linkedin-how-sales-and-marketing-partner-for-effective-social-selling-en-us

New Approach,
New Roles:
How Sales and Marketing
Partner for Effective
Social Selling

New Approach, New Roles: How Sales and Marketing Partner for Effective Social Selling | 2
Social selling is most effective when individual salespeople, along with
sales executives and marketing leaders, become advocates for the process.
While social selling requires a change in mindset
from the traditional way of engaging with
prospects, the return on investment in social
selling is undeniable. According to Aberdeen’s
Social Selling Impact Report, 73% of salespeople
using social selling as part of their sales process
outperformed their sales peers and exceeded
quota 23% more often. In 2015, the 20% of
enterprises employing social media beyond
marketing will lead their industries in growth,
according to Gartner’s report, Social Is Here,
Where Is The ROI?
“By connecting buyers and sellers through social
selling, these social buyers are spending more
budget, more often. Lead with insights and you
are five times more likely to get engaged and
build your pipeline faster,” said Koka Sexton,
Senior Social Manager for LinkedIn.
While the benefits of social selling are clear, many
are still trying to sort out the most effective ways
to engage with prospects and customers through
this new approach to selling. Two-thirds of
companies have no social media strategy for their
sales organization, according to the study Social
Media and the Sales Organization from the Sales
Management Association.
“By connecting buyers
and sellers through
social selling, these
social buyers are
spending more budget,
more often. Lead with
insights and you are
five times more likely to
get engaged and build
your pipeline faster.”
—Koka Sexton,
Senior Social
Manager,
LinkedIn
73%
73% of salespeople
using social selling
as part of their sales
process outperformed
their sales peers
20%
In 2015, the 20% of
enterprises employing
social media beyond
marketing will lead their
industries in growth

“To succeed at social selling really requires a
cross-functional collaboration between sales, sales
leadership, marketing, sales enablement and sales
training,” said Jill Rowley, a social selling evangelist
and consultant. “It is all about putting them together
to really drive the social selling agenda.”
While sales and marketing alignment is integral
to the selling process no matter how or where the
interactions take place, social selling provides a
unique set of challenges and responsibilities:
• Individual sales professionals want to connect
with their buyers on LinkedIn and other social
networks, but they need some guidance in
terms of what content to share and how to
reach out to prospects;
• Sales leaders want to encourage a social
selling mindset, but they lack the training
material and resources to encourage a social
selling environment; and
• Marketing needs to communicate with the
sales team and sales leadership about the
content and best practices for engaging with
buyers in a new way.
This E-Book will take an in-depth look at each of
these roles and how they play a part in the move
toward a social selling environment.
“To succeed at social
selling really requires
a cross-functional
collaboration between
sales, sales leadership,
marketing, sales
enablement and sales
training.”
—Jill Rowley,
social selling
evangelist and
consultant

Social Selling for the
Salesperson: Identify and
Connect With Prospects

Sales professionals typically think of social media as a way of connecting
with clients. They meet a prospect at an event and immediately send them a
LinkedIn request to add them to their network. But savvy social sellers are using
LinkedIn and other social media to research, prospect, engage and close.
It’s not just about amassing connections, though.
Truly connecting with a prospect is about
beginning an exchange that adds value for the
buyer beyond a list of product features.
“Social selling works best when the sales reps
are directly engaged — making themselves
trusted sources of information, insights and
advice,” said Matt Heinz, President of Heinz
Marketing Group. “This requires a disciplined
approach and regular execution, but it’s clear that
reps who invest in this today are driving higher,
more consistent pipelines and success.”
At minimum, sales reps should look to their
marketing counterparts to highlight content worth
sharing, Heinz explained. “They should also work
closely with their peers to identify new, operational
best practices to more efficiently identify buying
signals, engage with prospects, and manage a
wider network of prospective buyers.”
Salespeople should be using social media to
listen for opportunities, said Jim Keenan, CEO/
President of A Sales Guy Consulting, a sales
consulting firm. “They need to be listening to
what customers and prospects are saying on
social media. There is no excuse why they don’t
know what is going on.”
SALES REPS // Social Selling for the Salesperson: Identify and Connect With Prospects
Some of the typical tasks of a
salesperson that can be enhanced
with social selling:
• Identifying and filling the funnel with
relevant companies and prospects;
• Qualifying new leads, and
researching companies and
individuals prior to contacting; and
• Discovering compelling sales events
to drive relevant conversation and
qualify deal timelines.
“Social selling works
best when the sales reps
are directly engaged
— making themselves
trusted sources of
information, insights
and advice.”
—Matt Heinz,
President, Heinz
Marketing
Group

