If you’re a sales rep, you understand how important it is to stay visible and connected to your buyers. After all, if you don’t, how will they find you? Social selling and personal branding are, without a doubt, essential to any successful sales team.
Let’s take a closer look at why sales managers should prioritize social selling and personal branding, and how you can effectively implement it into your sales process.
Why Sales Managers Urgently Need To Get Their Teams to Leverage Social Selling
1. Your Personal Brand Has The Power To 7x Your Conversion Rates
It’s no secret that people connect with other people rather than brands. This means employee profiles have the potential to reach five times more people than the company page itself.
Studies have also shown that leads generated by sales reps on social media are 7 times more likely to convert than those generated by the company page. Building a strong profile, posting, and commenting are simple and effective ways to boost the quality of leads in your pipeline.
2. Social Selling is How You Rev up Your Referral Game
Personal branding isn’t just about appearing in front of people: it’s about appearing unique and original. When employees stay engaged on social media, companies outperform their unengaged peers by 202%.
By putting yourself in front of your prospects and building relationships with them, you’re creating an atmosphere of trust. The more they trust you, the more likely they are to refer you to their network.
3. It’s How You Set Yourself Apart From The Crowd
It’s not enough to simply appear in front of people: you have to make sure your personal brand stands out. You need to determine a theme and stick to it to differentiate yourself from the competition.
This is why it’s important to think carefully about how you’re going to use social selling to your advantage. It requires effort and dedication, but it’s worth it in the end.
Here’s How You Can Effectively Apply Social Selling
1. Build Your Network With Caution
It’s not enough to simply connect with a hundred people a day and spam them with the same old impersonalized pitch. Every connection you make should be genuine and meaningful.
You should talk to your prospects and find out about their needs so you can make a personalized product pitch to help them fix their problem. After all, you’re representing your organization as a salesperson, so how you approach them will give them an impression of the service they can expect when doing business with you.
2. Spruce up Your LinkedIn Profile
When somebody new reaches out to you on LinkedIn, the first thing they’ll do is check out your profile. You don’t want them to see just sales content and the features and benefits of your product. You want them to find an authentic human being.
This means taking the time to create an interesting and genuine profile that shows off your personality and your expertise. Use it to demonstrate why you’re the right fit for them and why they should trust you.
3. Discover Competitor Insights & Keep Customer Churn in Check
Nearly 70% of all sales professionals and 90% of top performers use social selling tools for lead development. Even if you lose some of your prospects to your competitors, you can still learn from the experience.
Social selling tools can help you analyze your competitors’ strategies and understand how your prospects interact with them. This way, you can spot where your brand might be lacking in its messaging and adjust it accordingly.
Recycling is for Garbage Disposal, Not For Your Personal Brand
It’s tempting to duplicate a great post you found on LinkedIn or repost old stories and quotes that have been shared a thousand times already. But if you want to stand out, you’ll need to come up with something original.
Don’t be afraid to be creative and express yourself in a unique way. Show your prospects that you’re knowledgeable, reliable, and that you care about their needs. That’s how you’ll set yourself apart from the competition and build a strong personal brand.
