looming over you.  It’s also a conservative business by nature, so wary of hype and new stuff.  And in general, compensation up and down the org chart is tied to sales results – and rightfully so.  More industries should be that way (especially education, but that’s another story).

That said, I’ve been calling around and started a discussion (and Poll – please take it) on Linkedin.  I’m trying to get a sense about where people are with SocialTech and what people would most like to hear.  I definitely want to debunk some myths about SocialTech as well as the scope and scale of Social.  But I’m hearing that people would really like to get information on two big issues.

1. How do we do Social in the context of Compliance and Regulations?
2. What about ROI?  How quickly can we show sales results?

What would you like to know?  What do you know you’d like to share?  Please Comment here or on the Linkedin thread.

I would most like people to take away the concept of using SocialTech to build a powerful river of information.  In my mind, this is the biggest secret right now.  I’m personally using SocialTech to feed my brain in a way unlike ever before.  And that’s something that we can all do regardless of Compliance because it’s all inbound consumption.  To be sure, they all already know this – in general.  The difference now is how to use SocialTech to make the stream even more powerful – and efficient given all our time constraints.

Looking forward to it.  Please Comment on the Linkedin Group if you are a PIMA Member.

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Meantime, next week is also the Aartrijk Brand Camp in Austin.  Really looking forward to that.  Some of the smartest people in Social in insurance.  Can’t wait.  Doing a viral video after!

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A couple poignant pictures from my son’s last year as a soccer player before he graduates as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army.

Getting ready to launch on of his trademark throw-ins. Special pic because Mom is in the background.

Lifting his fellow defender Mitch carefully into the truck after he got a concussion.  Somehow I think of the Army and the future….

Oh Man – this stuff is where it’s at for B2B Sales.  I finally have the whole thing wired…

Thoughts and Comments?  Please Share below..

(Excerpted from the Crowdsourced book due out soon called Enterprise Social Technologies. Chapter 7: Social Sales, written by YT!)

What’s happening out there???

Selling has changed, whether you’re selling commodities or complex products.  In fact a whole new layer has been added to the sales process, a layer with fantastic power.  This new layer of Social Technologies has forever altered the art and process of selling.  Take a hard look at your most recent sales – or losses.  Whether business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C), did the buyers “check you out online,” either before or after they contacted you? In this due-diligence process, what did they find out about you?  What is ‘out there’ relative to YOU, your product reputation, and/or your brand reputation?  Have you searched yourself, your product, your brand, your market, and your competition?  Have you thought about how much influence these data-points have had on your recent sales results, or your lead volume?  Perhaps if you really look at the trends, you’d have to admit that selling has changed A LOT in the last few years.  Perhaps it’s time for you to change your processes as well.

In the mid-2000‘s, things started turning a bit chaotic.  The Internet and E-Commerce began to mature.  User-generated content started to proliferate with YouTube and Blogs.  Search engines like Google began to disinter-mediate salespeople.  Some brands like Progressive Insurance even went so far as to pronounce the end of the era of the sales agent.  In spite of many claims of ROI and productivity gains, few understood how to use these mediums for business, let alone how to generate sales.   Meanwhile buyers started getting savvy to all these tools, too – and started using them in their buying process!  In a sense, the tables were turned.

Today, circa 2010, this chaos has stabilized, matured, synthesized, intersected, and emerged into the next major evolution in sales known as Socially Facilitated Selling (B2B) or Socially Directed Buying (B2C).  Social Technology now augments communication and provides new ways to build trust.  As such, Social Tech is reorganizing how buyers buy – and thereby forcing sellers to adapt.  Social Tech is also helping sales people be at the right place at the right time on a scale never before attainable, and at a cost never imagined – essentially FOR FREE!  A powerfully constructed Blog, integrated with Twitter and Linkedin, is replacing a premium Country Club membership and the closely guarded ‘rolodex’.

Why Socially Facilitated Selling?

