Social Selling
8 Ways to Transform Your Sales Team Into A Social Selling Power House
Feb 09 2021
The idea of virtual sales isn’t new. It’s something that technology and social media have empowered sales professionals to do effectively for years. But a global pandemic has been a reminder that these tools are not only effective, they are vital to the success of your sales team, and social selling is clearly here to stay.
It isn’t just about setting up a profile on LinkedIn. It is about using social media as a strategic tool in the sales process.
What was once a toolset that tech-savvy sales teams used to excel, is now a necessity.
It’s apparent now more than ever that a social selling skill set is critical for sales professionals to survive and thrive now and in the future.
Social sales leaders are:
The good news is that teams that embrace social selling see great results. It is an effective tool that can achieve results, even when virtual selling isn’t the only option.
For many sales teams, shifting to a fully virtual sales model has been met with serious challenges. Sales professionals are stopped in their tracks and unsure how to get started on social media.
You may be familiar with a few of the challenges that sales teams are trying to overcome, such as:
As a manager, you are likely experiencing frustration due to resistance from your team.
You try to motivate them to use the tools available.
To move beyond the resistance.
To see new opportunities.
To jump in and start seeing results.
You want them to get excited about social selling. You want them to see success with social selling. You want to drive sales and exceed expectations – even in a virtual environment.
Their resistance is strong and can de-motivate you as their leader. But resistance to learning new approaches is not a sustainable business model.
It’s no surprise that social selling is here to stay, and the time is now to get your team on board. There are many benefits to selling in a virtual environment, and incredibly efficient and effective social media and digital marketing tools available to get the job done.
When a team is motivated to learn and try new things, your business can not only survive but actually thrive!
At Boot Camp Digital, our trainers know this story all too well. Sales teams and business development managers are calling us all the time to train their teams on how to shift to a virtual model and create results and opportunities using social media, despite the challenges that we all face.
These 8 social selling tips will show you how to motivate your team to become savvy virtual sales professionals and embrace the digital world ahead.
Some people are motivated by data and you’ll often hear them say “the proof is in the numbers”. So give these members of your sales team some numbers to chew on, and empower them to discover the benefits of selling in a virtual environment.
Here are some important stats about virtual selling:
Ideas to Implement
Start getting your team excited about the possibilities with social selling. Share the data with them on team meetings and through emails. Help them to see that this is where the industry is going and they can be a part of it.
The time is now to shift your team into creating opportunities for your organization. The longer you wait, the more your competition is going to gain a competitive edge.
As a team leader, you have many tasks for managing your team that you must prioritize. Consider the impact of having a social media savvy team, vs. the impact on your sales results if they continue to resist as they have done.
Set this as a priority for your team, and model the behavior yourself.
Ideas to Implement
Create a plan to equip your team with the social media tools they need to successfully sell in a virtual environment. Have clear timelines and milestones to measure progress with improving the skill sets of your team.
Walk the talk! One of the best ways to motivate your team is through your own excitement about the success they can achieve by using social media for sales.
Ideas to Implement
Model what you will be requesting of your team. Follow social media posting best practices and post valuable content consistently. Enroll in a crash course and share the highlights of what you learned to get your team excited about what’s possible and they will want to learn too!
Be mindful of how you are communicating with your team. It’s easy for a negatively charged conversation to spiral out of control and infiltrate your entire team. You set the stage for your team’s success or failure.
Focus on the positive interpretation of each conversation and look for opportunities to shift the interpretation of the situation or issue at hand.
Ideas to Implement
Here are a few examples of how you can shift the narrative when your team is in resistance:
When you provide training and workshops for your team, it shows them you are willing to invest in their success – you intend to keep them in it for the long term. Training not only shows you are serious, but it gives your team a roadmap to know exactly what to do and how to do it.
We hear sales professionals in our trainings all the time who are grateful for the opportunity to learn digital marketing tools and grateful for their manager who made it happen.
In fact, here’s just a sample from a recent team training:
Knowledge is power – the more comfortable they are with social media tools, the more confident they are likely to be in using them.
Ideas to Implement
Set up a training workshop: You don’t need to know how to do all of this, you just need to know that your team needs it, and then find a trusted partner who focuses on training teams just like yours.
The right training company can create a customized program that is tailored to your organization and provides the right balance of education and motivation.
A solid training program should include:
Creating documented processes and best practices makes it easy to implement. Your team will be less resistant to change when they have a clearly outlined process and best practices to focus on, and the resources they need to be able to create content for their social media accounts.
Processes take the guesswork out of executing. They make it easy to know exactly what to do.
Ideas to Implement
Conduct an audit of your team’s daily routines and empower them to integrate new processes into their routine that will support their virtual sales environment.
You can also work with a training organization that will create these tools or provide processes as a part of the training.
Resources to create:
Feeling prepared and professional builds confidence. Arm your team with the tools that will help them be more productive and efficient and more confident. Their virtual environment is their office and details matter.
It’s not easy to build trust with a prospect if your video quality and lighting are poor, and your background looks like you’re broadcasting from your spider-infested garage.
Ideas to Implement
Set your team up for success by investing in a few small things that can make a big difference.
Positive reinforcement and acknowledgment are great tools for motivating a team. The resistance to using social media might not be lack of skills, sometimes it’s just lack of permission and encouragement from leadership that holds them back.
Ideas to Implement
Here are a few tips for how to encourage your team to create great content and keep up the good work towards producing results for your sales team.
Conclusion
Motivating your sales team is all about setting the example by setting the tone and mindset for success, and investing in the tools to support your team. When you invest in their success by providing them with social selling workshops to support their growth, it creates a more confident and productive team that generates results for your organization. Your team will feel much more motivated and less resistant to shifting to virtual selling when they have the support from leadership and the tools they need to succeed in selling in a virtual environment.
Boot Camp Digital can help accelerate the success of your sales team. Our LinkedIn for Sales workshop can be customized for your team and industry, and will set your team up for social selling success!
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