The Truth About Social Selling

Peady’s Selling Engagement sponsored by IRD Prospector

Welcome to this week’s post on sales and selling success.

I recently read a great article by the brilliant Mark McInnes: “Social Selling INTERACTION is NOT Sales INTEREST– I recommend that you check it out as it really brings into focus what the “guru’s” want you to do vs. what you really should be doing!!

Reading the article also got me thinking about the term “social selling” – it sounds like a nice business lunch or perhaps drinks after work with a client or a networking event. Very convivial!

Does social belong in selling?

I wonder whether you need to be friends or have some kind of “social” interaction with a client or potential client to do business with them? If you ask any successful businessperson, you will hear over and over again, “it’s all about relationships” and I agree. In business and in sales, relationships bring great value.

But you don’t need to be best friends with your clients or customers to have a business relationship built on trust, integrity and value.

I’m no old fashioned “always be closing” all you need is a few “sales techniques” trainer. These old techniques often fail to address the core issue of how we think about selling. And unless we change, we’ll go on experiencing the same difficulties and frustrations. And we’ll continue to believe that we’re always just one sales technique away from a breakthrough.

Building relationships is not a sales technique it comes from a commitment to find a partnership that is mutually beneficial and built on trust, integrity and value.

Building relationships 101

Here are 5 simple ideas to start the relationship building process:

  1. Give respect to earn respect. Make your customer feel important.
  2. Ask smart, relatable questions to drive a true two-way conversation
  3. Talk less, listen more. You’ll learn a lot of valuable information.
  4. Look for opportunities to genuinely benefit your customer (or client)
  5. Seek ways to add value (and I don’t mean giving stuff away).

Real social selling

Of course, social selling as we know it has a valuable place in today’s sales and selling environment. Mark McInnes in his article is 100% correct in saying “INTEREST: Someone who is interested in you, your products or services to a level where they are at least prepared to have some type of conversation about them. Driving genuine INTEREST on social channels requires different skills to driving interaction”

Until next week, good selling!
 

About the author 

Stephen Pead is a media industry veteran of 30 years with significant experience in direct sales, sales management and general management. He is based in Sydney and specialises in helping SME’s market their businesses more effectively and providing training for salespeople and sales managers.

He can be contacted at [email protected]

 


 

 
 

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