How do you make social selling an indispensable part of your commercial strategy? Yannick Sel, commercial director at Sarens, a global leader in heavy lifting and technical transport, discovered that the power of social selling mainly lies in the direct interaction with decision makers. But how do you effectively integrate this sales approach into your processes? What are the benefits of sharing relevant content? And what valuable lessons can others learn from this?
Yannick: “Social selling is not only about posting content about your company online, but also about engagement with the people who respond to your posts. It is a powerful sales tool that makes it possible to approach decision makers directly. In the past, you often had to look up a company’s telephone number in the Yellow Pages, but now almost everyone is on social media and people do their own research before contacting us. That is why it is so important that we actively share our activities and solutions online, so that potential customers see and find us and we remain top-of-mind.”
Challenges when implementing social selling within your organization
“For many employees, social selling is a completely new approach, and the younger generation is picking up on this more quickly than the older ‘telephone book generation’. Many employees are used to relying on their existing network and waiting for customers to call them. They are busy enough without proactively looking for new contacts. It is important to motivate and encourage them and show them how they can use social media effectively: how do you use it, what do you click on and which search terms are useful?
How does it really become part of your commercial strategy?
“Everything revolves around constant follow-up by the sales people themselves. If social selling is not embedded in their daily routine, it remains an optional ‘extra’ that they perform occasionally when there is time left. That is why we have shared a number of great success stories in which the new sales strategy has delivered clear results. This feedback to the sales team worldwide creates interest and motivates people to continue with the approach themselves.”
Valuable lessons within the adoption process
“A learning point is that we could not simply roll out the approach we have here worldwide. Because although social selling is a broad concept, it mainly revolves around LinkedIn, which is not common in some countries, such as China. So when we wanted to implement that for all teams from our head office in Belgium, we received feedback on it. That is why we are now also looking at platforms such as WeChat.
Set a good example – lead by example! Management must also be active on social media, how else can we expect that from our employees? Furthermore, we always link strategic projects to marketing. We look at which marketing tools, including social media, we can use. And as commercial director, I ensure that we can create the right and necessary content.”
Be relevant
“How indispensable good and relevant content is became clear during a project in Taiwan. A customer asked if we were even active there and if we had references. Well that was indeed the case! We immediately launched some strong posts on social media, and believe or not, after just 2-3 weeks we received no more questions, even from new decision makers who joined later. They were also well informed by now.”
Advice for other organizations?
“Make sure you inspire your sales team with positive cases of previous successes in social selling. This shows that potential and existing customers approach you based on your social media posts. Active engagement is a must! Always use practical examples, otherwise it will all remain somewhat theoretical.
In the past, many employees thought that social media was mainly a marketing task. I then show that there are people who follow them personally on LinkedIn, but not necessarily the Sarens channel. By being active themselves, they position themselves as a trusted advisor. In this way, they discover step by step the power of social selling for making valuable connections and taking advantage of sales opportunities. And yes, this requires commitment and proactivity, but the benefits are absolutely worth it!”