Every salesperson wants to be the one who customers choose. The advancements in social media have made it easier than ever to engage and stay connected with customers. But many salespeople are lost with today’s technology. There’s never been a better time to incorporate social selling into your sales process but if you’re a beginner, it’s a scary place.
FACT: 79% of salespeople who use social media as a sales tool, outsell those who don’t.
It’s easy to fall into the familiarity trap when performing your job. You go to work, you do your job, and you go home. Complacency sets in and the next thing you know, leads and referrals dry up, and you’ve got nothing in the pipeline.
Social selling success comes from a place of imagining what it’s like from your customer’s standpoint. Every successful salesperson possesses the common trait of empathy. In social selling, it’s this quality that determines who wins the sale…and who doesn’t.
I have clients whose salespeople are selling 6-12 cars a month via social media. Following are 10 social selling tips to help you do that too.
1. CREATE A PERSONAL BRAND
Building a recognizable personal (professional) brand opens up business opportunities. Every time you’re online, in a meeting, at a conference, networking reception or even a backyard BBQ, be mindful of:
- What others are experiencing about you.
- What you want others to experience about you.
In each of your engagements, your customers, peers, and even friends and family, evaluate you. When you’re solid in your professional brand, there is no difference between #1 and #2.
Being new to this idea of a professional brand can be challenging. However, when you begin to see yourself living through the lens of a brand, your perspective will change and you’ll become more mindful about how you approach the professional brand you are trying to define…and aiming to live.
A professional brand is about making a full-time commitment to the journey of defining yourself as a leader and how this will shape the manner in which you will serve others.
Your professional brand should represent the value you are able to consistently deliver to those whom you are serving.
2. BUILD YOUR SOCIAL PROFILES
Success with social selling begins with professional and well-optimized profiles.
Your image is just as important in the digital world as it is in the real world. Online, your profile image is the first thing prospective clients will see. Make a good impression with a professional image that isn’t too stuffy, but still makes you look trustworthy and friendly.
The copy in your bio on any social network has to accomplish everything a greeting, handshake, and an elevator pitch would do in person. Write every word with your prospect in mind and write in the first person, not the third. And be sure to be very clear about sharing your contact info. Share multiple avenues if there is room.
3. FOCUS ON WHERE CUSTOMERS SPEND THEIR TIME
Pinpoint the social networks your ideal prospects occupy the most. If you’re comfortable with Facebook or Instagram, use your personal account to start (instead of a business page). Your friends and family know you and it’s important that they remember you when their connections need a car.
LinkedIn is a good choice too, especially for beginners. Please consider the paid option for LinkedIn – it delivers more robust search results and pays for itself when you close just one deal.
4. SPEND AT LEAST 30 MINUTES EACH DAY PROSPECTING
Look around, see who you know and participate in conversations by liking, commenting, and sharing. You’ll get more and more comfortable every day.
Go easy on yourself in the beginning. Pick the platform you feel the most comfortable with and keep your expectations low.
Determine who you know and who you want to know. Does your store have a vehicle that’s ideal for a particular customer or group of customers? Make a plan to connect with that individual or group and begin to provide your value.
5. COMMIT TO PUBLISHING RELEVANT, HELPFUL CONTENT ON A REGULAR BASIS
The quality of the information you publish on social media drives your results. What you post will determine how people perceive you and the level of help you can provide.
As a social selling beginner with a customer-centric mindset, follow this framework:
- Always represent your professional brand
- Know your customers inside and out
- Answer customers’ frequently asked questions
- Show what it’s like to do business with you by sharing customer success stories.
6. ASK FOR REVIEWS
Choose a platform (Google, Yelp, DealerRater, etc.) to begin to build your credibility and trust with consumers.
Here’s my script for asking for reviews. You can use this in person, of course, but also in emails and text: “My business is based on referrals, and I would really appreciate you sharing your feedback about your experience working with me. Here’s where you could do that…” (provide them a link to your profile on the review site).
Pro Tip: Add your profile image and obtain at least 5 reviews on DealerRater so that you can unlock the “Employee Ranking” on your profile. Online review sites have very high page rank in Search so reviews with your name included in them are great to build your online professional brand.
7. STICK TO A PROVEN SELLING PROCESS
If you’ve been in sales for any length of time, you know that having a process always helps you sell more. The same is true for social selling. Proven social selling process includes:
- Connecting with customers when it’s appropriate
- Being the first to provide value in the relationship
- Paying attention to engagement opportunities
- Participating in conversations
- Creating your own content
- Scheduling Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn updates in advance with a tool like the Buffer app
- Like, comment on or share other people’s content
- Actively seek out who you’d like to know and who can refer you
- Recognize leads as they happen and offer to take your conversation offline
- Remember to ask for the sale when appropriate
- Ask for online reviews or testimonials
8. EARN TRUST BY SHARING SUCCESS STORIES
I’ve always believed that this is the most valuable way to sell a car: by using images and video to tell the story of your current customers’ experiences.
Your store advertising may speak of providing exceptional service or highlight some impressive features of your specific vehicles, but because prospects are bombarded with ads every day, they may not trust what your ad is saying. If you wish to earn the trust of potential customers, use social media to showcase proof that will back up your claims.
9. TRACK YOUR SOCIAL SELLING EFFORTS
The best way to get better at social selling is by learning from your existing efforts. Collect insight from your current efforts and see what’s effective as well as what isn’t. Based on this data, ask yourself what you should be doing differently and what you can do better. This can help you gain a clearer direction of how you should change and adapt your efforts to deliver even better results.
Track these metrics and set personal goals to improve:
- Inbound connections and network growth
- Content engagement rate (how many people interact with your content each week)
- Quality of followers who find and engage with your content
- Prospect referrals
- Lead activity
10. TAKE IT OFFLINE FOR THE SALE
Social media provides an opportunity to establish a warmer connection, but the ultimate goal is to convert these digital connections into real life customers.
Once you’ve established a back-and-forth conversation with someone on social, it’s easier to suggest a phone call, text or email to deliver more info or to set an appointment.
Think about it: an email with a subject line referencing your Facebook conversation may be more likely to get opened. Now it’s up to you to make sure your real-life persona is just as great as your digital one.
Social selling allows you to connect with people on more than just the transactional level. Show up to give, look for opportunities to help solve your customer’s problems, and build a pipeline to convert more connections into buyers.