Developing a Profile That
Resonates With Prospects
As buyers are also researching you and your
company, it is critical to optimize your LinkedIn
and other social media profiles to resonate
with prospects.
“The salesperson’s social media profile is one
of their most basic sales tools, and it should
be presented in a way that’s customer-centric,”
said Alex Hisaka, Content Marketing Manager at
LinkedIn. “So everything from your summary to
your headline should be structured in a way that
makes sense for the prospects and companies
that [you, the salesperson] want to go after.”
Uploading projects and rich media presentations
can also bolster the online presence of a
salesperson. “By providing samples of your work
and relevant presentations, the prospect can
immediately get a sense of who you are and how
your offering can be relevant to their business,”
Hisaka said. “It’s really the online reputation of
the salesperson.”
Tools for the Individual
Salesperson
Sales Navigator helps salespeople stay
focused on the right people and companies
as they incorporate social selling into their
daily routine, according to Alex Hisaka,
Content Marketing Manager at LinkedIn.
“You’re not doing cold outreach; you’re not
making connections with people that might
not be the best fit for your company.”
With Sales Navigator, salespeople can:
• Increase pipeline size and quality;
• Boost selling time;
• Decrease research time;
• Shorten sales cycle;
• Develop more accurate forecasts;
• Increase call response rate; and
• Decrease data entry.
Prospecting is at the heart of the
salesperson’s job — they are looking for the
types of accounts that they want to acquire
and following those prospects.
LinkedIn’s Lead Recommendations tool
examines a salesperson’s historical and
saved leads, and presents them with similar
decision makers and influencers.
LinkedIn’s Lead Builder also helps the
salesperson build their lead lists and track
prospects’ activity — what they’re posting,
who they’re following and what kind of
company information or news that they’re
sharing, among other updates.
Sales Navigator’s Account Pages feature
provides company updates and information
on new and existing relationships.
“Sales Navigator is vital to my day-to-day
sales efforts,” said Christine Sather, CRM
National Business Development Manager for
RBA, a digital technology consultancy. “It
enables me to broaden my access, target
more precisely and sell more efficiently.”

What Is SSI?
For a successful selling effort, it is important
to track how well the new approach is being
adopted by the individual salesperson, as well
as the team.
The Social Selling Index (SSI) is a consolidated
metric to determine how well the salesperson
has adopted social selling.
There are four components to an SSI score:
creating a professional brand, finding the right
people, engaging them with insights and building
strong relationships.
Each area is worth 25 points, with a total
maximum score of 100.
45% 51% 17x
Salespeople With A Higher SSI Get Results
The Social Selling Index (SSI) is predictive of sales success. SSI leaders — those with a score
over 70 — consistently outperform their counterparts who have an average of 22.8. Those with
high SSI scores:
Create 45% more
opportunities per quarter
than SSI laggards;
Surpass sales goals, as
they are 51% more likely
to exceed quota; and
Earn promotions 17
months faster than
laggards.
“[Salespeople] need to be listening to what customers
and prospects are saying on social media. There is no
excuse why they don’t know what is going on.”
—Jim Keenan, CEO/
President of A Sales
Guy Consulting

