A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO

Free printable Social Selling Workbook available to help you get started!

SOCIAL SELLING WITH LINKEDIN

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................... 3What is Social Selling? ...................................................................... 4What is Social Prospecting? .............................................................. 4 Why LinkedIn? ................................................................................. 4 4 Ways Social Selling Beats Traditional Methods ............................... 5 GETTING STARTED ............................................................................... 6 Optimizing your Digial Assets ........................................................... 6Creating a Professional Brand & Prospecting .................................... 8 SOCIAL LISTENING ............................................................................... 9 Understanding & Filtering Chatter .................................................... 9Top Free Social Media Listening Tools ............................................. 11Where is Your Social Selling? .......................................................... 12 CASE STUDY ........................................................................................ 13LinkedIn & InContact ..................................................................... 13 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................... 15 Social Selling & the Imaging Industry ............................................. 15Final Thoughts ............................................................................... 16About PrintFleet ............................................................................ 17

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The sales process has remained virtually unchanged since the dawn of time. It has almost always been about finding someone in need of what you offer, educating them on the benefits and closing the deal. Seems simple enough, right? Not so fast.

Whether you’re selling to consumers or businesses, the buying process has dramatically changed in the last few years. Consumers are more tech savvy, more educated and more connected than they have ever been. When buying, they prefer to do their own research ahead of time and generally only consult a salesperson when they have more or less made the decision of whether or not they are going to buy.

In order to get ahead in this rapidly changing environment, sales professionals need to adapt and add something new – or improved – to their sales repertoire: social media! It’s all about reaching potential buyers early and providing them with value – not a “hard” sales pitch.

In this eBook you will learn:

• Why social selling and prospecting can be more effective than the traditional sales pitch• How to set up your professional profile to help you fill your pipeline with the right people,

insights and relationships• How to master social selling with key tips and tricks

Did we also mention we have a comprehensive workbook with resources to help you get started and become a social selling rockstar?

INTRODUCTION

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What is Social Selling & Prospecting?Social selling isn’t simply a catchy buzzword – it is increasingly becoming a critical way for successful sales teams to communicate with their prospects.

Social Selling:Salespeople provide value by answering prospect questions and offering thoughtful content until that prospect is ready to buy. Thus, the use of social media allows salespeople to delight their prospects rather than interrupt their daily lives, eventually converting them into loyal, happy customers. Social Prospecting:Leveraging your social brand to fill your pipeline with the right people, insights and relationships.

Why LinkedIn?

> 332 million current users averaging 2 new members per second

> Available in over 200 countries and territories and over 20 languages

> 40% of users check their profile daily

> 1 out of every 3 professionals in the world use the platform

> Drives more traffic to B2B blogs and sites than other social media platforms and is considered the most effective platform for B2B lead generation

*Sources: HubSpot, Jason Miller, “The Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide to LinkedIn”

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4 Ways Social Selling Beats Traditional Methods:

Improves Lead QualityCompanies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales ready leads at a 33% lower cost.

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2 Reduces Lead TimeOver 1/3 of B2B buyers use social media to engage vendors and learn about products.

Avoids Competing on PriceBy offering clients value (ie. via content marketing) and building a reputation of a knowledgeable partner you build TRUST.

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3 Increases Sales78.6% of sales people using social media outperformed those who weren’t.

*Sources: Forrester, Huffington Post, Media Bistro, Social Media Examiner, HubSpot

GETTING STARTED: OPTIMIZING YOUR DIGITAL ASSETS

Positive word of mouth on social media is powerful. And chances are if you’re active on social media – so are your customers. The key to a successful digital arsenal is to make sure that you are leveraging the appropriate network. Our friends at Hubspot suggest three key steps to success:

Identify your prospects and advocates of your brand

Have a robust social media presence

Listen, listen, listen!

In this section we’ll walk through how to set up – or optimize – your social media presence focusing on the professional network LinkedIn. However, in our Social Prospecting Workbook you will find tips for other social media accounts including: Twitter, Facebook and Google+!

