Questions that Sell
Page 21
Prospect: Oh, you work with Tom? How is he?
Salesperson: He’s great. He’s a big fan of yours. In fact, he told me—and I quote—“Allison is always looking for ways to stay a step ahead of the competition.”
With this brief exchange, you’ve sidestepped all those barriers that I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. You’ve already begun to establish a connection with Allison. She’ll probably at least give you a fair hearing. And not coincidentally, you’ve enhanced Tom’s relationship with Allison by passing along what he told you.
CHAPTER
22
Social Selling
Adapting Tried-and-True Questions for a New Medium
SALESPEOPLE NEED TO be savvy users of social media. More and more, it’s where your buyers will be living. At the same time, it’s no panacea. Leads aren’t going to suddenly start rolling in. And it can seem so daunting that many salespeople avoid it. They’ll put together a LinkedIn page, connect with colleagues and perhaps some customers, and call it a day.
I get it. If you tried to do everything that social-selling evangelists recommend, you could spend all day every day working your social media accounts with not much to show for it. Salespeople need to spend most of their time doing what only they can do—personally interacting with living, breathing buyers. So the challenge for working salespeople is how to use social media strategically. They need to invest their most precious resource—their time—where it will yield the most results.
Social media is especially useful in two areas: (1) getting referrals to qualified prospects, and (2) positioning yourself to prospects and existing buyers as a thought leader—an expert in your field who can provide valuable insights. As we’ll see, the questioning techniques you’ve learned in this book can help you do both.
Asking for Referrals
The referral techniques in Chapter 21 apply to social media as well. But social media platforms such as LinkedIn create some unique challenges. (By the way, I’m focusing on LinkedIn in this discussion because it’s specifically built for business networking. You may get a lot more pushback on other platforms.)
Let’s start with building your network. You probably have a lot of contacts already. After all, it’s your job to talk to people whose business interests intersect with your own. It’s simple to invite buyers and prospects into your network. And you should.
However, keep in mind that in the world of social media, you are judged by the quality of your network. So be judicious about whom you invite and whom you accept invitations from. Paradoxically, more names may create less value. If you have ten thousand contacts in your network, it may look like you’re just harvesting names. So the people who really matter to you may be reluctant to accept your invitation. They may be worried about being exposed to scammers and spammers.
It’s hard to have a hard-and-fast guide in terms of how many contacts you should have. But here’s a rule of thumb: You should know nearly everyone in your network well enough that you’d be comfortable emailing them or calling them, and they’d be comfortable enough with you to respond.
Here’s an often-overlooked reality: The real power for networking through social media is less about your network and more about the networks of your contacts. When you connect to someone on LinkedIn, they get to see your network. And you get to see theirs.
Those networks represent a valuable pool of potential business for you, because they resemble your contacts. Many will be in the same industry. Many will have similar jobs, similar experience, or similar responsibilities.
Getting referrals via LinkedIn involves two questions: (1) Will you connect with me? And (2) Will you connect me with ___?
Will you connect with me?
Some asks are easy: friends, colleagues, customers, people you’ve worked with in the past. But they only get you so far. The people you know tend to know the people you know. For the purpose of referrals, the most valuable contacts are the ones you don’t know as well.
You’ll get more connections from this group if your request creates value, or potential value, for the person you’re reaching out to.
For example, let’s say you just got off the phone with Chris. You had a pleasant conversation, but she’s not currently in a position to buy from you.
Instead of using the generic “I’d like to connect with you” template, you might use a message like this:
Hi, Chris. Great talking to you today. Thanks for helping me understand what your company does in greater detail. I can think of two contacts who might be interested in the services your company offers, and I’d be happy to make an introduction. May I add you to my professional network?
Or:
Hi, Chris. Great talking to you today. After we spoke, it occurred to me that my former colleague Joe Smith recently faced a challenge similar to the one you’re facing. If you’d like to get his perspective, I’d be happy to connect the two of you. May I add you to my professional network?
Or:
Hi, Chris. Great talking to you today. You mentioned that your company is looking to hire a new IT director. I can think of a couple of people in my network who might be good candidates, and I’d be happy to share their profiles with you if you’re interested. May I add you to my professional network?
Or let’s say you stumble across a name on LinkedIn that you’d like to connect with. You don’t know them and they don’t know you. You don’t have anyone to make an introduction. Asking to connect with someone out of the blue could come across as creepy—unless you provide a plausible reason for your request. If someone has commented on your post. If you’ve commented on theirs. If you belong to the same online group. If you both worked at the same place in the past, even if you didn’t know each other. If something on their profile suggests that you have a shared experience or related background. Ideally, the reason should be related to what you sell, but it can’t be “to sell you something.” You must earn that right.
