Audio Transcript:

Here’s your social selling tip of the day for February 16, 2020. I’m Greg Hyer of Linking into Sales.

Back in 2014 I wrote a post on LinkedIn about why social selling is about opening, not closing. The post took a look at how social selling is different from the traditional sales process. The traditional sales process has a major flaw: it’s about closing. This mindset is backwards when you compare it to other departments within an organization that’s trying to keep customers.

One organization I worked with had an incentive program that leaned very heavily on their sales people being able to acquire new customers. This organization offered a suite of software solutions that complemented each other. But too often the sales reps would sell only the flagship product and never follow up with the customer to offer additional products. It was because they were not incentivized to. This resulted in the company leaving an estimated $5 million in annually recurring revenue on the table.

Yes, I know, trying to get your old and traditional sales VP’s to open their mind to social selling is difficult. Chances are they have no clue what social selling actually is because of the misconceptions they have been fed from self-proclaiming experts of social selling. Next them they argue with you tell, “Greg Hyer has taught me that social selling is about opening, not closing.” You’ll probably get a blank stare for a moment followed by them asking who the heck is Greg Hyer.

Remember the buyer’s journey doesn’t end at the sale. The sale is just the beginning. You still need to develop this relationship. You and the customer may have mutualized the commitment but if you don’t deliver, that sale may be the end. I’ll explain more in future tips.

That does it for this social selling tip of the day. In addition to this daily tip, check out the Social Selling Podcast by Linking into Sales on iTunes, Google Play Music, Stitcher, YouTube and Tunein. You can even ask Alexa to play the Social Selling Podcast by Linking into Sales.

If you want to check out any of my other social selling tips, visit LinkingIntoSales.com/alexa to listen to each tip or read the transcript. And for social selling training on-demand visit SocialSelling.Training.

This is Greg Hyer. Let’s Start Linking into Sales!

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