Whenever I talk to sales people about using Social in their sales process, they always want to know the “How”, but often skip the necessary “Why”?  The ‘How’ is the easy part.  But to really be effective at Social, we need to deeply understand the answers to questions like, Why is it helpful for the sales person to join online professional networks, update their Status daily, and get Recommendations from clients?  Why is updating a professional Blog once a week one of the most important activities a sales person can do each week?  Further, why is getting a customer to Comment on a Blog post a huge event in the life of a customer relationship?  What role do Facebook and Twitter play in the sales process?  Why are ‘listening’ devices such as Tweetdeck, Google Alerts, SocialMention, and Addictomatic helpful in the sales process?  What is the best way to proactively target prospects using Linkedin?  Once in your crosshairs, why is it important to use Social Tech for warm introductions, to gain credibility, build rapport, and/or understand concerns and priorities of a prospect – all BEFORE the first contact, certainly before the first sales event or discovery session?  Once we clearly understand the answers to these and other related questions, with real-life facts and figures, then we are ready to tackle the tactical execution.

The book is due out in a few months.  Can’t wait!

Comments?  Do you resonate with any of this?  Helpful info?

Need help “Getting there”?  I’ve got a process.  Contact me at WebWisedomLLC at GMail dot com.

Terrific new group on Linkedin!  Social Media – Insurance and Reinsurance

I commented on the thread about helping Executives take a more active interest in Social Media.  Thought I’d share the comments here as well… Interested in what you think?  Please Comment at the bottom of this thread.

From Nico Conradie in Johannesburg Area, South Africa… “I find it an interesting challenge: how to persuade others (key decision takers) within a large international company to take a more active interest in social media.  Any experiences in this respect that can be shared? Any tips? Any pitfalls to avoid? I would be interested in learning from others who have had success in this respect.”

My take.

“This is the million dollar question for sure. Like Mairi says, data is critical. There are simply tons of data-driven case studies that establish the value-prop of Enterprise Social Tech. What I’m finding most successful is two 2-hour small-group, executive sessions that drill down into what Social Tech is, why it’s important, and how to leverage it – IN GENERAL. If you can start the session with a flip chart page called “Expectations”, it’s incredibly powerful on several levels.

Here’s the real key from my perspective – Keynote (TM – iWork) slides. For some reason, kind of like seeing Avatar in 3D, these .Key slides are so different than standard .PPT, that they are helping execs ‘see’ the new concepts of ‘Social’ in a new way.

Small group is key as well because it helps the exec’s cough up their preconceived notions in the safety of their board room with the peers. I absolutely LOVE it when an exec says something like “I just don’t get tweeter [sic]. Why would I want to know what someone had for breakfast?!?!?” Usually everyone in the room laughs in agreement. But it’s a PERFECT setup for talking about effective streams of information, Listening, and within 5 minutes I can have the group understanding why that cliche is so destructive. That then leads to more myths being dumped out on the table, etc. etc..

A deep dive into Enterprise Social Tech facilitated by an outsider with incredibly rich visuals and powerful case studies in a small-group, interactive setting. It’s tough to carve out the time, and people usually come kicking and screaming with their arms crossed and skeptical frowns. But if you have the right stuff and can push through the resistance with whimsy yet credibility, you can break through. Of course implementing the resulting strategies, like any other business endeavor, is what will separate the wheat from the chaff in the months and years to come.”

Interested in what you think?  Please Comment below the picture.

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Recent picture from a wedding I attended

The game seems to have changed.  The art, process, career – call it what you want – of selling is being changed by Social Technology, even in the lagging industry of insurance.  Skeptical of this?  You have only to look at your most recent sales – or losses.  Whether B2B or B2C, do you have a sense that the buyers, BEFORE they decided whether or not to buy, engaged in an effort to “check you out online”? In this due-diligence process, what did they find out about YOU (B2B) or your product reputation and/or brand reputation (B2C)?  Was this act on behalf of the consumer as common just two years ago (2008)? How about 2005?  Even if it was common in those days, did it carry as much weight in the purchase decision?  I think if you really look at the trends, you’d have to admit that the selling process has changed.

