5 Reasons Why Social Selling LinkedIn Will Generate You High Value Leads & Sales

Quick Summary:

We always provide a quick summary at the beginning of our blog posts so that you can decide if this article is for you or not.

Here are the 5 main reasons why Social Selling on LinkedIn will generate you high value leads & sales.

  • Positioning & Credibility 
  • Customer Insights
  • Highly Targeted Sales Pipeline
  • Competitive  Advantage
  • High Value Relationships

This article is for sales & marketing professionals that want to learn how a social selling process can help them and their team generate high value leads & sales.

We look at the core reasons why social selling is the modern way to develop meaningful relationships with highly targeted prospects that have you, and your brand, at the forefront of their mind – 365 days a year.

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Ready to roll? Let’s get started..

1. Positioning & Credibility

Before we begin let’s just quickly clarify what social selling is..

Social selling is the process in which sales people use social media to find and engage with new prospects and interact with them directly until the prospect is ready to buy.

The key takeaway from that definition are the words ‘ready to buy’ but that is something that we will look at in more detail later on in this article.

So let’s start with positioning and credibility.

In the world of social selling, you are not a sales rep. You are not on social media to sell your products or services. Not at all.

Well.. that is what your followers need to think anyway! You are there to help your followers (more on how to get those followers on point 3..), deliver them value and build rapport with them.

You see..

There are a few key things that need to happen on social media before a prospect will consider doing business with you.

They need to know, like and trust you. This isn’t just about sales and marketing, it is about human psychology.

If you jump on social media to try and sell your products & services immediately; then none of those boxes are going to be ticked.

Your prospects will immediately be put off by your approach and therefore will lose interest in what you have to say.

However.. If you lead with value. Put your prospects interests first and help them before asking for anything in return..

You will start to gain credibility in their eyes because they will start to trust you. When someone trusts another person, they are more likely to listen to their advice.

At some point that advice may lean towards the products/services you sell.. 

But the important thing here is that you must position yourself as a thought leader in your niche; rather than someone that is trying to sell a specific product or service.

You may be thinking..

How do I position myself as a thought leader?

How am I supposed to establish myself as someone that people will want to listen to?

Well this has a lot to do with personal branding and the content that you deliver on social media.

Your personal brand should be directly related to the niche you serve and your content should predominantly be aimed at helping your target market solve the problems they face in their jobs / lives.

If you know your target audience well.. We mean really well. And have gone through the necessary steps of building a detailed Customer Avatar.

You will know what sort of obstacles they are facing; so your content can help them overcome some of those obstacles.

We come from a consultative sales background, where the focus is always on creating WIN-WIN situations and relationships.

This aligns perfectly with the principle of social selling because you will only really be selling to the people that really need your products and services; at the precise time they need them.

There are a couple of reasons why this is so important.

  • You don’t try to sell to someone that is not ready to buy or doesn’t need your product / service at that specific point in time. Therefore you won’t ‘burn your bridges’ with that lead and thanks to the credibility and positioning that you establish on social media. You will be front of mind when they do need your help.
  • You will generate high value relationships as you will be selling people the exact solution they need. This results in customer loyalty and a lot of referrals as clients will want to spread the word of how amazing you are!

     

So to conclude this point..

By positioning yourself in the right way and establishing yourself as a thought leader in your niche..

You are going to become a real credible & respected source of information for your followers and they will get to know, like and trust you.

This will put you in the perfect position to generate a steady stream of high value leads and convert those leads at the precise point they need your products and services.

2. Customer Insights

Social media is a great place to learn and respond to what your customers really, really want and what motivates them deep down inside.

Pains and problems change and unless you have a close eye on what your customers are saying, you are going to miss out on crucial market data and more importantly..

A lot of high value business opportunities. There is simply no better place to find out what your followers are struggling with than social media.

Unless you listen to what your customers are saying, you are not going to be able to prescribe the right solution to them at the right time.

Data you gather on social media can be the catalyst for several elements of your social selling process and other crucial business processes for that matter.


  • Content Strategy (catering for the problems your followers are writing about..)
  • Product & Service Development (tailor your services to fit in with their needs..)
  • Customer Profiling (who really needs what you have to offer..)
  • Targeting (who are the most relevant customer profiles to invite into your network – more on this on point 3..)

Being present, active & engaging on social media will help you fulfill the needs of your followers when the opportunity arises, before they start to look elsewhere.

This is all about being relevant at the perfect time.

If you establish credibility and trust which we discussed in point 1, you are going to be their go-to person when they encounter the problem you solve.

But don’t worry..

You don’t need to spend all day everyday on social media to be in the right place at the right time.

Download our 60 minute daily checklist to find out what you need to focus on, and how long you need to spend on each strategy.

This lays the perfect foundations for a buyer driven sales process where you will deeply understand your customers and their problems.

Your brand will also be timely and relevant to your followers needs which is essential to converting high value relationships.

3. Highly Targeted Sales Pipeline

So our speciality is LinkedIn because this is the social media platform that we believe offers the greatest potential to start, nurture and convert high value business relationships.

With over 500 million users; it is the largest platform for business professionals and therefore the best place to get the biggest ROI for the time you spend on a social selling process.

Don’t just take out word for it 🙂

We could give you a million reasons why we think LinkedIn is the perfect platform to generate high value leads & sales for your business but the one we mainly focus on for this point is the outbound marketing opportunities it offers.

On LinkedIn; you are able to purposefully connect with your perfect customers and use highly detailed search criteria to find the exact type of person you want to become a follower.

You can target by industry, type of company, seniority level (to name just a few..).

Once you take the time to go through the search options available; you will generate a highly targeted list of prospects which are going to have a lot of the characteristics of your perfect customers (this is why it is so important to have a detailed image of your customer avatar available..).

Once you have that list you can save it and then purposefully connect with a number of those prospects every day and bring them into your professional social network.

This will help you build a highly targeted social sales pipeline which you communicate with and build relationships with every single day.

As a result that pipeline will grow all the time as you connect with more and more people and as long as you have the correct content and engagement strategy in place, prospects will connect with you too.

Why?

Because they will want to follow your content, learn from you and therefore be part of your network.

For that reason we have people connecting with us all the time thanks to our value driven approach to social selling.

It goes a long way to building your social sales pipeline at an accelerated rate.

Social Selling LinkedIn

This is the wonderful thing about social selling.

Unlike other digital marketing strategies (like Google Adwords for example..) you are not going to pay a premium for a single click..

To grab your audience’s attention for a few seconds..

And then be forgotten a few minutes later if the prospect decides you are not for them or they are not ready to be converted at the precise moment in time.

Once a targeted lead enters your social world, they stay there. 

They will be exposed to you and your brand constantly from that moment in time.

So if the time isn’t right for them to be converted. No problem! You will be there waiting when the time is right! And you do this by being helpful (adding value..), present and engaging with their content.

It’s all about relevancy and maintaining attention!

So to summarise this point.

Through social selling (on LinkedIn anyway..) you are able to build a social selling pipeline of highly targeting leads by searching for and connecting with your perfect customers.

As a result; once connected, these targeted leads will be exposed to you and your brand on a daily basis which provides you with the opportunity to build high value business relationships (more on that in point 5..).

The fantastic thing about having a highly targeted social selling pipeline is that you are in the perfect position to convert leads when the need for your solution becomes apparent (you can work on creating that desire through your content strategy of course :-)..)

Therefore, as long as you lead with value and build trust with your audience, you will become the go to person in your niche.

Starting to make sense? 🙂

Great, lets move on to point 4.

 

4) Competitive Advantage

How many of your competitors are implementing an effective social selling process? The chances are, a lot of your competitors are present and ‘dabble’ with social media.

But dabbling and having an effective social selling strategy are two very different things! 🙂

By implementing a social selling process which focuses on the right strategies and generates a good ROI; you are going to elevate your brand and yourself above your competitors.

