Chapter 8

Aligning Sales in Social CRM

When implementing social CRM, your company needs to help salespeople adapt to the social media style of customer engagement. This requires salespeople to manage significant change. However, salespeople can transition to social CRM more smoothly by adopting the following attributes:

Salespeople need to put customers at the center of their world and work outward from there. If they're used to old-school sales techniques, that can be a tall order.

In the following sections, you find out how social CRM changes the sales cycle and learn strategies that will help your sales team adapt.

Challenging the New Social Salesperson

The new social salesperson is called upon to place special emphasis on customer relationships more directly than ever before. The ability to reach a customer directly is an advantage to the salesperson who likes relationshipbased selling. If the salesperson is used to focusing on the product, she'll have a much harder time in this environment. In the sections that follow, you find out what characteristics can help your salespeople support you company's transition to social CRM. We also offer tips for persuading your sales team to use the new social CRM technology and sales methods.

Identifying your sales team's strengths

For their book, The New Power Base Selling, Jim Holden and Ryan Kubacki interviewed more than 28,000 business-to-business sellers in 35 countries during the years 1998–2011. The researchers measured the salespeople and their skills in the following seven core competencies that a successful salesperson has. They list the first three competencies that follow as the most important ones:

To help your sales staff cultivate these characteristics, offer training and reading lists. You need to make it as easy as possible for salespeople to make the transition to social CRM.

Encouraging compliance with social CRM

Aside from the challenges to the salesperson, we've identified several challenges in this chapter when businesses try to integrate social CRM and sales. The issue of compliance among their sales force is often mentioned. Compliance refers to the fact that some salespeople don't use the social CRM tools and systems available to them and fail to comply with new policies for a company's social CRM initiative.

It's critical that businesses convince their sales force to use these systems so that businesses can meet the following challenges:

If your sales team struggles to see social media as an added value, they'll need proof that social media will make a difference to their bottom line. So what are some of the benefits that can accrue to salespeople who adopt social media and use social CRM tools? They include the following:

Those benefits sound great, don't they? You may wonder what stands in the way of adopting these methods. The main impediment is that it requires a lot of training and extra effort. That would stop any busy employees in their tracks.

The salesperson has to become well-versed in the tools, set up and learn new procedures, and spend time doing new things. Any businessperson faced with that challenge would be reluctant to meet it without a lot of proof that it will close more sales and increase commissions. Another issue is the amount of collaboration required by almost the entire enterprise to make social CRM a reality. The details in later sections in this chapter help you make the case to your sales team.

Building Sales Intelligence

Today, sales intelligence means getting vast stores of information into the hands of employees. However, advances in computing power generate more data than your sales team could ever use.

The development of dashboards has been a welcome addition for managers who were drowning in data they couldn't utilize. The abundance of this data has come to be known as big data, a term that refers to data that is so numerous that the usual databases are inadequate.

When you add social media data to the typical CRM system, the integration is problematic.

The mix of real-time external data and internal data adds a layer of complexity. Internal data is data that is produced inside the company — for instance, data regarding sales and expenses. External data is the data that's produced outside the company and pulled from such places as social media, news, and competitors.

At this point, it's helpful to look at the kind of data you expect to have in a social CRM system designated by source — either external or internal — so that you can understand the complexity. This list is by no means an exhaustive one.

Here are some categories and examples of data sourced internally:

Here are some categories and examples of data sourced externally:

External data can come from current customers, industry influencers, self-identified loyalists, active social media commenters, and the news media. Obviously, tying this all together requires finely tuned systems, which is why the enterprise is grappling with it.

The Satmetrix Worldwide Social Media for Business Study in 2012 found that in the U.S., 31 percent of the companies surveyed didn't track or follow up with social media. It's one thing to collect the data and quite another to use it.

One of the major problems businesses face is using the data they collect. Both managers and salespeople alike have more data than they can use. What companies need to do is to take the raw data and package it up in a way that makes it accessible to everyone.

Valuing the Collaborative Sales Model

The use of new technology makes collaboration much easier. Today, teams can work across time zones and share whiteboards that are in the cloud. Video conferencing can bring everyone face to face across a virtual table.

But issues still arise about the best way for sales teams to collaborate across the enterprise. The pace is usually frantic as groups struggle to meet deadlines and complete projects. It can be hard for teams to assimilate the new technology available to them. It can also be hard to reach across to other business functions.

Regardless of the business function involved, most enterprises deal with the issues brought on by a silo mentality — a term that refers to the mindset that each business function operates independently of the others. They don't share information or work and play well with other departments. In this section, we look at some new ways that sales teams are collaborating within their organization and how innovation and productivity tips can help.

Categorizing the social sales ecosystem

Previously, sales departments often ran their own fiefdoms. They dictated the type of data they needed and controlled the information necessary to make sales. Now, groups can't work in isolation. To have a well-functioning social CRM system, several groups need to be intimately involved in the sales process.

