Sneeze It

Social Selling: The Importance of Managing Brand YOU

By Jeb Blount, Author of People Buy YOU

The value of social media in sales in no longer a debate. As a business tool, social media has moved from cutting edge to ubiquitous.   

Still, many sales professionals are asking valid questions about the value of time spent on social media – they have doubts; and for good reason: Leveraged incorrectly social media can and will eat away at your prime selling hours, steal your commission checks, and potentially harm your career. 

If you have similar doubts and questions about the efficacy of social media to your sales read the next paragraph carefully:  

Buyers don’t care about your presence on social media sites, they care about your ability to solve their problems. They buy YOU and from YOU because they have trust that YOU will deliver solutions to their business problems and that YOU will be there to back those solutions up.

So if you are asking the question, “Is social media worth my time or relevant to my industry?” you are asking the wrong question. The more appropriate question is, “Does my presence online support my efforts to build my reputation as a sales professional who solves problems and can be trusted?”

There is a reason why Google is used as a verb. In today’s business environment, new customers, existing customers, managers, and peers will look you up online in an effort to get a glimpse of who you are and what you are all about. They will use what they find to make instant judgments about you. Those judgments will impact your ability to influence and persuade them. 

This is the point that many sales professionals miss when considering how much effort to place in building a presence online via social media. They wrongly assume that there should be a direct, measurable, 1 to 1 result from these activities. But, it just doesn’t work this way because, as I said earlier, customers care about getting their problems solved. Your professional presence online simply positions you as the one person who is most capable of bringing solutions to the table. That positioning plays a key role in getting people to buy YOU. 

These days, Who You Are Online is Who You Are. Like many, you may have an instant gut reaction to this statement because “who you are online is NOT who you REALLY are.” Certainly, who you are as a person is more complex than the snap shot of you on a LinkedIn profile. Yet, it does not matter. Why? Because the snap impressions and judgments that others make about you, based on what they see and read online, are who you are to them and those perceptions drive their feelings and behavior towards you.

What is critically important to grasp is, because the environment is virtual, you have zero chance of changing first impressions that are made about you online. When potential customers view the “online you” and don’t like what they see, they just move on.  It’s a pity because, in an emotional moment, you let your judgment slip and posted something nasty from your phone. You never thought a thing about it. But now that deal you thought you were going to close has slipped away because the decision maker googled you and found what you wrote. Then he lost all respect for you.

Of course, the vast majority of people, like you, have the good sense not to berate their boss or toot their horn about how drunk they got the night before they called in sick, on online venues. Instead, they create poor first impressions online in more subtle ways.

I’m constantly amazed to see how poorly smart business professionals manage their online image. The most common mistakes are:

1. Poorly written online profiles
2. Incomplete and outdated profiles
3. Unprofessional photo or no photo
4. Extremely opinionated political or religious postings and discussions
5. Too much information (TMI) about personal issues

Get started by reviewing your online profiles.  Today, not tomorrow, take action to ensure that your online image casts you in the best light.  Ensure that you have professional looking headshots on all your profiles. Ensure that your profiles are complete, truthful and tell your story well. Ensure that you have a consistent profile message on all major social networks. Make a commitment to manage your online presence by reviewing and updating all of your online profiles at least once a quarter. Clean up postings that, if viewed by someone that did not know you well, could be construed as offensive, extreme, incompetent, untrustworthy, or could damage your credibility.

Top sales professionals understand how important it is to make a great impression online and in-person. They schedule time to manage their online presence and always think twice before posting something that could damage their reputation. With this in mind, as you review all of your online profiles, answer this question: “Based on what you see and read, would you BUY YOU?”

 

Jeb Blount advises many of the world’s leading organizations and their executives on the impact of emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills on customer experience, strategic account management, sales, and developing high-performing sales teams. He speaks to and delivers training to high-performing sales teams across the globe.  He was recently listed among the world’s 50 Most Influential Sales and Marketing Leaders and named one of the World’s Top 30 Social Selling Influencers. Jeb is the author of six books including People Follow YOU: The Real Secret to What Matters Most in Leadership. Contact Jeb at [email protected], call 1-888-360-2249 or visit http://www.salesgravy.com

How to Maximize Customer Service on Twitter

Twitter is by far the most up-and-coming customer service channel for brands who want to provide near real-time support, as well as show the Twitterverse that they are a customer-centric brand.

However, like other customer service channels, it is important to monitor performance in terms of response time and satisfaction rate. WaveMetrix has looked at some of the best practices from brands that are successfully providing support on Twitter, to help other brands understand where to start and how to go about it.

The first step is to make sure you have a brand-centric Twitter account (handle) and a separate dedicated support account, rather than combining customer service with brand-centric discussions on one handle. For example, Delta Air Lines has a @Delta handle where they post competitive information, fun facts and news about the company. Alongside this, their @deltaassist handle deals with customer complaints and queries.

Similarly, T-Mobile has a brand-centric @TMobile handle to share news of sponsorships, contests or new products, whilst @TMobilehelp deals with complaints.

