THE SOCIAL SELLINGMATURITY MODEL

(SSMM)

Social selling works.The verdict is in: Social selling works.

Multiple studies have found that sales professionals who use LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social networks to sell consistently outperform their peers who don’t. For example, Aberdeen Group has found that 46% of social sellers make quota, compared to only 38% for reps who don’t practice social selling.

It’s easy to see why social selling works. Sales, especially B2B Sales, is all about relationships. The most successful salespeople build trusted, 1-to-1 relationships with buyers. They cultivate those relationships before and after the close, leveraging them to drive referrals, renewals, upsells, and follow-on opportunities.

Online social networks make it dramatically easier for sales professionals to cultivate the 1-to-1 relationships that drive sales. Tools like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ allow sales professionals to create compelling personal brands, to build networks with the people who matter, to share valuable content, and to listen for opportunities to engage in a meaningful way.

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The Social Selling Maturity Model (SSMM)

STAGE 5

Optimization

STAGE 4

Integration

STAGE 3

STAGE 2

Policy

STAGE 1

Random Acts of Social

Increase to

15% - 20%

Increase to

Increase to

(No Change to Lift)

10% - 15%

1% - 2%

Sales Lift1% - 2%

7% - 8%

5%

10%

25%

60%% of B2BCompanies

Training

0%

Few sales teams are taking advantage of the social selling opportunity.

In FRONTLINE’s 2014 survey of B2B sales professionals, only 31% of respondents reported using social as part of their selling process. With just 26% of respondents feel they know how to use social media effectively for selling, it’s no wonder organizations struggle to unlock the social selling opportunity.

Fixing this problem isn’t easy for sales leaders. Social selling can’t be “turned on” simply by throwing a switch or even hiring a trainer. Implementing social selling requires sales professionals to change the way they do business every day. Changing the team’s selling behavior is one of the most difficult challenges a sales manager can tackle. The bigger the sales team, the bigger the challenge.

Social Selling requires behavior change.

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Backed by extensive survey data and hands-on experience working with hundreds of sales organizations, FRONTLINE has developed the world’s first Enterprise Social Selling Maturity Model (SSMM).

The SSMM was developed with sales leadership in mind. While much has been written about social selling, most is geared towards the individual salesperson. The Maturity Model takes the perspective of the senior sales leader, who is responsible for the performance of an entire sales team. The SSMM describes stages through which sales teams pass on their way to social selling excellence.

FRONTLINE research found that the path to social selling excellence is fairly uniform across organizations, regardless of industry or price point. Teams go throughfive main steps, which we’ve named: Random Acts of Social, Policy, Training, Integration, and Optimization.

We’ll take each of these in turn.

The Social Selling Maturity Model (SSMM)

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This is where every company and sales team starts itssocial selling journey. Individual sales professionals createaccounts on social sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook,Google+, and other social networks. Salespeople then usethese networks as a new channel for their sales activity:building a brand, posting content, hunting for prospects,and sending messages.

Random acts of social are characterized by completelack of coordination. At this stage, reps are on theirown when it comes to social selling. Activity is drivenby the innovation and resourcefulness of early adopterswho see the potential of social selling and seize theinitiative without asking for help or permission. Thereis no organizational governance, coordination, or riskmanagement.

Even at this stage, the benefits to the individualsalesperson can be significant. FRONTLINE survey dataindicates that for “early adopter” sales reps who embracesocial selling attribute, nearly 15% of their closed businessis influenced by social.

ROI perspective. From an overall team standpoint,the impact of social selling is limited. Without formalprograms in place to help them, only 20-25% of salesprofessionals incorporate social networks into their sellingprocess. The remaining 75-80% continue to sell withoutthe benefit of social. As a result, Random Acts of Sellingonly delivers a 1-2% performance improvement to salesteams—a nice bump, but hardly transformative.

Stage 1: Random Acts of Social

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DESCRIPTIONIndividual exploration and experimentation

PROCESSNone

ACCOUNTABILITYThe individual salesperson

SALES LIFT1-2%

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The Policy stage of the SSMM is marked by a desiremitigate the risks associated with Random Acts of Social.

As social selling starts to spread across an organization,management typically becomes concerned aboutpotential risks associated with salespeople publishingcontent directly to the market. At this point Marketing(and Compliance for regulated industries) step in to bring discipline and consistency to the company’s branding and messaging on social networks.

At this stage, companies make important structural changes that clear the way for future social selling. They write and distribute a corporate social media policy. They establish processes for monitoring employee use of social media. In regulated industries this often includes the introduction of a social media compliance platform.

This is also the stage at which Marketing begins to assert itself as the authoritative voice of the brand. Within the last 12-18 months, B2B marketers have begun to embrace social marketing in ways that rival their B2C peers. A 2014 study by Content Marketing Institute found that 91% of B2B marketers publish content on LinkedIn and 85% publish on Twitter. Even Facebook, the most consumer-oriented social network, is used as a publishing platform by 82% of B2B marketers.