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“74% of all internet users are on social networking sites, and approximately 46% of online users count on social media when making a purchase decision.”

*Sources: Pew Internet Project, Nielsen6

To get started with your LinkedIn profile, follow these simple steps:

Upload a professional photoThis perhaps goes without saying, but your profile photo is a visitors first impression of you as a professional. A professional headshot is most ideal – this means no blurred images, no images of you with your friends and absolutely no duckface selfies!

Write a descriptive headlineYour LinkedIn headline will be the first description of yourself that people will see. Your headline, along with your picture, are your first impression to your audience. Be sure to write a clear and confident headline with terms that you think people will search for.

Always include a meaningful summary!Your summary is your formal introduction to visitors on your profile. It is your chance to sum up what makes you unique as a professional and what you can offer. While this section is about selling yourself– be sure to let your personality shine. Show your value and what you bring to the table.

Make your profile public and 100% completePeople can’t find you if your profile is private – so make sure to make your profile public from within your settings from the main navigation page.

Ask for recommendations from colleagues, customers and other professionalsBe sure to ask for recommendations to make your profile even more robust. Recommendations and endorsements for your relevant skills are a great way for your prospects to get an understanding of how your past and present customers feel about the work you do.

• Keep your summary to 200-300 words

• Let your personality shine – let people get to know the real professional you!

• Refrain from the hard sell “facts” – instead focus on how you have created value for your customers or within your industry

TIPS

Let’s be frank – no one likes or trusts a quota crusher. Instead of rifling off your impressive stats, think about positioning yourself how you want your potential customers to view you. Be authentic, personable and highlight the value you bring. Help potential customers understand the story of your career and what your professional goals are.

Think about the following:

• How have you helped your customers or the organizations you work with grow? • What do you want for yourself professionally?• What makes you unique?• How do you want potential customers to view you?

Build strong relationshipsWho is in your professional network currently? Is your network comprised of sales reps, colleagues and professionals within your industry or are you spending time to connect with prospects and customers, as well?

By growing your existing network and connecting with relevant people you will be able to organically grow your network and connect with more potential customers. Be sure to take the time to connect with every prospect you talk to because even if they don’t turn out to be a good fit for your product or service, they may know or be connected to someone who is!

Engage with insightsOnce you’ve completed your profile, built up your network and connected with relevant people, it’s time to start reaching out! Engage with prospects by commenting on relevant posts and discussions with valuable, relevant content. Sharing valuable content is the easiest way to cast a wide net, offer insights and start a dialogue.

Move it offlineNo relationship with a potential prospect should be kept solely online. You will find the most success with social selling when you make your primary goal to offer great value to prospects and make them interested in learning more about what you have to offer. When the time is right – take your relationship offline to help close the deal.

Creating a Professional Brand & Prospecting

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SOCIAL LISTENING: UNDERSTANDING & FILTERING CHATTER

Remember, social prospecting isn’t just about your profile and connecting with relevant people – it’s also about doing research and listening to what’s being said about your organization, industry and even what’s being said about your competitors.

Think about the following:

• What is being said about you and your competitors?• How can you leverage this information to provide value to potential and current customers?• What are your potential customers or industry leaders discussing online?• What new developments are happening in your industry that everyone should be made aware of?

*Remember: a successful salesperson is someone who does their research and knows what’s happening within their industry and amongst their competitors.

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• Make each sales rep responsible for monitoring a certain number of competitors on LinkedIn

• Set aside time to meet with marketing, or other members of your sales team/department to discuss what’s happening on social media

TIPS

Keep up with industry news In order for you to best serve potential and current customers you need to know what’s happening within your industry. This means using social filtering to learn about trending topics and industry developments that could have an impact on your prospects’ campaigns or even your own. Here are a few ways to learn about what’s happening within your industry: Set Google alerts to be notified when there are articles posted about relevant keywords. For example, if you’re a company offering robust data driven solutions, you may want to set an alert for “Big Data” “automation” and/or “Internet of Things” Search for relevant keywords and hashtags on social media platforms to filter content and see what is being said about you, your industry and your competition.

