XChange 2017: 5 Tips For Driving Sales Through Social Media

Leveraging Social Media

Sales guru, author and entrepreneur Amy Slater knows how to leverage social media to grab the attention of prospects, build stronger relationships with customers and win more deals. Prior to founding her consulting company Amy Slater Consulting in December, Slater used social media to her advantage when holding top sales positions including vice president of enterprise corporate sales at Salesforce.com and director of sales at AT&T.

"You can leverage technology to increase your relationship with your customers and partners, as opposed to creating a divide that often can occur if you use technology in the wrong way," said Slater during her session at XChange 2017 titled, "The Art Of Social Selling: To Sell Is Still Human."

Here are five tips Slater has for solution providers.

Leverage Sales Navigator

Slater urged solution providers to leverage LinkedIn's Sales Navigator tool to get them in the middle of the conversation.

"Sales Navigator is really a great way to find out what's going on in the land of your prospects and even your customers. You can find out when people move. You can contact them because they just moved to a new company, so maybe they need to get [your] service," she said. "You can [also] tag certain information so that you can find out if it's a lead that you want to follow. … It's how you network and connect."

She added that solution providers can get the same kind of information from a company using the Sales Navigator tool as they can by setting up a Google Alert.

Peer Recommendations

A large percentage of purchase decisions are influenced by peer recommendations, said Slater. Peer recommendations on Facebook and LinkedIn groups are important.

"On Facebook you have people asking where they can find a good carpenter or even a good doctor," she said. "You can leverage that in your field because those peer recommendations mean a lot. That's how you can get connected."

Social Media Allows You To Scale

Slater said solution providers can use social media to build a more efficient sales team.

"It allows you to scale. You can get to so many more people and you can pass along ideas," she said. "Social selling isn't just about connecting. 'OK, I have 5,000 connections. I'm so great.' – that means nothing. They're not going to buy from you any more than they would if you had five connections. It's about thought leadership, engaging, creating a new relationship. … Your sellers better be taking whatever marketing puts out and sharing it. Retweeting it. Sending it to prospective clients saying, 'Hey, this is some pretty cool stuff. What do you think?'

Change Your LinkedIn Profile

Slater said LinkedIn profiles matter and to not simply rely on your company's brand. She suggested solution providers change their job title underneath their LinkedIn profile name to something that better describes their skill set.

"Don't just say, 'I'm a partner for Company X – does that tell your prospectors or buyers anything? No," she said. "Think about what it is that you do or the technology that you promote. … You are your brand and you can show it on LinkedIn."

Don't Be In The Dark Ages

To be the most successful in sales, partner need to leverage social media. Slater urged all solution providers who don't have accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter to start immediately.

" The buyers on social media … they have bigger budgets, better connections and they're going to buy," she said. "If you're not on social media, you're kind of in the dark ages."