• Home
  • /
  • Blog
  • /
  • TSE 832: The Social Selling Experiment

Don't miss our weekly sales tips!

Sign up below to get weekly tips from Donald on how to build a healthy sales pipeline and convert 2x as many deals!

The Sales Evangelist

Donald Kelly, Social Selling, LinkedIn, Prospecting When you’re not making the progress you know you’re capable of, you have a choice to make: do you continue doing the same things you’ve always done, or do you try something new? I believe it’s important to investigate new ideas, and I’m going to conduct a social selling experiment that will accomplish that very thing.

Today on The Sales Evangelist, I’ll share new ideas that have worked for me in the past, and I’ll explain how I’m going to put my reputation on the line to test it.

The problem

Buyers aren’t looking for typical salespeople. The landscape has changed, and buyers are seeking sellers who will take the lead. They want sellers who solve problems and conduct business differently.

The authors of the book Stop Selling & Start Leading compiled tons of research direct from buyers that helps sellers understand exactly what they’re looking for. The book is like a blueprint for sales professionals.

At The Sales Evangelist, we’ve found the same thing. We’ve begun offering services in business development that allow us to develop business for our clients. We find the buyers and set the appointments, and we’re discovering that many companies aren’t doing business development well.

We’re trying new strategies and exploring different possibilities to reach the prospects that can become long-term relationships.

The challenge

To demonstrate the power of it, we’re going to conduct a social selling experiment. We’ll connect with 20 people we’ve never done business with before using traditional techniques like phone and email.

We’re also going to use social media to connect with 20 different people that we’ve never done business with before.

For the social media group, we’ll develop a cadence model, and we’ll use LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to grab the attention of people and make them aware that we exist.

I’ll invest 20 minutes each morning and 20 minutes each afternoon engaging with people on social media. As they respond throughout the day, I’ll also engage with them then.

We know social selling works, and we want to demonstrate the results to you so you can see for yourself. We’ll evaluate at the end of the week which method produced the best results.

The baby steps

Many of us say we want to try social selling but we’re also afraid that we’ll mess up publicly. We can’t simply trust bots to make our connections for us, because people can see right through that method.

Try one of our techniques and see how it works in your industry. Check in on The Sales Evangelizers on Facebook to follow our progress and interact with us as we conduct the experiment.

We’re doing this experiment so you don’t have to. We’re putting our reputation on the line to demonstrate the value of trying new ideas to invigorate your sales pipeline.

We want you to find more customers, build stronger value, close more deals, and do big things.

Episode resources

Pick up your copy of Stop Selling & Start Leading: How to Make Extraordinary Sales Happen from our sponsors at Wiley.

Check out a free excerpt of the book, Stop Selling & Start Leading: How to Make Extraordinary Sales Happen, and discover why some of the things you’ve been taught to do in sales may be the very things your prospect hates.

Email me for more information about our newly launched Sales Podcast Network, designed to provide specialized sales content for sellers of all levels and all industries. You can also email us about our new business development services.

Audio provided by Free SFX.

About the Author The Sales Evangelist

Donald is the host of the popular sales podcast,"The Sales Evangelist". He is the founder of The Sales Evangelist Consulting Firm where he helps small companies develop killer sales process to scale their business and increase growth.

Donald is also an award-winning speaker, sales trainer, and coach. He's a big fan of traveling, South Florida staycations and high-quality family time. Donald has a belief that “anyone” can sell if they have the desire and receives the proper training.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked

{"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}