Aside from the sales function itself, each group in the ecosystem has a major contribution to make to the new social sales environment. Without collaboration, each group couldn't function. The social sales ecosystem is as follows:

Collaboration becomes the key that will help the entire organization realize its business goals and make social CRM a reality.

Embracing the cloud

Who ever thought that big business could be driven by something as ethereal as a cloud? But that's what happened. Cloud-based computing refers to the use of software that you access and use online (metaphorically in the cloud). Previously, companies housed all enterprise software on its internal computers or at big data centers full of equipment.

Big companies had the advantage because they could afford more and faster equipment. Small businesses suffered in comparison. They weren't considered for major assignments because they just didn't have the computing power to execute on large projects. Enter the cloud! The playing field starts to level.

With the advent of new cloud-based applications, any company can have access to the data that its employees need to get the job done. Cloud computing levels the playing field because small businesses don't need special equipment. It makes it easy for everyone to access the same data and collaborate with their team members. Previously, teams couldn't be sure if they were all using the same data. Now with cloud computing, everyone can have the latest, best data.

Some benefits of cloud-based applications are as follows:

One of the most well-known cloud-based applications that serves salespeople is Salesforce.com (http://salesforce.com), as shown in Figure 8-1. The company works toward making its system one of the best social CRM systems available. Find out more about Salesforce.com and similar systems in Chapter 16.

Figure 8-1: Salesforce.com.

Checking out collaboration tools

If an organization doesn't have a social CRM system, employees can still find online tools that will help them collaborate effectively. There are hundreds of new collaboration tools available that can help salespeople work effectively as a team. We list several here to get you started:

Figure 8-2: Doodle offers a scheduling service.

Figure 8-3: Freedcamp.

Figure 8-4: Twiddla.

Interacting with the New Social Customer

Most businesses understand that they need to focus on the fact that their customers are talking back in record numbers. The part they often overlook is the establishment of effective plans to listen to their customers. Listening effectively requires staff and resources dedicated to the effort.

Once they have the resources in place, the data then needs to be analyzed to provide real value to the entire organization. The question, then, becomes what to monitor. It's easy to follow a Twitter stream or look at daily Facebook comments, but brands have to go much deeper to get any real meaning from these comments. They need to understand trends and be able to predict what comes next.

Listening to the customer

With the advent of big data, listening to the customer becomes one of the most valuable ways companies can figure out what customers want. It also can be problematic because there is so much of it. You need to figure out how you will analyze and use it. In his book CRM at the Speed of Light (McGraw-Hill Osborne Media), Paul Greenberg cites a Price Waterhouse study from 2008 called How Consumer Conversation Will Transform Business.

In the study, Price Waterhouse identified these four ways to monitor the customer conversation in a meaningful way:

When the data is categorized in these four ways, all functions in the organization can use these categories to make better decisions. For example, you can see how customer service would want to be aware of data about the tone, and the marketing department would want to know about authoritativeness. The sales team would also want to know about authoritativeness to determine if any of their accounts were part of a larger discussion about the brand.

The key is to make sure everyone gets this data. That's the big challenge in making social CRM a reality.

Selling to the buying brain

As research becomes more sophisticated in its knowledge of the inner workings of the brain, marketing and sales groups try to formulate newer, more effective ways to sell to us. They appeal to our emotions. They realize that although we think we're rational when we make buying decisions, we buy on emotion.

In his book, The Buying Brain (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.), A.K. Pradeep explores how we feel about brands and their relationship to us as people. He found that if we relate any of the following benefits to the use of a certain brand, we're likely to buy:

You can see that features and benefits are important, but they don't really get to the heart of why people buy. For instance, a particular car may get low gas mileage, but if the buyer believes he appears financially successful when he drives it, we know he may buy it anyway.

We're all guilty of buying for less than rational reasons. In addition, studies show that we provide ourselves with rational reasons to hide the emotional ones. Add this subconscious motivation to the recommendations, critiques, and opinions of social media users and you've got a complicated stew of buying motivations.

For customers to connect emotionally to your product, you need to provide multisensory experiences, whether those experiences are in a store or online. In a store, you may sell products by encouraging customers to interact with a product. A store can structure these interactions so they're informative and entertaining. Research has shown that buyers who pick up physical items are more likely to buy them than those who just look at them. Think about this the next time you go into a store saying that you're just going to look. If you pick the item up, you may be standing in the checkout line sooner than you intended.

Because buying online is a different experience, how can your sales team translate the multisensory experience that customers find in a store into an online environment? Here are a few ways you can translate the power of multisensory experiences to a website or other online channel where you conduct sales:

Leading the New Lead Generation

When you peruse information about selling to the social customer, you'll find two concepts virtually absent from the discussion — cold calling and purchasing leads. Social media has changed the way buyers let you interact with them.