Will you connect me with ________?
The second step in your referral strategy, asking for an introduction, must also create value.
Social media etiquette suggests that it’s best to put some time between these two requests. It’s also the right way to think about your contacts. You don’t want them to feel that you’re just using them as a stepping-stone to get to a “real” buyer.
In social media as in everything else, the relationship comes first. Think of your contacts as assets that can grow and yield multiple dividends over time. You don’t want to cash them in right away. You might reach out to them later to help you gain some insight into the market. Or if you’re pursuing an active lead six months from now, their name might come up as a mutual contact. So you might want to wait a while before you start mining a contact’s network for referrals. At that point, asking for the referral seems more like a natural extension of the relationship.
So, for example, six months after you connected with Chris, you might reach out to her again:
Hey, Chris. I noticed that you’re connected to Gene at XYZ Company. XYZ has been on my list for some time, but I haven’t had much luck connecting with them. Do you think Gene could point me in the right direction?
Part of the implicit value in this request, of course, is that Chris knows you will respond in kind if she ever needs an introduction. But research suggests that there’s more than a potential quid pro quo at stake. People attach social value to a request for help. Responding to a sincere request for help makes people feel better about themselves—even if they get nothing in return.
Think about the implications of that. Many salespeople fear that asking for a referral is an imposition. But the ask itself creates value.
Note the word sincere, however. People don’t feel good about doing a favor if they feel they’re being taken advantage of. So limit your ask. Do your homework and find one or two high-value contacts you’d like to connect with. Then show the buyer how much this favor means to you: You let Chris know that XYZ is an
important prospect for you. You told her that you’ve had no luck so far. She can see that helping you out could be a big favor indeed, yet one that would cost her little.
Of course, some people are uncomfortable making introductions no matter what, and of course you need to respect that. But others are reluctant because they fear you will diminish the value of their relationship with the contact. Nobody wants to sic a pushy, unprepared salesperson on a friend or colleague.
•The way you ask for the referral can help put such fears to rest. Communicate exactly why you want the introduction and what you will do with it—for example, you need someone to “point you in the right direction” or you’d like to “see if there’s a fit with what we do.” Soft, tentative language like this will reassure your contact that you won’t take advantage of the favor. You need to show that you won’t embarrass them.
Using Social Media to Increase Your Visibility and Credibility
The other way social media can help you sell is by elevating your visibility and positioning yourself as a thought leader in the industries you serve.
It seems like a slam dunk. You sign up for the biggest LinkedIn interest groups in the industry you serve. You avoid overt selling. You upload posts full of useful knowledge. You repost content that you like. You start conversations. Pretty soon the world is beating a path to your door.
Not likely. For one thing, everybody else is doing the same thing. And it’s hardly a level playing field. Some companies have whole departments that do nothing else. They’re also paying a lot of money to get preferential positioning for their posts. The little guy hardly stands a chance.
Also, you may find that the audience isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Many of the people in those groups will be other salespeople, not potential prospects for you. And out of all those thousands of people who signed up for the group, relatively few of them actively engage on a regular basis. It’s usually a handful of the usual suspects who turn up again and again.
So what can you do?
Creating good content takes a lot of time and effort. Asking questions about other people’s good content takes less time, and can be a good way to boost your visibility. In some ways, a question is more effective than a comment or even a post, because it invites a response.
Good questions demonstrate your expertise without being self- promotional. The idea is to become a thought leader not by sharing what you know or think, but by stimulating others to think differently. Do it consistently and people will notice.
Use Educational Questions
Social media is ideal both for posing and creating educational questions (see Chapter 3).
For example, you can repost an article, blog post, or research study that would interest your buyers, and ask for feedback. It might be as simple as, “Does this ring true to members of this group? Can anyone share their experience?”
You can also pose questions or start conversations that yield highly targeted fodder for your own educational questions. For example:
You sell a self-cleaning glass that can reduce the need to wash windows in skyscrapers. You need to get architects to specify the glass, even though it costs more.
So pose a question in your facilities management group, asking members how often their buildings use window washers, how much it costs, how long it takes, and so on. Then turn around and use those responses to create an educational question for architects: “I recently asked facilities managers how often they washed their windows, and how much it costs. They told me they typically spend upwards of $200,000 a year on window-washing services. They also said they’re extremely concerned about the liability issues of having crews working on scaffolds hundreds of feet in the air. How does that compare with your clients’ experience?”