Having a dedicated Twitter support handle helps channel negativity away from your main brand space, where you should be focusing on building positive brand engagement.

The second step is to make sure you are responding to complaints in a timely manner and to compare your performance with the rest of your industry. Consumers expect a fast response on social channels as they would with a call center. Every unanswered complaint represents negative buzz about your brand until you address it.

Analysis of average response time on dedicated support handles shows that they enable faster responses compared with brands that don’t separate the two:

• 74% of complaints on dedicated support handles get a response within four hours, versus only 51% of complaints on single brand handles

Finally, you should measure what proportion of positive consumer tweets your support handle is getting to see whether customers are giving positive feedback about your service. There are strategies which can help increase the amount of positive feedback you get. For example, Delta, HP and Bank of America used naming reps, which gets them a higher proportion of positive feedback than competitors as the relationships feel more personal:

     

These are just a few steps to building customer relations through Twitter. Read more details about WaveMetrix’s customer service best practices by downloading the PDF paper here. Or contact Leonie Bulman at [email protected]

This study was conducted using the traditional WaveMetrix methodology, combining technology to measure response time and reach, with 100% human coding to analyse sentiment and topic.

6 Ways to Control Your LinkedIn Privacy Settings

Do you use Pinterest and Google+, promote your business on Facebook and Twitter but still don’t see the value in using LinkedIn to network online? LinkedIn can be a very valuable tool when trying to reach a target audience. The fact that over 187 million professionals worldwide are using this popular social media platform may also help to change your mind. That’s why I’ve invited Linda Coles to be a guest author to share her perspective on maintaining a LinkedIn account and to offer some tips about using it to its full potential.

Linda is the founder of Blue Banana, where she trains business professionals to use social media tools to grow their brands online.  She is particularly well versed on using LinkedIn to network and leverage connections. Linda is not only a trainer, but also a guest speaker who runs workshops and seminars in addition to regularly writing for her blog and publications such as www.socialmediaexaminer.com, and www.mashable.com, to name just a few.

I’m looking forward to hearing her insights about LinkedIn and sharing her knowledge of this popular social media site with my readers. Below is Linda's article, “6 Ways to Control Your LinkedIn Privacy Settings,” which discusses LinkedIn privacy settings. While one of the main reasons for using social media is to network and build relationships online, you also want to be sure you’re attracting the right contacts and perhaps, if you’re new to LinkedIn, start slowly and build up to creating a larger presence. Linda provides valuable tips about ensuring your privacy settings work for you and shares ways to customize them to suit your needs. Take a look and let us know your thoughts. Are you going to update your settings? Does this information ease your mind and inspire you to create a new LinkedIn account? Let us know!  

 

6 Ways to Control Your LinkedIn Privacy Settings 

“Privacy is on life support” is a saying I heard recently and I am not just talking about what you say on Twitter or Facebook.

We are all pretty much up with the play with our Facebook privacy settings, but have you thought about what privacy settings you should be using on your LinkedIn profile if any?

Consider looking at making some privacy changes if you are:

• A job seeker who is still employed
• Recruiting “under the radar”
• Someone who wants to keep their connections private
• Unsure what options are available to you
• Simply a very private person

What can you do?

By clicking the SETTINGS link, which is at the top right of your LinkedIn page under your name, you will find the options open to you.

(image via Linda Coles/Blue Banana)

These are the choices of privacy settings that are open to you. Let’s look at what they mean and how to control them:

• Turn on / off your activity broadcasts. Each time you make a change to your profile such as edit your current position, if this option is turned on, everyone you are directly connected to i.e. your 1^st degree connections, will all be notified via an alert sent to their home page. This alert is also triggered when you make a recommendation, or follow a company, and will also be shared in your own activity feed.

If you are a job seeker, then you may want to turn this off, you don’t want your boss to see you perfecting your LinkedIn profile in interview preparation and following your business’ competition.

• Select who can see your activity feed. This can be customized so that anything that appears in your activity feed is only seen by just yourself, your 1^st degree connections, your greater network or absolutely everyone. Again, if you are a job seeker, then select just yourself.

• Select what others see when you’ve viewed their profile. If you are looking at others’ profiles for maybe pre interview intelligence, or if you are actively recruiting a position, you may feel comfortable letting that person who’s profile you have viewed know that you have been by. If you wish to remain incognito, then you can choose to simply be known as “someone in your industry and title”, or completely anonymous with “anonymous user”.

Even if you have the premium account, you won’t be able to see any more information about someone if they have chosen to limit their privacy settings.

• Select who can see your connections. Only people in your 1^st degree will be able to see your connections, no one else, and some industries, particularly recruitment, seem to keep them locked down, out of the prying eyes of the competition with the thought that others will see their client base.  I wish all of my connections were clients if that is the case!

Again, the choice is yours whether you keep them on display for your connections to see. If you do choose to hide them, any shared connections you have with this person, will still be on view as LinkedIn figures you both know that person, so it doesn’t matter.