See what’s being said about you on social media and in forums online. Take the time to thank those who have endorsed you or your company – but also take the time to answer questions about your product or service. And, perhaps most important of all, don’t neglect the people who have something negative to say - it will pay back in dividends.

Use social media listening tools to help you filter and prioritize the chatter surrounding your company, competitors and your industry.

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Top Free Social Media Listening Tools:

Hootsuite (www.hootsuite.com)Hootsuite is one of the best free social media management tools available and covers multiple social networks, including: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress, Foursquare and Google+.

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2 Social Mention (www.socialmention.com)Social Mention monitors over one hundred social media sites and analyses data in depth and measures influence with 4 key categories: strength, sentiment, passion and reach.

HowSociable (www.howsociable.com)HowSociable is a handy tool for measuring you and your competitors’ social media presence. HowSociable uses scoring metrics for various social media platforms allowing you to see which platforms work best for you and which need more attention.

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3 Tweet Reach (www.tweetreach.com)Tweet Reach measures just that: how far your tweets travel and the impact and implications of social media discussions. Tweet Reach also highlights your most influential followers to help your target your online content.

5 IceRocket (www.icerocket.com)IceRocket is an internet search engine which specializes in real-time search and is great for people looking to monitor their brand online. IceRocket’s “Big Buzz” feature allows users to search blogs, tweets, news, images - among other things - from one convenient page.

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Where is your social selling?

While you can buy into the idea of social selling - you can’t simply buy your way to social selling. Social selling is a process involving several steps and re-defined objectives. Think about your organization - where do you land on the social selling spectrum?

LAGGARDLEADER

BUY LISTS

LIMITED TO PRIVATE ROLODEXES

HOPE TO FIND DECISION MAKERS

SCAN CONTACT RECORDS

PILE ON MORE DATA

COLD CALLING

PUSH THE SALES PITCH

USE TRADITIONAL SALES PROCESS

TAP PROFESSIONAL NETWORKS

EXPAND TO COMPANY NETWORK

TARGET DECISION MAKERS

FOCUS ON REAL PEOPLE

DISCOVER MORE INSIGHT

LEVERAGE WARM INTRODUCTIONS

HAVE MEANINGFUL CONVERSATION

COLLABORATE IN BUYING PROCESS

*Source: LinkedIn 12

CASE STUDY:LINKEDIN & INCONTACT

The CompanyInContact is a flexible cloud-based software that helps contact centers efficiently support their customers with personalized interactions. The result is high customer satisfaction, low attrition, and increased brand loyalty.

The ChallengeMarketing Campaign Manager for InContact, Scott Logan, began to notice that his team’s email efforts were not producing the results they once had. His team was having difficulty finding truly qualified leads and reaching decision makers.

The SolutionUpon doing some research, Scott stumbled upon the concept of ‘social selling’ and began to realize the power and potential of social selling and prospecting on LinkedIn. Knowing that he needed to not only understand social selling, but also have a well-documented social selling strategy with a clear indication of ROI, Scott created a social selling process using the information found from his research.

At the time, approximately half of his team (A) had a complete and a professional looking LinkedIn profile and actively used the platform for networking. Scott took this group and trained them on social selling in order to put his research into practice. The rest of the team (B) continued to use their current sales and marketing practices with no additional changes. Scott made sure to track and show lead sources and identify the difference between the sales reps using social selling and those who were not.

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*Sources: InContact, Tribilo, “Social Selling Case Study: Scott Logan, InContact

The ResultsWithin 3 months of being trained, group (A), who implemented the social selling techniques saw a 160% bigger sales pipeline than group (B), who continued using traditional sales and marketing methods.

