My first attempt at social selling was 'poking' my uncle and following up to see if he needed credit card insurance (he didn't, by the way). My most recent attempts at social selling got me the commission check that paid for my honeymoon.

But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself...

How many of your sales reps are on Facebook every day?

If it's anything like the sale floor I work on, it’s nearly everyone.

Fact of the matter is, people use Facebook 2x more than any other social networking site in the world.

The people are there. Your sales reps are there. Now here’s the most important question of all:

How Many Leads Do You Get Through Social Media?

If the answer is less than a couple leads or sales a day, you're doing it wrong.

Think about it this way, if you have a staff of 10 who work in front of a computer 8 hours a day, they will spend almost 20,000 hours in front of social media this year.

If your sales staff put 20,000 hours into any other sales activity with zero return, what would you do?

So, by simply leveraging the already existing social media habits of your employees, you can drive new business by close to 60% via social selling!

How hard would it be to get even 10% of that time dedicated to building leads or developing potential sales relationships?

The problem with social selling, is not a general lack of skill or understanding how it works (if your staff is looking for another job, they'll know how to use LinkedIn pretty damn quickly), the problem is strictly time management.

Looking for interesting content, developing a sales funnel strategy, knowing the best times of the day or week to get messages out (and then carving out the time to actually get the posts up), these are the actual obstacles in social selling for your sales team.

Now the hard facts:

• HubSpot reports that 40% of salespeople have closed a deal through social media, yet the vast majority of sales floors don't have a social selling process in place.
• According to Forbes, salespeople engaged in social selling outperform 78% of their peers and exceed quota by 10%.
• LinkedIn and Altimeter Group suggest that companies that embrace social selling, are 57% more likely to increase sales leads.

To solve this issue, there are a few of routes you can take, the most popular being the following 3 options:

• Dedicate an Hour per Week to Social Sales Training You work hard to ensure that your sales professionals are armed with the tools they need to drive the most amount of sales possible. Dedicating one hour per week to Social Sales training is a great way of staying ahead of the curve – and will get you results! The first step in the process is identifying Social Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s). Here’s a great article on Sales Benchmark Index to get you started. Follow up regularly and track/quantify all results.
• Hire a Third Party to Assist with Training It’s hard to “fake it until you make it” especially when it comes to social media and social selling experience. Call in some great reinforcements like Vorsight - who offer full tactical training and staffing solutions for social selling.
• Put One Person in Charge of Social Selling Make social selling easier and more effective, use social automation tools like Social Horse Power to amplify the message through your entire sales floor.

Are You Ready to Ignite Your Sales Pipeline in 2015?

Take charge of your social selling potential!

Training + Implementation + Accountability = Social Selling Success!

Dedicate one hour per week to social sales training, bring in an expert to help you polish your message and finally, responsibility starts with accountability. Discover your best natural social salesperson. Put them in charge, hold them accountable and then measure for results!