Social Selling Mastery
Scaling Up Your Sales and Marketing Machine for the Digital Buyer

Social Selling Mastery provides a key resource for sales and marketing professionals seeking a better way to connect with today's customer. Author Jamie Shanks has personally built Social Selling solutions in nearly every industry, and in this book, he shows you how to capture the mindshare of business leadership and turn relationships into sales. The key is to reach the buyer where they're conducting due diligence?online. The challenge is then to strike the right balance, and be seen as a helpful resource that can guide the buyer toward their ideal solution. This book presents a concrete Social Selling curriculum that teaches you everything you need to know in order to leverage the new business environment into top sales figures. Beginning with the big picture and gradually honing the focus, you'll learn the techniques that will change your entire approach to the buyer.

Social Selling is not social media marketing. It's a different approach, more one-to-one rather than one-to-many. It's these personal relationships that build revenue, and this book helps you master the methods today's business demands.

• Reach and engage customers online
• Provide value and insight into the buying process
• Learn more effective Social Selling tactics
• Develop the relationships that lead to sales

Today's buyers are engaging sales professionals much later in the buying process, but 74 percent of deals go to the sales professional who was first to engage the buyer and provide helpful insight. The sales community has realized the need for change?top performers have already leveraged Social Selling as a means of engagement, but many more are stuck doing "random acts of social," unsure of how to proceed. Social Selling Mastery provides a bridge across the skills gap, with essential guidance on selling to the modern buyer.

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction The Road Map to Digital Transformation 1

Part One : Creating a Mindset Shift for a Digital Transformation 11

Chapter 1 Why Do I Need to Change Now, Not Tomorrow? 13

Chapter 2 Leadership Executive Summary 21

Chapter 3 How Do I Drive Organizational Buy-in and Accountability? 25

Chapter 4 The Three Key Leadership Roles: Sales, Marketing, and Sales Operations/Enablement 31

Chapter 5 Organizational Tools and Metrics for Social Selling Success 37

Part Two : Social Selling Mastery for the Sales Professional 53

Chapter 6 Start Building a Personal Brand 55

Chapter 7 Develop Buyer-Centric Profiles: LinkedIn, Twitter, and Other Social Platforms 63

Chapter 8 Find: Socially Surround a Buyer and the Buying Committee 71

Chapter 9 Educate: Leveraging Content to Shape a Buyer’s Journey 87

Chapter 10 Engage: Touching “Every Deal, Every Day” with Social Media 95

Chapter 11 Develop: Scaling Up Your Social Networks 105

Chapter 12 Create a Social Selling Routine 109

Part Three : Building a Lead Factory with Digital Content Marketing 113

Chapter 13 Why Does Misalignment Exist between Sales and Marketing? 115

Chapter 14 What Is the Current State of Your Lead Factory? 123

Chapter 15 Create High-Quality, High-Quantity Content 131

Chapter 16 Organize Internal Content for Easy Access by Your Sales Force 145

Chapter 17 Discover Inbound and Outbound Marketing Hacks to Accelerate Lead Velocity 153

Chapter 18 Evaluate Your Customer’s Journey: Find the Trends and Improve Key Sales Interactions 159

Part Four : Scaling Up with Sales Operations and Sales Enablement 169

Chapter 19 How Do We Mitigate Skill Gaps with Our New Hires? 171

Chapter 20 Ongoing Coaching: How Do We Create a Repeatable Process? 175

Chapter 21 How Do We Effectively Scale a Social Selling Program Company-Wide? 181

Conclusion 187

Index 189

JAMIE SHANKS is CEO of Sales for Life, the world’s definitive social selling training and coaching company. He is a world leading social selling expert responsible for pioneering the space. He has trained thousands of sales professionals, from Fortune 500 companies to solopreneurs, and built social selling solutions in the majority of industries.