Seeing the success of group (A), group (B) also adopted the social selling techniques Scott had shown the former team. Those who used social selling experienced 215% more revenue in their pipeline within a 9-month period at 2013 year end.

Currently, Scott and his team use LinkedIn to connect with potential prospects and industry contacts. Collectively, Scott’s team recognizes the value and importance of building relationships regardless of whether or not a prospect is ready to purchase at the time or not. By understanding the value of content as currency, the InContact sales team continue to stay top of mind with their connections, potential prospects and current customers.

Social selling has enabled Scott’s team to broaden InContact’s brand awareness, as well as focus on prospects based on their location.

Key TakeawaysAs this eBook as has articulated, there is an abundance of evidence that suggests that social selling, when used effectively with LinkedIn specifically, will help generate more leads and increase revenue. This is not meant to suggest that traditional sales and marketing tactics should be discarded, but instead that social selling can create additional value for your sales team.

One of the biggest benefits of social selling is that it does not disrupt current sales and marketing efforts but instead enhances those efforts. Social selling is also a valuable tool for the pre-qualification stage to find and connect with new prospects and bring new leads into the pipeline that wouldn’t have existed otherwise.

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CONCLUSION

Social Selling & the Imaging Industry

Hopefully we’ve managed to make a compelling case for social selling and its importance in the everchanging landscape of sales - but what does this mean for the imaging industry?

The simple fact of the matter is: the world is changing. New technology is emerging what feels like hourly and is causing digital disruption on a mass scale. Businesses are evolving through a sort of “digital Darwinism” whereby failure to adapt and evolve can mean the difference between profitability and failure.

As Kevin Kern from Konica Minolta Business Solutions highlights in the BTA article, “Digital Customer Experience: Taking a Three-prong Approach,” in order to remain competitive, dealers need to take a more holistic approach to the customer journey - a journey that has increasingly become more digital centric. Dealers must make themselves relevant in this digital age; this means seeing their digital platforms as digital assets, updating legacy technology and introducing “cutting-edge methodologies to mirror the world in which we all live.” Expanding your portfolio directly ties into social selling.

Social selling as a part of your sales strategy both in prospecting and retention efforts will result in deeper engagement on both sides, turning traditional B2B into B2C because it offers new ways to have a conversation with your current and potential customers. As Kern poignantly concludes, isn’t that what business is ultimately about - interactions between people?

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Now that you’ve learned how to effectively use social selling with your sales team, we hope that you’ll use these techniques to help your sales and marketing team find more quality leads, close more deals and retain more customers.

In order to help you get started we’ve also created a social media workbook to help you become a social selling rockstar!

Download our Workbook: http://info.printfleet.com/social-selling-free-workbook

And if you’re already using social selling within your organization share your experience with us – we’d love for you to get connected!

Final Thoughts

@printfleet LinkedIn.com/PrintFleet Google.com/+PrintFleet

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ABOUT PRINTFLEET®

PrintFleet Inc. is an independent software vendor that specializes in the development of print management and assessment software solutions, training, and business development and support programs for dealers and distributors in the imaging industry.

We believe that the success of our company lies in our people. PrintFleet is a close-knit group of dedicated, progressive individuals who bring together an eclectic mix of experiences within all areas of the company. This experience, dedication and passion for what we do, is transferred onto you, our esteemed customer. We settle for nothing but success and want to ensure yours.

As the first company to offer a rapid assessment tool, a comprehensive dealer hosted remote print monitoring application, and various professional development and training programs, we are the leader in the print management arena, helping dealers control 100 percent of print and imaging within their client sites.

Managing over 3 billion pages monthly, world wide, we offer unparalleled data collection, data integrity and back end support within our family of print management software solutions ranging from simple rapid assessment to advanced, independently hosted print management. PrintFleet software coupled with our award winning sales, marketing and technical support programs, empower dealers to build stronger customer relationships while evolving their overall corporate value.

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1-866-382-8320printfleet.com