Steps for Building Your SSI
From the perspective of the individual
salesperson, as well as the overall sales team,
metrics matter. As companies adopt a social
selling approach, it is important to keep a pulse
on how well the strategy is being embraced on
the individual and team level. That’s where the
Social Selling Index (SSI) comes in.
Dan Lurie, Senior Insights Analyst at LinkedIn,
provided some insights on building the four
pillars of the SSI score:
Create a professional brand. “Buyers have to
feel confident that you are the right person to
help them,” Lurie said. “Your profile should not
be about touting your achievements, but relating
your strengths to the buyer’s needs.”
Find the right people. “It is not just about
finding individuals, but how the salesperson
is performing when it comes to finding the
influencers,” Lurie explained. “It is not just about
going high to find senior level people; it is about
finding the right people.”
Engage with insights. “As buyers are 60% of
the way through the process before they speak
to a salesperson, it is important to change your
mindset on how you engage with the prospect
before you speak to them and once you get the
opportunity to speak with them,” Lurie said.
“They don’t want to know just about what’s going
on in your industry. They want industry insights
so they feel confident in you as a salesperson
and your company overall.”
Build strong relationships. “Relationships matter
in the world of selling more than ever,” Lurie noted.
“It is important to understand and measure how
reps are making those connections.”

Social Selling For Sales
Leadership: Inspire and Coach

The job of the sales leader is to inspire, coach and manage their team.
Successful sales leaders optimize execution among their sales team by coaching
and enabling reps with the tools and strategies to perform at peak efficiency.
More than two-thirds (64%) of teams that use social selling hit quota compared
to 49% that don’t, according to Aberdeen’s Social Selling Impact Report.
“The goal of social is to connect personally, and
for the sales leader this requires the recognition
that their sales team needs to be skilled
appropriately based on role, redirecting training
resources and adapting competency models to
include this skill,” said Joe Galvin, Chief Research
Officer and EVP at Miller Heiman.
Sales leadership should encourage their
team not only to build their own profile and
knowledge, but to promote the company’s
thought leadership. “Encourage your sales team
to develop and nurture their own networks by
sharing the company’s thought leadership and
promotional campaigns with their network,” said
Jim Brodo, Senior Vice President of Marketing
for Richardson, a sales training and management
solutions provider. “They should be sharing
relevant headlines about your firm or news taking
place in the sector.”
SALES LEADERS // Social Selling For Sales Leadership: Inspire and Coach
“The goal of social is to
connect personally, and
for the sales leader this
requires the recognition
that their sales team
needs to be skilled
appropriately based on
role, redirecting training
resources and adapting
competency models to
include this skill.”
—Joe Galvin, Chief
Research Officer
and EVP, Miller
Heiman
More than two-thirds
(64%) of teams that use
social selling hit quota
compared to 49% that
don’t, according to
Aberdeen’s Social Selling
Impact Report.
64%

Getting the Team On Board
The best leaders lead by example, and social
selling won’t work unless the sales leader is on
board and practicing the basics of social selling.
Tom Eggemeier, Chief Customer Officer and
EVP of Global Sales for Genesys, a provider of
multi-channel customer experiences and contact
center solutions, said he engages regularly on
social media to set an example for his sales team.
Sales teams perform best when they have a
leader they want to emulate, Eggemeier noted.
“In my view, salespeople are uncertain as to how
to use LinkedIn and other social media tools to
be successful. However, if a salesperson can
replicate an approach that has been successful —
and ideally they are following the behavior of sales
leadership — for an easy win, they will do it.”
It is the role of the sales leader not only to practice
what they preach, but also to highlight the
successes of the sales team, Eggemeier explained.
“We have a vice president of the West Coast who is
our top salesperson and, through no coincidence,
the most active social seller. My job is to have her
engaging with marketing so that they can know
what content she has been sharing and what has
been successful and to promote internally.”
The Benefits of Sales Navigator
for the Sales Leader
Sales leaders are leading an army of sales
reps, so it is essential to have an overall view
of the team’s performance to help maximize
resources and ensure that your sales team is
operating at peak efficiency. Sales Navigator
enables sales leadership to:
• Access a single source of sales intelligence
for sales reps to accelerate research;
• Simplify and promote best practices and
productivity across the sales team;
• Retain top talent by empowering sales reps
with tools to help them achieve quota;
• Forecast more accurately with real-time
insight that is easy to digest; and
• Gain additional visibility into the value of
sales intelligence.

