Then you are engaged in the social media equivalent of yet another Ready-Fire-Aim business development strategy.
It’s early enough in the New Year to stop yourselves from this unproductive practice. Right now.
To you, social selling spaghetti is a garnish, rather than an important component of the main deliverable of your business.
That mindset is not the best way to start off your company’s revenue generation efforts.
Think about it from your customers’ perspectives. The start of each fiscal year is a sales tsunami, isn’t it?
Inboxes are full of unfocused, untargeted solicitation letters from vendors your customers have never met – including you. Twitter feeds are full of shiny new Followers who send automated, supposedly provocative questions when you follow them back.
Have I just described your company’s – or your own – social selling efforts? Sounds like a plateful of social selling spaghetti to me, and to your customers as well.
Selling – any form of selling – is in full swing this time of year. Companies unleash their revitalized and highly motivated sales teams to “go get them”, all over again.
Let’s say your company has (finally) decided to engage in social selling efforts. My advice: look before you leap in there yourself or hire a social media company to handle your company’s brand, image and revenue generation strategy.
Because that is what is involved with your company’s social selling activities: brand, image and ROI.
These three variables are crucial to your long-term business development strategy being fulfilled. This strategy isn’t limited to sales results. It includes your internal Lean, Agile and Scrum activities to improve efficiency and reduce waste and improve profitability.
Social selling spaghetti impacts social business development. Have I got your attention now?
Before you get too far down the road throwing social selling spaghetti out there, let’s focus on four areas that need to be front and center for every aspect of your business.
- Purpose (Why)
- Process (How)
- Focus (Who)
- Discipline (When/Where)
Pretty basic, huh?
Yes, these are the same four activities that you, as a Businessperson of Worth, incorporate into “what you do” every day.
These are the four areas of endeavor that are consumed by day-to-day fire-fighting which gradually engulfs companies of any size, including startups and franchises.
That is why most social selling strategies resemble throwing social selling spaghetti against the wall. What type of customers do you plan on attracting with that tactic?
Take these four areas to heart at the start of your social selling activities. Right now. Differentiate yourself and your company in the process.
Develop consistent habits. Incorporate a social selling, and a social business, mindset into all of your daily and strategic activities. Even on the plant floor.
Develop thoughtful social selling strategies that span departments and disciplines. Yes, I’m talking cross-functional. I’m talking collaborative.
Avoid throwing social selling spaghetti against the wall that delivers confusing, disconnected and potentially dysfunctional messaging to your customers.
When you develop a social selling strategy that is pervasive throughout your company, your company is on the road to becoming a social business. We will talk about that concept in my next post.
There’s no place for throwing social selling spaghetti against the wall, hoping it will stick this year, or any year.
What do you think?
Babette N. Ten Haken, President of Sales Aerobics for Engineers®, LLC, is a management consultant and business coach. Babette develops business, technical and engineering professionals of worth. She remodels startups and small-to-medium manufacturing and service companies experiencing difficulty with unpredictable revenue streams. A recognized Top 50 Marketing & Sales Influencer, Babette’s blog won the 2014 Bronze Medal, Top Sales & Marketing Awards, Top Sales World. Her book on communication and collaboration strategies and tools, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com.
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