Social Selling Tips for Cold Callers

In the debate of social selling vs cold calling, I bet you’ll think I’ll come out only in favor of cold calling. Wrong!

Of course, I’m not preaching to rely on social selling alone either. You need to have the right mix of touchpoints in your sales cadence to be effective.

This post is for the die-hard “social selling
doesn’t work” cold callers. (Yeah — there are people with this mindset.) Try
these tips before you write off social selling as a fad.

A big part of social selling [should be] is
research. Take time to look at the social profiles of the potential customers
whom you plan to call.  A review of
someone’s LinkedIn profile can help you gain insights that make your cold calls
more productive.

The people you call — both current and
potential clients — will probably go check out your profile after they hang up
the phone.

Sales professionals should take steps to
ensure they present a reliable personal brand that builds trust and positions
them as industry experts and thought leaders.

Consider the following questions about your
LinkedIn profile?

• Do you have a professional headshot? Look at your profile picture and see if it conveys the right message.
• Have you updated your work experience section? Make sure your profile shows the right, current employer at the very least.
• Do you have featured skills and endorsements? If you sell software, it would be great for prospects to see that you have been endorsed for “software,” “account management,” and “customer service,” wouldn’t it? If you lack endorsements, ask some people to endorse you.
• Does your profile have any recommendations? If not, here again — ask some of your current and past customers, colleagues, and bosses to recommend you on LinkedIn. Recommendations build trust.
• Have you listed any accomplishments on your profile? If you have any certifications, awards, or courses that would lend credibility to you as a thought leader and trusted advisor, get them on your LinkedIn profile.
• Have you personalized your LinkedIn profile link? Make it easy for people to find and remember. For example, mine is www.linkedin.com/in/darrylpraill.

Merely having a presence on a social media
platform isn’t enough. You need to be, well, social. Are you sending connection
requests, commenting on other people’s posts, and building relationships?

When someone contacts me on LinkedIn, I look
at their profile to see how active they are.

As you dive into social selling, keep in mind
that you can’t go into this with a “me first’ or “product first” mentality.
While your solution may be just what your potential customers need, you need to
think about issues from their perspective.

Share relevant content like blog posts that
address pain points, recent webinars, or industry news stories. When you’re
sharing content, you don’t have to keep it solely focused on your brand. Keep
it focused on the buyer.

If you’re new to social selling, you may feel
the urge to send InMails to people on LinkedIn about your product or service
right after you connect with them. Slow your roll. That is not going to help
your lead generation efforts. In fact, it’s a major turn off when sales reps do
that.

Earn the right to discuss your product. Simply
asking someone to connect isn’t enough “courtship” before proposing.

Yes, for many industries, LinkedIn is THE
place to be to build relationships with potential customers. However, have you
noticed how noisy it’s getting there? Everyone is starting to really get
serious about social selling on LinkedIn.

Don’t abandon LinkedIn if your customers spend
time there, but do consider additional options for social engagement like:

• Twitter
• Quora (look for questions people
  have now that you may be able to answer; just don’t be too “salesy”)
• Industry-specific forums and
  networking sites
• YouTube
• Instagram (maybe even set up your
  own IGTV videos)
• Facebook Live videos

Listening is hard sometimes when you’re in
sales, but it’s a critical skill and one you can put to use in social selling,
too.

There are plenty for free social listening tools available if your company doesn’t provide one. Set up listening filters to help you identify conversations where you can engage with potential buyers, answer questions, and demonstrate your expertise.

Connect with those people you cold call. As
you share valuable informational and educational updates, they will potentially
see your updates. Take time to comment on their posts and tag them in relevant
comments and posts you share. Just don’t be overly aggressive in those tags and
callouts.

Have you been reluctant to hop on the social
selling train? You don’t have to stop cold calling or email, but I do encourage
you to at least give social selling a try. You may be pleasantly surprised by
how it helps you take sales engagement to the next level.

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