Creating a Social Profile for a Salesperson

Why should you, as a salesperson, think about creating a social profile? First of all, whether you have created one or not, you already have one.  Google your name and you might be quite surprised at what you find!  One of the first things you do before calling on a prospect or client is to look them up on social media.  Don't you think they do the same for you?  You want to be sure what they find paints a positive, professional image.

Professional is critical.  You want a professional brand that reflects positively on you.  To do this be sure you keep your private social self limited to your family and friends and the public persona you will create is the professional one.

 Let's look at the typical functions of social media connections:

1. Connecting is the new prospecting.  Your professional connections become the key to prospective clients.So you want to grow your network with quality additions.  More is not always better. People you let in your network have access to others in your network and reflect on you.
2. Sharing key information with your professional  network about your industry, your company, your competitors and with your clients and prospects is a key function of social media.  Sending valuable information to your clients and prospect improves and grows your professional brand.  Make sure you do not overload your prospects and clients with information.  Make sure it is valuable and will be perceived by them as such
3.  Discussing the information you share with valuable comment and insight can also grow your professional brand.  When you share a link to an analyst insight you can highlight, with a comment, what you think is critical to them about the insight.  This grows your brand!
4. Publishing is your opportunity to weigh in on issues, trends happenings etc.  It can be small to start, Twitter- 140 characters but can grow to blogs and then larger content vehicles such as YouTube or iTunes (podcasting) 

How to begin: (a sample professional social profile for a sales professional)

1. Connect with Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube and Blogger
2. Use LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube to Share valuable content with your clients and prospects.
3. Discuss valuable content with your comments though Linkedin and Twitter
4. Publish and Share with  Linkedin, Twitter and if you wish to take deeper dives YouTube and Blogger ( for example Twitter could be your headline, Blogger could post your overview and YouTube or Itunes for content deep dives.

Good Luck and Prepare to Win!

For a deeper dive into this subject please go to YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv9w4vSYDTM

Connecting: Relationship Selling is Alive and Well!

The Challenger Sale, in 2012,  heralded in a new age of selling, not based upon the relationship/solution selling  model that has become the defacto standard for the last two decades, but rather one that is focused on "challenging" the prospect with "disruptive questions" leading to "insight".  An article, in the summer of 2012, in the Harvard Business Review, announced the "end of solution sales." In the succeeding years sales forces shelved relationship selling and abandoned principles of solution selling.  As Lee Corso is so famous for saying on College Gameday, "not so fast, my friend!"

Books by Linda Richardson, Changing The Sales Conversation: Connect, Collaborate and Close and Mike Schultz and John E. Doerr , Insight Selling : Surprising Research on What Winners Do Differently suggest that we may have been premature in "throwing the baby out with the bathwater."  In fact both   say "connecting" as the first step in selling.  Yes, connecting as in relationships, but instead of relationships based on  mundane tasks such as getting donuts or filling out purchasing forms for buyers the relationships/connections, are based upon value.  Specifically the value that the solution delivers to the individual  customer.  That value is quantified and the risks of solution are mitigated.  Doerr and Schultz suggest that the relationships in relationship selling and in insight selling are formed at different times.  In traditional relationship selling the relationship is made at the beginning. You establish the relationship and then you make the sale.  In insight selling the relation comes after you deliver value.  In other words the relationship is based upon the value you deliver.  Until you deliver value there is no relationship.

This brings us back to Connecting.  In sales today Connecting is the new prospecting.  Instead of prospecting we connect with prospects.  This connection is done through social media and again is based upon the value you deliver.   For more detail regarding this subject please go to my YouTube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stK2sgq_Sik

 My next blog will discuss a strategy for sales people to connect through social media.  Until then "Prepare to win!"