I use social to sell. I help companies use social to sell. I have for some time. Then, I learned something new about social selling that I never knew before. I have been spending the last couple months working with a company called Radius Intelligence. Their mission in life is to provide sales and marketing rich, up-to-date data on millions of small businesses. (try 26 million small businesses). That was not a shameless plug. Actually, I bring up my experience with them because I had a breakthrough while working with them: Social selling is an absolute must-do when selling to local business. We are doing a webinar on social selling to the small business with Jamie Shanks and Barb Giamanco (click here to check out the landing page)…I have2 slides: Yelp and how to use it. Oh and then maybe one other slide that says: “Why I think social selling is the killer app for selling local”.
A critical part in selling is to connect with your buyer on something they truly care about. There are two things in favor of the salespeople that sell to the local business: Business is deeply personal to the local business owner and social media can actually make and sometimes break a local business.
Call it the Yelp factor. Every small business knows what is being said about itself on Yelp. Think about it. Word of mouth is the life blood of the local business and social is automated word-of-mouth. Want to see for yourself: Walk into a local establishment and ask the boss about something you saw on Yelp — they will know.
As a sales person, you have access to that information and you should use it for
sales intelligence. PS when did you ever have access to that type of information? — local selling has always been a cold-walk-up business. Not anymore. You are armed. Here are some examples:
Use Yelp to warm up the cold calls– Mention their recent rave reviews on your call
Use Yelp on your first meeting — “Congratulations on being the first listing on yelp
Use Yelp to nurture — See a great review, send it over to them in an email with a congrats
And so on….
Beyond Yelp, check out a local business’s Facebook page or Twitter account and look for conversations and current deals. I am amazed how much great social data there is in the world of “local selling”.
Social selling, not just for the enterprise.
The Funnelholic was here.
PS Check this post out from Darian Shirazi on the topic.
Social Selling
Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter