How to Master Social Selling in the New World?!
- Courses, Sales
- Simone McNichols-Thomas
- Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes
In this brave new world thrusted upon us by Covid-19, salespeople on LinkedIn must provide consistent content and generate customer focused and conversational messaging in order to flourish, says the Best-Selling Author and LinkedIn & Social Selling Trainer, Daniel Disney.
In one of our most popular live In This Together broadcasts, Daniel Disney — Author of The Million-Pound LinkedIn Message and #1 Most influential sales expert on LinkedIn (2019 and 2020) — gave some ‘top tips’ on how to win over the ever-increasing online consumer.
Daniel’s Top Tips:
1. Update your profile and make it customer-focused.
Too often we treat LinkedIn like a CV and focus on selling ourselves. Try to center your profile on your customer’s needs and use your LinkedIn summary as a digital elevator pitch. Tell people who your business helps, how you help them, what you have already achieved and how to get in touch with you to benefit from your services.
You can mention your current job more prominently but keep the work experience section minimal overall — remember to channel the phrase: “How can I help YOU?”
A digital presence needs to be maintained just as much as physical appearance. Use sites like Canva.com templates to create branded images for your LinkedIn backgrounds. A professional looking profile picture is also key — photos taken on smartphones, with a plain background, will do the trick.
Also, make it a habit to ask customers to write recommendations and referrals to feature on your profile. If the customer is happy to, these recommendations can become content that’s shared on your social media as testimonials. Nothing sells better than a happy customer!
2. When managing your LinkedIn profiles, consistency is key.
Often organisations send out content in clusters, leaving their account dormant for several weeks in-between. Despite our busy lives, we have to make time to maintain our online presence. Investing time in auto scheduling software allows you to stay present without taking up too much of your administrative power. You can schedule posts ahead of time to ensure you upload content consistently.
3. Your content should put value first.
Content that provides knowledge to help customers, generates a much better return than posts which appear to only seek profit from their output. Build trust and rapport through helpful written posts.
On LinkedIn, posts are seen in a previewed format on newsfeeds. Make the first three lines of your post engaging so that you entice people to click to ‘see more’. Your audience is more likely to comment on and share posts with a story, creating inbound and outbound opportunities.
Remember to share pictures of yourself, your team, your office, and the projects you have worked on, so people can get to know you.
Video also generates great sales! Send direct video messages through LinkedIn Messaging — ensure videos are no more than a minute long and include subtitles. Practise makes perfect, so start recording some videos to find what works for you.
4. Your network is your net worth. Connect to anyone and everyone!
Every connection you make has an audience that may include prospective consumers who are interested in what you’re selling. Aim to add ten to twenty new connections a day and check in on your long-term relationships to keep your rapport going. The bigger the network the more likely you are to get yourself in front of different audiences. Only when you hit the limit of 30,000 connections, should you start to sift through your network.
5. LinkedIn Messaging works best when starting conversations. Don’t copy and paste from templates and send them out in mass.
The ‘spray and pray’ approach does not capture people’s attention. You need to personalize your messages and keep them professional but conversational. Ideally, use LinkedIn Messaging to follow up on comments you have received on your posts — hone that sales instinct and seek out opportunities. Take the conversation offline to a zoom chat or phone call where appropriate.
LinkedIn is now, more than ever, an essential tool for the housebound workforce. During lockdown, the platform launched the Changemakers campaign which will monitor influential LinkedIn members over a twelve-month period. The Director of Brand Marketing, Darain Faraz, believes the Changemaker’s can use the platform to develop new approaches to tackling workplace issues, with long-term impact. Read more on the initiative here.
Watch the full broadcast, Social Selling in the New World, on our YouTube Channel!
LinkedIn activity is on the up — This has created a unique opportunity for your sales teams to up-skill. Why not get familiar with Daniel Disney’s key to success online? There is now an entire Sales Impact Academy course on the topic called LinkedIn Social Selling Masterclass.