• Change your profile photo and visibility. You can set this so that your photo is visible to your 1^st degree connections, your greater network or open to everyone.

If you don’t want others to see your picture, then set it to connections only. It is important to have an up to date photo on your LinkedIn profile as you are several times more likely to show up in search results with a complete profile, so if you are looking to expand your business or be recruited, this is a must.

• Viewers of this profile also viewed. If you don’t want people to go snooping around looking at your competition, or recruiters looking at the rest of your team, then this is something you may want to turn off. As a professional speaker, I don’t want to advertise on my page who others have looked at and give them any ideas.

Once this is turned off, you can’t see who you are being compared to either, so decide on what is important to you.

No matter what your reason is for making an adjustment to your privacy settings, it’s better to have the knowledge to make the right decision than find out the hard way if you show something you wish you hadn’t.

Have you considered your LinkedIn privacy settings? Will you make any changes after reading this article?

Selling By Systems Not Sweat

There is a story of a mountain village which experienced an unforgiving drought. The condition was deteriorating to the point that a village elders’ meeting was held. They decided to hire two men to solve the problem of bringing water to the village from the valley below where a well existed.

The first man got two large buckets and started going back and forth from the village to the well below. He sold the water at a handsome price. He brought his sons on board to the venture and made as many trips as possible to sell his water.

The second man was not heard from. There was plenty of speculation about what might have happened to him. Over time, the village wrote him off.

However, one day, there was an air of jubilation in the village square. The second man appeared. He was having a grand opening that day. He recounted how he attacked the problem of bringing water to the village. He spent his own money and started building a pipe which would transport water from the well below to his village. Now he was celebrating the completion of that pipe by turning on the spicket.

Immediately, he charged half as much as the guy carrying the buckets. The village could have all the water they wanted when they wanted.

The man carrying the buckets had to react and cut his prices and work twice as hard to compete. Meanwhile, the man who built the pipes patented his pipe design. He met with village leaders nearby and afar and had pipes built for them with handsome business rewards.

Systems or Sweat?

The question then is, “Are you carrying buckets or building pipes?” These are two vastly different mentalities. Sales people can be observed approaching sales one of the two ways: Working towards only what they can see in front of them or building something that will produce a predictable result.

Having worked with sales teams and leaders towards this end, here are the vital requirements to truly have a system for growing sales, relationships and people:

1. A Growth Mindset: This is the first and most important ingredient. Otherwise, you are a bucket carrier looking for a gimmick to make the next sale. The work, discipline and repeatability will not get done.
2. Process Mapping: You must know the steps of the customer experience. You must embellish it and put every step in to create a wow experience, affecting both the emotions and the intellect of the customer.
3. Communications Flow: When and how you communicate with the customer is critical. On step 3, do you know what the customer receives? Is it consistent, refined and relevant? Sales is a dance. The dance happens in how and what you communicate.
4. Defining Roles: We are not good at everything. Imagine a musician playing sports and vice-versa. They are gifted in their domains and not in others. In the sales process, there are likely multiple roles. You are good at some and not others. Team selling is effective because it leverages strengths and drives focus in specialized areas. Break your process down by roles.
5. Enabling Technologies: All the technology exists to do whatever you want in your business. The question is whether you know how to put them together to create a continuous system. This takes talent. It is what technology consultants know how to do. If I gave you a CRM, would you know how to make money with it and how to tie it into other pieces of technology?
6. Management Metrics: Agility and optimization are what is key. Setting up the first 85% of a business system is relatively easy. The last 10-15% require an immense amount of focus. It requires tracking the customer’s behaviors and responses. Having an ability to measure behavior and iterating based on those metrics separate people that have good technology and those that have a business method.
7. Talent: Who is on your team makes all the difference. You can have the perfect system, but if you partner or hire “C” players, you will fall short. Talented and professional people who execute make a difference. The Air Force spends millions on jet planes which are at the peak of technology and systems. Getting the right pilots make the difference between gaining an edge in that investment or losing it altogether.
8. The Woo Factor: A well designed system and team focuses on winning the desire of a buyer rather than convincing them through hard closing. Do you make your company, brand and offering attractive where a person wants to say, “Yes”? It requires a wholehearted desire to create an experience for the buyer that makes them want to say, “Yes.” If your system was a performance, would someone pay to experience it?

Being a friendly person with a smile is not enough. Systems which map to the reality of our new economy favor businesses and people who can win the hearts and minds of the customer. Those who are strategic by building selling systems will be building pipes that give them leverage for a long time to come. Those that merely behave tactically and charismatically will be working hard carrying buckets. Decide which game you will be playing. Take action to start building pipes and get ahead of your competition.

Bio

Don Dalrymple is Founder and Senior Advisor of AscendWorks, LLC.  AscendWorks is a business consulting firm which helps companies increase demand, shorten sales cycles and strengthen customer relationships.  AscendWorks delivers process, technology, and training to help sales, marketing and customer service operations stand out in an inattentive economy.  You can contact AscendWorks via email at [email protected].