To get the best responses, pose questions that strike an emotional chord. Give people a chance to vent. For example:
•What’s the task at work that you most wish you could take off your plate?
•On average, companies spend ________ a year on __________. Do they get their money’s worth? Why or why not?
•Congress is debating a bill to __________. Some say it will make our industry stronger. Others say it will lead to needless and costly regulation. What do you think?
You don’t have to spend a lot of time creating these questions. Sit down and craft twelve good ones. Post one a month. Post them in different forums, in slightly different terms. See which ones get the most passionate responses. That will help you craft even better questions going forward. It may also give you some new insights on how to connect with prospects and customers. Best of all, it puts you in the driver’s seat: You’re initiating the dialogue and can respond intelligently to the responses.
Follow the Rules
The one thing you can’t do in these groups is post promotional or sales-focused content. (See the sidebar, which provides LinkedIn’s rules for groups.) Don’t post product announcements and press releases. You’ll quickly find yourself disinvited.
That doesn’t mean you can’t talk about what you do or about your clients. You can’t say, “Eight out of ten of my clients say we’ve made a significant impact on their bottom line.” But it’s probably okay to say, “I was speaking to a client the other day, and she raised an issue I hadn’t encountered before: _______. What do you think? Is this something others are seeing, too? What are people doing about it?”
Of course, you can post pretty much whatever you want on your personal page. But here, too, it’s probably best to avoid overt selling or highly promotional language. Remember, most of the people who encounter your page won’t be actively looking to buy what you sell. But they may be highly valuable contacts nonetheless, so you don’t want to drive them away with a sales pitch. And if you do happen to connect with an active buyer, you’ll want to bring those conversations offline.
Self-Promotion in Groups
Here’s what LinkedIn says about what’s acceptable and what’s not in group discussions:
While the specific details of what’s considered self-promotion depends on the group, topics such as webinars, books, blogs, motivational speaking events, software sales, and real estate can be considered self-promotion. Try to avoid words like “buy,” “sell,” or “attend.”
One way to think of it is to make sure you’re talking with people and not talking at them. Here are some tips to posting content and making sure they are in line with the group’s goals:
•Check out existing discussions to see what’s welcome and what people respond to. Posts that don’t get comments are likely not getting the group’s attention.
•Post more than just a link. Help people see why your post is relevant and encourage discussion.
•Read the group rules. If the group doesn’t have rules, send a note to group management for guidance.
Make the most of your group by using the same etiquette you’d use to interact at a social event or a friend’s house.
Here are some best practices to help you become a valued group member:
•Make sure your conversations are relevant to the interests and intent of the group.
•Invite discussion. Ask for members’ input on a topic or article that you share and phrase your update as a question.
•If you find yourself disagreeing in a conversation, remember to keep discussion respectful.
•Avoid postings that may be seen as self-promotion.
•If you’re sharing a link or article, provide context on its relevance to the group.
•If you’re sharing a job opening with a group, post it under the Jobs tab.
•This is your group, so you can report spam when you see it. Reporting spam helps everybody in the group, and it helps identify trends so you can prevent similar activity in all groups.
Note: When fellow group members or group management feel that certain contributions don’t meet their group’s intent, they can take actions like reporting or removing comments, or even removing and blocking you from a gro
up. They monitor the frequency of those actions, and if too many occur, you could become subject to moderation in all your groups for a period of time.
CHAPTER
23
The Keys to the Castle:
Questions for Gatekeepers
FOR MOST OF my career in sales, the dreaded Gatekeeper was a figure to be feared. “Real” buyers hid deep within organizations, while receptionists and secretaries kept pesky salespeople at bay.
These days, few companies have the resources to maintain large support staffs, and the few gatekeepers who are left have largely been defanged by automated phone directories, social media, and voice mail.
I sort of wish for the good old days. At least you could engage with a living, breathing human being.
That said, you’ll still encounter gatekeepers, especially as you move up the ladder toward higher-value prospects. Front-line people—even those holding important positions—may be expected to answer their own phones (or not, and let calls go to voice mail). But top executives will still rely on personal assistants to help them manage their time and control access. Sometimes these gatekeepers wield considerable power. Sometimes they can be your ally. But at the end of the day, you still need to connect with someone who can actually buy what you sell.
The Initial Encounter
When you speak with a gatekeeper, be brief. Of course, be courteous and respectful, but also speak with authority and confidence. Often I’ve seen salespeople approach a gatekeeper with a tentative, almost apologetic tone. They ask who’s in charge of buying whatever, and would it be possible to speak to them? They act as if they’re imposing on the gatekeeper by asking him to do his job!