Even before the pandemic, B2B buying habits were changing. And with stats showing 78% of social sellers outsell peers who don’t use social media it’s no surprise that social selling programs were on the up. Then, as Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft said, “We saw two years of digital transformation in two months.”

Now, it’s no longer a question of whether to adopt a social selling program, it’s a question of which one to choose. What kind of program or training you need will depend on where your business is on your social selling journey, your business goals and your timescales for achieving these goals. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer.

We’ve therefore started to explore what you can expect from different social selling services, who they’re ideal for and common FAQs so you can decide what type of program is right for you.

In this blog, we’ll discuss our Social Selling Launch and Embed service.

Who Is A Social Selling Launch And Embed Program Most Suitable For?

79% of sales rep at 'Best-in-Class' social selling companies achieved sales quota, compared with 43% at 'Industry Average' companies and just 15% at 'Laggard' ones.
Source: Aberdeen Group, Social Selling: Leveraging the Power of User Generated Content to Optimize Sales Results.

There is a world of difference between ‘Best-in-Class',  ‘Industry Average’ and ‘Laggard’ companies when it comes to social selling. Our Social Selling Launch & Embed program is for organizations who want to achieve Best-In-Class social selling results with the support of an experienced partner that regularly rolls out successful programs for SMEs up to Enterprise-level. It's for those who want to accelerate their results instead of taking a trial-and-error approach.

We help companies at various levels of their social journey – from zero through to scaling and enhancement. The launch & embed service is most suited to those at the beginning of their journey, or those who have tinkered with social selling before without success. This service is right for your organization if you:

• Realise that you need to upskill your sales teams to match how your prospects buy
• Want to start with a pilot program to test and prove the value of social selling before you scale up
• Are not achieving desired results from your Sales Navigator licences
• Or want to ensure you receive the maximum ROI from social selling tools from the start.
  
  
  

At A Glance: What Is Social Selling Launch and Embed?

Our Social Selling Launch and Embed program is a six-month program that provides you with all the support, training, coaching and templates you need to help you launch, perfect and run a successful social selling program.

Over six months, we help your sales teams embed social selling behaviours and give you the tools and techniques to help you scale social selling further once your pilot program has finished.

(See below for full details on what’s included in the program.)

What Results Can You Hope To Achieve At The End Of The Program?

Our training program is focused on results and outcomes, rather than delivering training and hoping for the best.

At the end of the six months, you can expect:

• Optimized ‘All-Star’ LinkedIn profiles
• Increased LinkedIn SSI scores
• To find the buying circle and influencers within your target accounts
• Sales to have highly personalized conversations with prospects based on laser-focused insights
• Teams to have firmly set up, effective social selling routines
• Data insights that benchmark the performance of your program’s social sellers versus regular Sales Navigator users
• Social selling success stories (your new ‘Social Champions’)

This leads to:

• Increased revenue from existing customer accounts
• Shorter sales cycles by steering the buyer journey & reducing friction
• A personalized roadmap to help you scale and perfect social selling further
• The ability to link projected ROI to your social selling program
  
  

“The campaign went beyond building a £5 million pipeline; it built trust, connected a wider group of disciplines within SAP and long-term relationships that are quantifiable.” (Edyna Tan - Senior Marketing Manager, SAP. How social selling helped SAP build a £5 million pipeline.) 

“We achieved our target sales pipeline from social selling in half the time forecast. Already, 13% of this pipeline has converted into sales, far quicker than our typical 2–4-year sales lead times. “ (Laura Lamard, Global Social Selling Manager, Henkel Adhesive Technologies. How Henkel achieved a EUR12m pipeline in half the time.)

What Does Social Selling Launch And Embed Include?

Our six-month program includes:

• Hands-on, fully immersed support from a dedicated account team who is with you and your team every step of the way.
• Our Enterprise Social Media Maturity Quiz to help you see where your sales teams are now and where they could be
• 1-day introductory workshop or webinar series covering:
  • Intro to social selling
  • Crafting a customer-centric profile
  • Maximising LinkedIn Sales Navigator for prospecting
  • Strengthening credibility through content
  • Advance tips
  • Our Coffee Cup routine
• Monthly Masterclasses to deep dive into advanced social selling techniques. These are flexible to your needs and typical topics include:
  • Crafting InMails that get responses
  • Using Smart Links
  • Creating video content for LinkedIn
  • Account-based social selling tactics
  • Creating original thought leadership
• 121 coaching sessions to embed learning through practical & personalized support
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator analytics reporting and recommendations, covering:
  • Performance of social selling program sellers vs others
  • How LinkedIn activity is affecting sales performance
  • Best-performing social sellers and what they’re doing differently
• Monthly email newsletter to reinforce learning, engage and motivate learners
  
  

How Much Time Do We Need To Invest In It?

We get asked this a lot and it’s one of those, “How long is a piece of string questions”. Here is a rough indication:

Programme leads. The programme lead will need to dedicate around two hours a week communicating with Tribal Impact, supporting your pilot members and leading by example on social media.

Social sellers. The initial activities will take longer, such as perfecting their LinkedIn profile and saving and profiling their prospects. This will probably take them around one day in total. Once the initial foundation work is done, most salespeople dedicate an ongoing 30 minutes to a few hours a week to their social selling activities.

The more they engage, the more they get out of it and the reality is today’s buyers want remote & virtual interactions with salespeople. We teach your team techniques to be savvy with their time.

What About The Social Selling Sceptics?

We can’t convert every single sceptic into a Best-In-Class social seller and nor would we want to. Not everyone will embrace social selling and that’s okay. Your Social Selling Launch & Embed pilot group will ideally have some interest, even though there will be varying degrees of interest and skills.

By providing your pilot group with the training and support to achieve their goals, you then have the data, business case and success stories to scale your program and get buy-in across your organization.

“The sceptics now enthuse about social selling as much as the early adopters as they can see the results it delivers. That’s down to the great work of the Tribal Impact team.” (Laura Lamard, Global Social Selling Manager, Henkel Adhesive Technologies. How Henkel achieved a EUR12m pipeline in half the time.)

How Does Tribal Impact’s Program Differ From Other Training Or Coaching Programs?

We don’t simply deliver training or coaching. Social selling can be a huge shift for many organizations and so we help you drive behavioural change across your organization in a scalable way. Here’s how:

• Our passion (or as some would say, evangelism!) and data-led approach help you get buy-in and overcome barriers of resistance.
• Your teams are given tailored, easy-to-follow action plans and we help them embed their social selling “Coffee Cup Routine” until it’s second nature.
• We help you enlist Social Selling Champions and use their success stories to scale your success further across your organisation.

We hope this blog has helped answer some of the questions you may have about social selling services. You can find out more about our Social Selling Launch and Embed service here (including pricing). And if you want to chat to us about your needs, then why not email our Tribal Chief, Sarah Goodall, at sarah@tribalimpact.com