Think about it.  How would you characterize the most recent selling paradigms we’ve seen over the past few decades.  As a B2B sales guy since 1988, I’d say I’ve seen three distinct era’s in 20+ years, certainly with convergence and overlap.  Generally speaking…

1. 80′s / early 90′s – Relationship selling
2. early/mid 90′s – Solution-oriented selling
3. late 90′s, 2000′s – CRM-based selling

What do you remember about the pro’s and con’s of these earlier phases?  What struggles did you have adapting to the changing paradigms?  Any funny anecdotes that come to mind relative to this?  How would you characterize what we’re seeing now with Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, and Blogs and their impact on sales?  Consumer/Client rating?  Retweets, ShareThis, Recommendations?  Email marketing?  Podcasting?  Viral video?  Content syndication?

My own funny story… I remember when I was selling for ADP in Phoenix around ’91/92, a couple years into it, I got my first laptop and bought a copy of ACT!  That year I made President’s Club for the first time – a really big deal for me just starting out trying to establish myself as a capable sales guy.  Relative to my small patch in east Mesa on the rural areas to the east (Globe, Payson, Show Low) the tools definitely helped me get to the next level.  But I now had a new challenge.  “Where the frickin’ OUTLET around here???? I need a POWER SUPPLY for my laptop!!!” :-)  So much for McDonalds – not outlets!

Stories? Thoughts?

Selling from a hotel room at a conference.

Favorite Myth/Cliche about Social that I heard this week:

“I don’t get twitter!  What would I want to know what someone had for breakfast?!?!”  Is that something you heard this week?  Is that something you said this week?  What’s your favorite?  Just so you know, as I crafted this post, I checked twitter.  Here’s a link to a story tweeted by someone I’m following that was right there on my tweetdeck timeline.  Is this helpful or is this ‘what someone had for breakfast’?  And this is just a little snippet I learned in about 60 seconds…

Change of Subject: Curious on your thoughts… What concepts does the phrase ‘Socially Facilitated Selling‘ bring to mind?  I’m writing a chapter in a crowdsourced book on Social Technology.  The chapter speaks to this concept of Socially Facilitated Selling.  It also will discuss Socially Directed Buying, more applicable to B2C sales and marketing.  Curious what your thoughts are on these concepts.  Might even be able to give you a mention in the book.  That’d be neat… Post your insight in the Comments below.  Join the conversation!

Speaking of books, I’m about 75% done with the book I’ve been working on through the Fall and Winter.  Hopefully I’ll finish this summer, then crowdsource the design of the book.  Those of you who’ve agreed to read the manuscript, really appreciate it!  Anyone else that wants to comment, here’s the topic of the book: How is e-Business like exercise?  Share a thought in the Comments.  If I use your Comment in the book, believe me, you’ll know!

Wanna see something really interesting?  Check out this article by the World Future Society that I saw in their email blast.  This is a great organization, fun to listen to, and always inspiring to contemplate.  One of these years I’m going to a WFS Summer Conference.  Join me?

105 MILLION TWITTER USERS.  Did you know that Twitter was the first Social Network that was adopted by middle-aged people First?  Interesting.

Last thought for today.  I keep hearing people use the excuse of ‘no time’ for not getting in the game of Social Tech.  What if I told you I could save you at least 30 minutes a day by optimizing your basic Web-browsing behaviors and practices?  Would you shift that time to writing a blog or just listening across your network of peers, associates, colleagues, and visionaries all around you?  Interesting thought that might get you started.

Thoughts on all this?  Please comment.  Remember – Lurking is Lame.  Join the conversation.  (This post took 45 minutes.  Good use of time?)

As I shared on Facebook this morning, it’s days like this that make me glad I live in Northeast Ohio.