We have these sessions/workshops here at HubSpot where speakers come in and talk to our employees about things that we might find interesting or helpful. I like to share this information that I learn because I think it could be valuable to my readers as well. Today we had Jill Rowley come in and speak to us about the benefits of social selling. She was a top sales rep at Eloqua and then when Eloqua was acquired by Oracle she started her Social Selling business. Here is a litle bit of what I learned from her talk today. What do you think about the takeaways?
1. Don’t treat a prospect like a prospect. Treat them like a human being, an actual person.
- Treat them like a future advocate of your company.
- If you want to help make future customers buy from you, you need to think about the lead more and not focus on just selling to them to sell to them.
- Focus on why you should be selling something to them and why that matters to them.
- Connect with them on a real, human level.
2. Think about how to show your potential buyer or customer how they will use your tool when they are a customer.
- Focus on how to teach the potential customer what it is like to be a customer in the sales process.
- Do not just focus on how great your company is, they don’t care about that right now. They want to know how people use it and what type of impact that has on someone like them. Use examples of customers now in similar situations to show them.
- Don’t just sell with stats and sell with information on your company, sell on how they would actually use it and how it would make that person better at their job and what they do.
3. Make sure that you explain in the sales process how whatever you are selling would help the person do their job better.
- Make them look good. Understand what would help this person do their job better and explore those things together. Show them how you would do that with your product or service you are selling them.
- Focus on the value that your company would have for them when and if they were using it. Focus your sales process on what it would be like to actually be a customer or yours right now.
4. Thought leadership opens the doors but doesn’t sell deals.
- Learn how to do product marketing where you are selling the way you would actually use something if the prospect was a customer right now.
- Sell with product sheets and guides on how companies right now use your service or product.
5. Focus on your market space and focus on how to sell to the right type of company who will be able to use your product to see success.
- Focus on the customers who have bought, what helped them to buy.
- Build out marketing materials on after someone bought. Now that they bought, what do your customers wish they knew then when in the sales process. Those are the opportunities you should take advantage of to help educate your market place more.
- Build out your marketing assets around the voice of the customer. Focus on the voice of the customer.
6. Women bring great qualities to sales that can make you a great woman sales rep.
- By nature we are more collaborative people.
- Women are more community focused and so their selling will be more like that too. More personal selling just because women are usually like that.
- Women like to solve problems and problem solving is just part of their instinct so can that quality can help make sales a great career for women.
- Women are more naturally emotional people and so that makes them passionate about what they sell. Your client will know that you care about them and not just crushing your quota and hitting a number. This level of personal commitment and care will be seen by your prospect and help make you a great sales person.
- We need to keep more women in sales by making things easier to balance more things in your life as a sales person.
7. Control is in the hands of the buyer.
- You can either be helpful to your buyer or not. It is your decision to make how helpful you will be in the sales process and how much effort you want to put into making them understand why you are a better fit for them than someone else.
- Accept that the buyer has the control in the sales process today.
8. Think about your personal branding and impact that for your current job and jobs to come.
- You are what you publish on the web.
- You are your own personal brand so you need to realize that and start working on that now.
- This is your permanent record that people can look at.
- Start using social selling as a way to do better at your job as a sales person.