Think about it for a second..

If you are able to connect and build relationships with your perfect customers on social media. Who are they going to turn to when they have a need or desire for your products / services?

If their colleagues or partner organisations have a problem which you solve; who are they going to recommend?

Yes…You!

As a result of building a targeted social sales pipeline; you are going to be constantly present in your perfect customers lives.

The more active you are in building your network; the more people you will be able to influence with your content & engagement strategy. This means less customers for your competitors!

We really want to emphasise this point because there are very few organisations implementing an effective social selling process in their organisation.

This presents you and your team with a massive opportunity to gain a competitive advantage in the market.

Being able to build a network of highly targeted prospects is not something that can be underestimated because of the points we have gone through already in this article.

If building high value relationships is something that you want to implement; the leverage that social selling offers you to achieve this is a great investment of your time and resources.

Your content and post comments will reach a huge amount of people which means you are able to influence behaviour on a mass scale.
Just to wrap up this point; social selling is all about building a community and network of your perfect customers. If you do that and focus on adding value; you are in prime position to convert them into customers when the time is right.

If you establish a relationship with your prospects; they will come to you rather than your competitors.

5) Relationships

If you know anything about us or what we do..

You will know that we are all about building relationships. We are relationship marketers.

We don’t think there is a better way to generate high value customers because If you care about your prospects, guide them, advise them then guess what.

They will care back..

This all relates to the Strategy of Preeminance by a famous marketer called Jay Abraham.

The strategy of preeminence is how you operate a preeminent (surpassing all others, very distinguished in some way) business.

And it is how we run our business. It’s how we approach marketing. It’s how we approach sales. To be honest it is kind of how we approach everything.

What is the strategy of preeminence in a nutshell?

It’s when you don’t wait for money to change hands before you start helping, supporting, guiding, advising and consulting your (potential) customers.

It’s about having a value led approach and therefore establishing an outwardly facing brand.

If you do this.. You will create a following of fans that will buy from you again and again because you are guiding them and helping them.

Remember earlier we talked about creating WIN-WIN relationships. This fits in perfectly with having a preeminent approach.

So how does this all fit in with social selling?

Well.. the strategy you need to adopt when implementing a social selling process is a preeminent one.

One that is outwardly focused and therefore is all about helping your target audience.

By implementing this type of approach, you will build relationships with your audience. The type of relationships that will generate high value sales (when the time is right..)

When you take a preeminent approach to social selling; you are not forcing products or services into the faces of your audience.

You are not trying to make them buy something which at that point in time isn’t right for them (this creates WIN-LOSE relationships..).

In contrast you should really be focusing on building relationships. That’s it.
By doing this you will be positioning yourself and your business perfectly to convert these relationships into high value sales later on.

In the world of social selling you have to take a long term view of things; and realise that business success is not based on short term wins.

It is about building long term high value relationships and when you do this; the returns you receive will eclipse any short term gains you make.

Relationships are at the heart of high value sales. We don’t have any doubts about that. And for that reason social selling is the perfect way to build those relationships on a mass scale.

Want our one page summary of the Strategy of Preeminence?

Let’s summarise this point; by adopting a preeminent approach to social selling (and your sales & marketing processes in general..) you are able to start, build and nurture high value business relationships.

Social selling is the ideal process to build these types of relationships and to leverage your time by building them on a mass scale.

Above all focus on helping and not selling on social media and adopt a long term focus.

As a result; this will give the biggest return in the long run 🙂

Your Next Steps

We hope you enjoyed this article..

And learnt a thing or two.

That is why we wrote it 🙂

Let us ask you something..

Do you have a Social Selling Process implemented in your business?

And if the answer to that question is yes..

Is it generating you the ROI you would like?

If you feel like taking your social selling strategy to the next level..

Make sure you get access to all our free resources below (which also gets you access to our free 7 lesson training) and implement an effective social selling strategy in your business.

Or you can book a time to speak to us here.

Up to you really 🙂

It’s time for action!

Thanks for reading!