Social Selling Made Easy

Social networks represent a huge lead generation opportunity for sales professionals. But taking full advantage of this opportunity – using the right social sites, connecting to the right people, posting with proper etiquette and following company policies – can seem overly complex and overwhelming.

That’s why I’m so impressed with PeopleLinx. It makes the process so easy that I’m happily bestowing a Richy Award on it for Best Social Selling Tool.

At Richardson Sales Performance, we test drive a lot of sales support and enablement tools; and, as a leader in sales training and performance improvement, we know a winner when we see one. We created the Richy Awards as a way to recognise cool, innovative and standout products that make an impact on improving sales effectiveness and efficiency.

That brings me back to PeopleLinx. Created by early LinkedIn employees in 2009, PeopleLinx makes social selling easy. And that’s important because, as studies show, buyers now complete 60 per cent of their decision process before ever contacting a sales professional. Buyers are also five times more likely to trust online recommendations from people they know than from brands. And social leads generated by individuals are seven times more likely to close than those generated from corporate accounts.

PeopleLinx takes advantage of cloud-based technology and integrates completely with CRM systems. It helps to drive new business using social networks by providing the tools required for social selling success. For example, sales professionals using PeopleLinx can easily achieve the following:

• Enhance their personal brands by optimising their social profiles.
• Leverage networks to get warm introductions to sales targets.
• Share relevant and engaging content that attracts leads.
• Listen to social networks for business opportunities.

The system includes automated alerts to sales professionals when there’s new content available for sharing. They can then post approved content to multiple social networks from their smartphone, tablet or computer. Salesforce.com integration delivers seamless access in the context of daily workflow, and gamification creates a competitive dynamic that spurs adoption. The impact of social sharing can be measured through analytics that track tasks completed, content shared and interactions generated with potential prospects.

Whether you’re already immersed in content marketing using social media or unsure how to start, consider this final statistic: Research shows that sales teams hit their quotas 31 per cent more frequently when they use LinkedIn, Twitter and other social networks as part of their process. Now consider your approach, current or planned. Then do yourself a favour and check out PeopleLinx to, as its tagline says, “Empower your teams to drive awareness, leads and deals through social networks.” It really is Social Selling Made Easy!