You may still get a phone call from someone selling a service, but the approach seems like an anachronism. It's more likely that you'll get an e-mail from a brand representative following up on a white paper you downloaded or a comment you made on a social platform. As sales guru Jeffrey Gitomer has said, “Social media is the new cold call.”

Customers don't want to be picked seemingly at random to receive a sales pitch. Everyone is overwhelmed, with little time to spare. The idea that they would have the time to take calls that don't interest them is laughable. Customers believe that they will spend some of their time identifying the products and services they want and then they will let the salesperson educate them.

Connecting ROI with social media

A key to understanding how managers move from an old sales paradigm to a new social one is the issue of return on investment (ROI). Companies often have a hard time quantifying the return they get from participating in social media.

For example, how does a business manager calculate ROI for the amount of time a salesperson spends on Facebook? If she sees no direct sale as a result, does that mean the time was wasted?

Managers are used to tying revenue to campaigns, so it stands to reason that they would want to do the same with social media campaigns. Managers want to be able to look at statistics like “20 percent increase in Likes on Facebook” and attach a revenue number to it. The problem is that it's hard to quantify the value of a recommendation or a positive comment. Clearly that's not possible in the same way sales data is quantified.

An infographic called The ROI of Social Media (created by MDG Advertising) is published here:

According to the infographic, managers are looking beyond the usual sales metrics to measurements like:

When you look at the social media data that way, it becomes a tangible way to value the activity. So the question becomes tying social media to lead generation by looking at how the social media buyers determines what they will buy. In the next section, you see how at every step in the buyer's decision-making process, social media plays a role.

Following the path of the new social buyer

Some salespeople still need to be convinced that social media adds value to their efforts. Previously, salespeople conducted B2B sales in the same way as the generations that came before them. The introduction of social media into the sales process changed everything, but old habits die hard.

To understand how customers' buying decisions play out, the researchers documented the customer journey. We use the example of searching for a new toaster and follow the path to see how the conversion evolves. The consumer starts with search and follows through to the purchase taking the following path:

1. Searching for brands: The consumer begins her journey by learning which brands make the type of product she wants. It's a general search that helps her narrow the search to specific brands. Here are some examples of searches: toasters best, toasters four slice, and toasters stainless steel.

   A Google search of possible toaster brands includes brand names like Black & Decker, T-Fal, and Cuisinart. Search terms could include the brand name with the word toasters, such as T-Fal toasters.

2. Searching for blogs with product information and reviews: Next in her investigation is a look at blogs that contain information about toasters. You can do this easily by using the Blog option on Google Search and typing in toasters.

   For example, a search on toaster blogs yields results that include Consumer Reports (www.consumerreports.org/cro/toasters.htm) and HouseKool (www.housekool.com/shopping/?okw=toasters).

3. Visiting competitors' websites: After the consumer determines who the competitors are and gets a feel (via product reviews on blogs) for the issues she should consider, she looks at the actual competitive sites. For example, she goes to Cuisinart's toaster page (www.cuisinart.com/products/toasters.html) and that of other competitors to compare specific models.
4. Searching review sites for the industry or product: Next, she looks at review sites that discuss competitive advantages of and prices for specific toasters. For example, Epinions (www.epinions.com/toasters?sb=1), shown in Figure 8-5, provides tools that help consumers compare toasters and price by brand, size, price range, features, and stores.

   Recommendations, reviews, and critiques from customers drive today's sales process. A wealth of data and opinions about products is just a click away. Customers who want to get the best value for their money can't help but investigate the information available to them. For B2B (business-to-business) buyers, the information is so plentiful that they have to actively work to separate fact from fiction. That's where other businesspeople's opinions really matter. They want to know if products really deliver on their promise and won't settle for the salesperson's word. Previously, the only way a customer or buyer could research a salesperson's claim was to belong to a business group or call his colleagues. In contrast, today's customer can roam the world to get the opinions of others.

   Figure 8-5: Epinions on toasters.

   

5. Searching for deals or discounts: The consumer follows links to specific advertising, looking for deals or discounts.
6. Buying a product (conversion): The consumer makes her purchase decision and most likely follows the brand on Twitter or clicks the brand's Like button on Facebook.

In this example, we used a consumer product. Notice how often social media and search figured into the investigation.

If the consumer instead undertook a B2B search, the path wouldn't look that different. The key to understanding the B2B path is to analyze the type of information the buyer looks at prior to making a decision. We cover that in the upcoming section, “Creating content for buying.”

Recognizing the new social media persona

When you're targeting customers, it can be helpful to develop personas. This tactic has been used for several years and has proven to aid salespeople in better understanding the customer. A persona is a representative of one of your company's target customers. You can create as many as you need, but if you don't create any, you won't be able to focus on selling with the kind of precision that personas allow.