“If a salesperson can
replicate an approach
that has been successful
— and ideally they are
following the behavior of
sales leadership — for an
easy win, they will do it.”
—Tom Eggemeier,
Chief Customer
Officer and EVP
of Global Sales,
Genesys
If a tool is going to help a salesperson meet his
or her quota, they are eager to get on board.
However, it is the role of the sales leader to
ensure that those tools are quick and easy to use
so that they will be adopted.
“It’s not just a matter of marketing creating the
messaging, but it’s a matter of being able to
enable the salesperson to quickly and easily
share that,” LinkedIn’s Hisaka said. “Then that
helps the sales leadership make the case for
social selling. They can then say, ‘Listen, guys,
two seconds you hit the button, you’re sharing
all this information and valuable stuff with your
followers, building leads, how tough is that?’”
New Horizons Sales Team
Boosts SSI By 54%
New Horizons Computer Learning Centers,
a provider of online and classroom-style IT
training courses, was evolving from an inside
sales model several years ago. As part of
that transition, COO Tynan Fischer wanted
to adopt a social selling approach and, as a
result, began using LinkedIn Sales Navigator
and SSI scores to track how effective his team
was at adopting this new approach to selling.
The results:
• The team’s SSI score went from 39 to 60;
• $1.7M in opportunities were identified in
6 months, with a 57% close rate; and
• The contact database grew 73%.
As part of the process, Fischer worked with
marketing to develop a standard LinkedIn
profile that his team could adopt. “We
needed every profile to have a professional
photo. We needed to get away from the sales
team talking about how many quarters they
had reached quota or made the president’s
club to messaging that would communicate
what they could do for buyers.”
Fischer also instituted a daily social media
selling schedule. “From 9 a.m. to 10 a.m.,
they were to be distributing approved
content, whether it was third-party content
or Horizons content. From 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.,
they were to identify 10 leads on LinkedIn,
and spend three minutes on each profile to
learn about the person and reach out.”

Social Selling For Marketers:
Creating Content,
Establishing Processes

Marketers and demand generation professionals take the lead when it comes
to developing and distributing content, which takes center stage in social selling.
A B2B decision maker views five pieces of content before they are ready to
speak with a sales rep, according to Better Lead Yield in the Content Marketing
Field from the CMO Council.
Social selling is a new sales skill that the
sales professional must develop and master,
but they can’t go it alone. “Left to their own
devices, salespeople will create and broadcast
whatever messages they find interesting, which
translates into dilution — and worse —mutation
of the brand message and market messages,”
explained Miller Heiman’s Galvin.
Content and top-of-funnel lead generation
has long been the domain of the marketing
department. However, the roles of marketing
and demand generation teams have significantly
expanded over the past several years. In addition
to researching markets, finding, enriching and
qualifying leads, marketing and demand gen
teams are now responsible for moving leads
further down the pipeline. Helping the sales
team and the sales leaders define a social selling
strategy is part of that job.
When implemented properly, social selling
enables sales professionals to become an
extension of marketing.
MARKETERS // Social Selling For Marketers: Creating Content, Establishing Processes
Benefits of Sales
Navigator For Marketing
Marketing is an integral part of a
social selling strategy, developing the
messaging and processes to help move
the sales process to the social realm.
Sales Navigator helps marketing:
• Reduce cost per lead or opportunity;
• Increase open rate, click-through rates
and conversions;
• Increase pipeline;
• Target messaging; and
• Expand target market.
“It is really our job as
marketers to empower
the sales team, and
marketing takes
responsibility for creating
platforms to make social
selling a success.”
—Meagen Eisenberg,
VP of Customer
Marketing and
Acquisition,
DocuSign

