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One of the most important mantra’s of successful sales people is to ‘Earn The Right’; get some diary time, or hold a short telephone conversation with a new prospect or stakeholder, you must first ‘Earn The Right’ for their valuable time.

To get the attention of the stakeholder when you are selling social media, one technique is to inform what his peers or competitors may be doing. If his competitors may be gaining advantage from the use of social media then why wouldn’t he want to urgently explore this with you?

You may only have ten seconds in an initial contact with the stakeholder, and therefore your key message regarding their competitor (or other compelling justifications – I’ll cover these in future posts) must be snappy, relevant, and vital. For this reason, it is sometimes called the ‘elevator pitch’, i.e. you are in the lift (elevator in US!) with the stakeholder, and you only have a few seconds until he leaves at the next floor, what will you say to get his attention? Be concise and high level. Carefully rehearse the message beforehand. And then rehearse again, and again!

For example, I was watching breakfast television this morning, and Jeffrey Hayzlett, Chief Marketing Officer Kodak was interviewed, explaining how social media has re-shaped their business. He said that social media can excite, evangelise, educate, and engage their customers, and makes a real difference to their changing brand. Their brand was previously deemed old and out-dated, and now, with the help of social media, they have re-vitalised the company.

This is a great story. I know of at least five brands that would compete directly with this brand and I will contact them later today with my elevator pitch! Let’s see if it is effective and earns the right for a further dialog with them.

Read all our posts on Selling social media here.

Some more reading

• Kodak’s Social Media Tips (viralblog.com)
• Why Kodak Thinks You Should Use Social Media (kylelacy.com)
• Twitter at C Level (marketingpilgrim.com)

image courtesy of shutterstock

In the past few days I have been discussing social media with a pharmaceutical company.

The pharma industry is necessarily highly-regulated and risk-averse. It caters very well with the ‘traditional’ use of the internet, i.e. when corporate messages are broadcast from a main website.

These traditional corporate websites issue strictly controlled and watertight messages that have been approved by internal managers and legal experts, such that there is absolutely no possibility of brand damage or, heaven forbid, any litigious patients taking action.

And yet, patients and health care professionals (i.e. the pharmaceutical industry’s customers) are increasingly seeking answers to their health care questions online.

One recent survey by Pew Research Center found that 61 percent of American adults — and 83 percent of internet users — look for their health information online.

Therefore if the traditional corporate pharma website don’t provide the answers, customers can (and do) go elsewhere. e.g. WebMD and NHS Choices

Meanwhile, and rather belatedly, this week the U.S. Food and Drug Administration hosts a public hearing to discuss the use of the internet and social media tools — including blogs, podcasts, and social networks — to share information about the FDA-regulated products, including prescription medicines and medical devices.

Pharma is moving in the right direction. But progress is painstakingly slow, and meanwhile the client’s customer has many other (new) outlets for online information. 

The social media  sales lesson here is… know the customer’s customer. 

When I talk with my pharma client (as with all my clients), it is with their customer in mind.  In the long run it is their customer that calls the shots. So I ensure that I can speak to the stakeholder with some authority about their customer – bringing new insight into their customers as often as possible. Given that customers use of social media is rocketing, this inevitably places social media on the company’s agenda.

A reasonably bright school kid will build an excellent business case for a car that is 60% more fuel efficient, or a pc that is 50% faster. It’s easy! He can look at reduced running costs (for the car) or improved efficiency (for the pc), and the business case will quickly form.

But selling social media, whether to a client or internally at an organisation, requires more expertise and selling skills, because the benefits are much broader, and often a little obtuse! In my experience, every business or department that buys into a social media solution has a different business case with greatly different benefits. These could range from increasing customer-based innovation, to enticing greater web traffic, to enhanced SEO, to converting more online sales, to building the brand values, and I could list twenty more possibilities…

Therefore, for example, there is no point discussing the value of increased insight from social media, if what is really needed is to increase online sales. These are polar opposite reasons to use social media.

So the first lesson of successful selling in social media is…listen to and understand your client, because there will be a compelling business case for social media and you can help the client to reveal it.

(A note regarding my terminology:- for ‘client’ read ‘department head’ if you are selling social media internally within an organisation)

So, to get to the essence of the business case, there is no better person to understand your client’s business – than your client!

So ask him about it!

But this is where the skill comes in.

1. Do your research beforehand
2. Make the client (or department head) feel comfortable by building empathy
3. What’s in it for him? Establish the right to take his busy time.
4. At the meeting or on the telephone, ask lots of open questions, and finish with clear next steps and follow-up.

There may be some Objection Handling, but let’s discuss that some other time.

Read all our posts on Selling social media here.

Hello, and welcome to my first post. Over the next few weeks I hope to bring an insight into the world of social media from a unique perspective, how to sell the proposition to an often sceptical and always value-conscious audience.

You may be selling social media as a social media agency to a client (‘outside-in’); or maybe internally within your organisation to a senior manager, stakeholder, or steering committee (‘inside-in’). Whichever your focus, the positioning is the same, and I will summarise a process that really works.

First, a bit about me, my last 20 years has been in IT sales. I started at IBM, achieving a top grade within IBM Sales School, and after 12 years in the company I progressed to sales management. My subsequent roles after leaving IBM (in telco, services, and web cms software) have remained in sales and/or sales management, and they have always been fascinating and rewarding. I have no doubt that the root cause of continued sales success has been the selling basics that I learned from IBM, at IBM Sales School. And it’s a bit like riding a bike, once learned you never forget how to do it.

A salesman is an often maligned role, with connotations of annoying double-glazing people that telephone or call your house at highly inappropriate times, but the truth is far more palatable. In fact, as you develop and hone your skills, you learn that the ‘consultative sale’ is the key to success. The consultative sell requires you to understand the client (note ‘client’ – not ‘customer’ – there is a distinction in relationship), such that your proposition matches his or her needs. Put yourself in their shoes. What (if anything!) do they need, and why? Get to know them and what makes them tick. What are their objections, and are they real or hiding something deeper? And once that is achieved, then you are not a threat to your client, but an ally and possibly even a friend (or, at the least, a ‘trusted advisor’).

I have been selling IT services and solutions for over 20 years, and the fundamentals of success in social media selling are exactly the same as those that have driven me in my previous sales roles.

Over the next few posts, I’ll summarise some key techniques that work, and (more importantly) those to avoid to help you whether you are selling social media to clients or to your internal stakeholders.

Read all our posts on Selling social media here.