Social selling – five key concepts
24th September 2018 | Nick de Cent
Social selling is still about conversations. But you will need to update your sales model.
All of us in sales are well aware that the way people buy has changed. Salespeople are no longer part of the buying process “by right”. Thanks to the Internet, buyers are better informed and more autonomous than ever before. Somehow we have to be invited into the conversation.
But as one door closes, another one opens (as the well-know aphorism tells us) – digital has created new avenues for engaging with customers. In many ways, social selling is very similar to traditional sales; it is, after all, still about conversations. Yet, in other highly significant ways, social is completely different.
For example, the pipeline model for social selling is not the same as for traditional sales processes.1 Equally, social salespeople need a different but overlapping skillset compared with traditional salespeople: they still need responsiveness, authenticity, expertise, customer-centricity, diligence and resilience, but also patience, curiosity and an eagerness to learn, as well as general business skills and proactivity – in short, they need to be mini-entrepreneurs.
PLEASE NOTE: Subscriber-only content – To read the full article, please login or purchase a subscription. Subscription Options Login