ROI perspective. While Policy is an important step in a company’s social selling evolution, this is a defensive move without direct benefits for sales performance.

Stage 2: Policy

DESCRIPTIONCorporate social media policiesand governance

PROCESSIssue escalation protocols

ACCOUNTABILITYLegal / Compliance

SALES LIFT1-2%

Having established a marketing, legal, and compliancefoundation, companies are now in a position to empowertheir sales teams with broad-based social sellinginitiatives.

At this stage, these initiatives take the form of training.Whether delivered via e-learning or classroom, outsourcedor internally staffed, these trainings educate sales teamson the basics of selling with social. Curriculum coversselling techniques like personal branding, etiquette formaking new contacts, social prospecting, and contentsharing, as well as compliance policy around topicslike endorsements, client confidentiality, and intellectual property.

Social selling increases noticeably with this stage of theSSMM. Once limited to early adopter reps who naturallyembrace new technologies, social selling awareness isspreading across the full team. Leadership signals adesire, perhaps even an expectation, that salespeople usesocial networks to sell. Marketing supports the effort bysupplying Sales with vetted, approved content to post andshare online.

ROI perspective. FRONTLINE survey data indicatesthat formal training programs expand social sellingparticipation from 20-25% to 70-75%. Sales professionalswhose companies offer formal training programs reportgreater than 2x the influence of social selling on revenuegeneration as compared with peers whose companies donot offer training. These forces combine to generate a 7-8%top-line lift when companies offer formal training on social.

Stage 3: Training

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DESCRIPTIONLive trainings for sales team members

PROCESSAd-hoc training events

ACCOUNTABILITYTraining (internal or external)

SALES LIFT7-8%

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Despite many benefits, impact achieved in the Trainingstage is limited by two factors: measurement andscalability. Managers can’t measure how employees are(or aren’t) acting on the information communicated inthe training. And training is difficult to scale, especially inorganizations with high employee turnover.

Selling teams overcome these limitations in the Integrationstage of the SSMM. At this point companies advancebeyond training as a one-off initiative and weave socialinto every aspect of their selling process.

CRM integration is the key to sales process integration.Individual reps are given social tasks or “to-dos” basedon their leads, pipeline, and account assignments in CRM.Tracking and reporting on social activity becomes a coreactivity for Sales Ops, done manually or with support fromintegrated systems.

ROI perspective. FRONTLINE analysis indicates thatCRM integration increases both the participation andeffectiveness of social selling. This elevates the top-linecontribution of social selling to 10-15%.

Stage 4: Integration

DESCRIPTIONSocial integrated into core sales process and metrics

PROCESSCRM integration, structured reporting

ACCOUNTABILITYSales Ops

SALES LIFT10-15%

In this highest stage of social selling maturity, salesorganizations analyze empirical data on past success toguide future actions on social. These organizations movebeyond generic best practice to “close the loop” on suchstrategic social selling questions as:

Which team members’ success comes fromrelationships, and why?

• Which types of content are most effective in influencing won opportunities?

• Which target companies, roles, and/or geographies are underrepresented or oversaturated on the team’s social graph?

• At what point in the deal cycle is it most effective for reps to connect with prospects on social networks?

• Which social networks drive the greatest return for your markets?

ROI perspective. While it’s still early to have empirical data on the ROI of the Optimization stage, FRONTLINE’s study of traditional CRM and other enterprise process improvements suggests that this stage will deliver a total performance improvement of 15-20% for fully mature social selling teams.

Stage 5: Optimization

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DESCRIPTIONSales process modified based on social insights

PROCESSStructured feedback loops to the sales team members

ACCOUNTABILITYSales Leadership

SALES LIFT15-20%

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(formerly PeopleLinx)

ConclusionWe predict that by 2020, social selling will be a firmly established sales practice. It will be as commonplace as quotas and pipeline reviews.

The benefits of social selling are significant. As the Social Selling Maturity Model (SSMM) shows, selling teams who fully embrace, integrate, and optimize their social selling activity can expect to see top-line improvement of 15-20%.

Sales leaders should approach social selling as an organizational journey. It is larger than any one tool, project, or initiative. Social selling requires sales professionals to change their behavior, which is always a challenge. The SSMM lays out the five stages through which teams progress in order to realize the social selling opportunity. For most organizations, making it through all five stages will be a multi-year effort.

While the journey may be long, the benefits are immediate. This is not an all-or-nothing value proposition. Sales leaders can and will unlock value in the early stages of the journey. Start small and calibrate the investment of time and money based on results.

The question for sales leaders is not whether to adopt social selling, but how—and how quickly—to integrate it into sales process.