Besides a name and picture, a typical persona includes

Personas help the team focus on all they ways they can develop relationships with customers.

A study by Aimia called Staring at the Sun: Identifying, Understanding and Influencing Social Media Users identified six social media personas, shown in Table 8-1, that can help you begin to think through your own company's target customers. Look at them and see if you see your customer profile there. You can find the study here:

Table 8-1 Aimia Social Media Personas

You can use the previous information about social media personas to help you create your company personas. For example, you could look at the age groups of the social media personas and see how closely that matches your audience. The age range they cover is approximately 20–50. If your audience fits somewhere in there, see if you can narrow it down by income.

Creating content for buying

It's important to be aware of how much information the buyer has before he gets on your radar screen. Some say approximately 75 percent of customers research a product before buying. If you ignore the quality or type of information available to your customer, your sale could be dead before you're even aware of the customer's interest.

If you work for a large enterprise, the quality and quantity of the information created is usually controlled by a central group. The likelihood that you have to create your own collateral increases as the size of the organization decreases.

Here are some types of content the social media customer wants before ever speaking to a sales rep:

As a salesperson, you need to make sure that you are aware of online content that your customers are finding and using. The content your company provides about your products keeps the customer on your site. This is very important. If your customer frequently comes back and spends time on your site, you're more likely to make a sale.

Closing the social sales cycle

The most important thing about your content is that the buyer can access it online and never have to speak to a salesperson until she's ready. This changes the sales dynamic. The new social customer is usually well-informed about products and pricing.

Becoming the Trusted Advisor

A change in mindset is required for salespeople who want to utilize social media in their sales efforts. They need to think of themselves as both independent entities and as parts of the enterprise team.

If you work in a small company or are the sole salesperson, it's easy to see how stepping out and building your own sales profile will get you sales momentum. Most likely, you will be encouraged to take an active role.

If you work for a larger company, you need to create a fine balance between representing your company as a whole and getting publicity for yourself. When salespeople didn't have access to the tools to speak directly to potential customers, there was no conflict. Today, salespeople need to understand the complexity of gaining popularity under their own name as well as representing the enterprise.

So which social networks are most effective for salespeople? According to the infographic Social Media Facts & Figures for B2B Sales created by InsideView (www.insideview.com/social-media-facts.html), the most popular social media sites for generating B2B traffic in 2011 are

Figure 8-6: Stumble-Upon.

These are all social media networks that require a variety of activity from the salesperson — posting articles, talking about products, and alerting customers to new promotions. The key to unlocking value for your enterprise is to find out how your company wants sales to engage on these channels.

For example, if you establish a profile on LinkedIn, can you send out articles of interest to your audience or must you use only approved company content? (See the next section.) You could ask the same question regarding all the previously mentioned channels.

Establishing a sales profile with content

A salesperson is most often required to use the collateral her company provides. Usually, she can use product sheets, white papers, and all sorts of other material that support the sales effort. If the company has a website, it's likely that customers can find a great deal of information there.

But what about content that the salesperson wants to create to support her own efforts? Usually, the company grants permission for staff to create their own custom sales presentations and other written material to support a specific sales effort.

In this social media environment, salespeople also find the need to create content to communicate with a wider audience. If they want to be seen as experts, the quality of the content they create is critical. This puts pressure on them to develop content that supports the specific needs of the customer. So what's the criteria for creating that type of content? According to Marketo (www.marketo.com) in their white paper Creating Content that Sells, these six rules of effective content marketing should guide salespeople:

Once you've written your content, decide where to distribute it. You want to make sure you get the most eyeballs. Following are some suggested venues and tactics for distributing your content:

Figure 8-7: Board-Reader.

Creating relationships on LinkedIn

According to most surveys, LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) — the signup page is shown in Figure 8-8 — is the social media platform that salespeople prefer for networking, for these reasons:

Figure 8-8: LinkedIn.

Consider the following best practices for salespeople using LinkedIn:

Using a tablet to be more productive

Although there were skeptics who thought the iPad wouldn't be popular, it has sold more units in a two-year period than any other tech device. In fact, tablets as a category are doing quite well. Staples predicts that by 2015 there will be 82.1 million tablet users in the United States. Tablets are lightweight, have multiple apps, and can do lots of things your laptop can do. The only drawback that people perceive is its lack of a keyboard and mouse.

For some salespeople, tablets have become invaluable because they are easy to carry, less expensive than a computer, and can keep documents up to date while you're on the go. They let salespeople more easily interface with a company's social CRM system when they're out in the field.

Some benefits include

Several companies have picked up on the fact that presenting a sales pitch on a tablet can be very appealing. The images look great, and the ability to link to online content on the fly gives a presentation more depth. Here's some interesting technology that's available to create presentations on tablets:

Figure 8-9: StoryDesk.