SocialMedia404

photo credit: Ange Soleil ( a.k.a Tweng )

The following three-step process will help you decide how to use social technologies to increase sales.  Selling today is less about the “buyer/seller” relationship, and more about connections in your broader community such as your staff, suppliers, clients, and so on.  

Before you start, ask yourself:

1.   Who is in my community?

2.   Can they participate on-line?

3.   Are resources available to create and support my community over the long term?

 

If you can answer yes to these questions you are ready to begin.  The process has three steps.

Step 1:

Define your community into two categories.

1.   Core – members you need to survive

a.    You

b.   Staff

c.    Customers

d.   Suppliers

e.    ?

2.   New – members you need to thrive

a.    New customers

b.   Specialized resources/experts

c.    Critics/product reviews/press

d.   ?

 

 Step 2:

Define how each member gives/gets value from each other today, and how they could give/get value once connected via the Internet.

You may need want to start with Core members, and add New later.  To keep things simple, I have only considered Core clients for now.

 My Community

	You Get	Customers Get	Suppliers Get
You Give	Operational information, issues/problems/ opportunities	Product/service, discounts, terms, order status, etc.	$$, order projections, issues/opportunities
Customers Give	$$, referrals, new product ideas,	Usage ideas, reviews, referrals, troubleshooting	Usage ideas, reviews,
Suppliers Give	Product/service, technical information, operational information	Technical information, how tos,	Operational information, issues/problems/ opportunities

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 3:

Now think about your goals. Sales strategies support organizational goals so think about yours; new customers, new products or what?

For this example let’s say you sell software, have 300 clients and your goal is to increase professional service fees.

Look back at the My Community table.  Is it consistent with your overall goals? Have you included people that generate professional service fees?  If not, add them and look at how they interact with other members of you community.  How could they exchange value to make you money?

 

Here are some suggestions I’d make in this situation.

1) Connect consultants to customers.

 

• Encourage consultants to blog about projects, problems and solutions.   Clients will be quick to call if they spot ideas that could work for them. 
• Encourage clients to subscribe to your RSS feeds.  They will feel more in touch, informed and aware with minimum effort on your part.

 

2) Connect customers to each other.

 

• Encourage clients to share stories, guest post, and comment on what they read.  An active community with will generate more ideas and opportunities than any consultant or company brainstorming session ever could!

 

4) Connect yourself!

 

• Play a central role.  Maintain the blog and make sure everyone is participating.
• Comb the content for ideas on how to increase professional service revenue.  Is there a solution to a problem you can standardize, is a customer expanding, have you asked happy clients for referrals and so on.

 

Sales 2.0 can be daunting.   If you don’t have the time to do a comprehensive strategy, tackle it in bite size pieces.  Keep it simple, use standard tools and remember that you can always adjust course along the way.