“The role of marketing is to provide a complete
toolbox for success to your sales team,” Heinz
said. “Marketing cannot only create processes
and content to be used on the front lines, but
they can centrally identify social leads, buying
signals and trigger events on prospects that
are worth pursuing. Create specific processes
to enable all social leads to integrate into your
marketing automation system, lead scoring and
sales CRM as appropriate.”
Marketing is tasked with making sure that there
are enough prospects in the pipeline, and that
leads are segmented by industry and type of
business, among other responsibilities. Social
selling is more successful when there is a
demand generation structure in place.
“It is really our job to empower the sales team,
and marketing takes responsibility for creating
platforms to make social selling a success,” said
Meagen Eisenberg, VP of Customer Marketing
and Acquisition at DocuSign, a provider of digital
transaction management technology. “Marketing
is looking at the leads that are coming in, how
they are being managed and how they are
activating into deals.”
To make the most of social selling efforts,
Eisenberg recommended taking a content
inventory. “You’re not going to be effective in
social selling unless you know what content
is available and which content aligns with the
buyer’s journey.”
The Payoff of Sales And Marketing Alignment
Social selling is most effective when sales
and marketing collaborate on everything
from defining lead targets to content, such as
LinkedIn profiles and other content shared on
social media.
“We really find that social selling, and selling
in general, is most effective when sales lets
us know what they want,” said Meagen
Eisenberg, VP of Customer Marketing and
Acquisition at DocuSign. “And it all starts
with identifying the target so that we can
build messaging and strategies around the
ideal prospect.”
One area where marketing can add
value is helping the sales team and sales
leaders understand how to use content
more effectively during the social selling
process. “One thing we were finding was
that marketing was putting out a lot of great
content,” said Tynan Fischer, COO of New
Horizons Computer Learning Centers.
Social selling training and collaboration
marketing helped New Horizons get over the
hump. “It has made a profound difference
in getting our sales team to think differently
about how they work with content,” said
Fischer “With marketing’s input, there is a
natural progression of how the team should be
sharing content. This collaboration has gotten
our sales [team] to stop focusing on their
own sales cycle and how they want a deal to
progress, to focusing on the buyer’s journey.”
MARKETERS // Social Selling For Marketers: Creating Content, Establishing Processes
“The role of marketing
is to provide a complete
toolbox for success to
your sales team.”
—Matt Heinz,
President, Heinz
Marketing Group

Conclusion
Social selling requires a total commitment from everyone in the
organization — from marketing and demand generation specialists
to the individual salesperson to sales leadership.
Social selling is being adopted by progressive
organizations that recognize the need to
maximize their interactions with potential
buyers and meet them where and when they’re
looking for information. In today’s always-on
environment, that means being active on social
media channels. More than three-quarters
(78%) of salespeople using social media outsell
their peers, according to the Social Media and
Sales Quota survey, conducted by A Sales Guy
Consulting and Social Centered Selling.
To maximize social selling success, the various
parts of the organization need a cohesive plan,
along with the tools, strategies and metrics to see
that the vision is being executed.
• Marketing can provide guidance as to the
content, tone and cadence of social interactions;
• Salespeople can build their professional brand,
find the right prospects, engage with insights
and build strong relationships to bolster their
SSI score; and
• Sales leadership can model behavior
for the sales team to emulate, track the
adoption of social selling techniques and
highlight successes.
With a cohesive effort, social selling provides
a tremendous payoff in identifying the right
leads, communicating with them effectively and
continuously interacting with prospects on social
media channels to close more deals.

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