On a Social Media Today’s Best Thinkers webinar, Ben Cathers, Senior Strategic Solutions Consultant at Hootsuite and Paul Lewis, Global Social Media Manager and Social Selling Lead at Pitney Bowes joined me to share their strategies for “How to Increase Your Company’s Investments in Social Selling.”
I asked what kind of investment – in terms of budget dollars, staffing, as a percentage of annual revenue or size of sales force – is required to build a social selling dream team. Ben suggested that although having a budget is a necessity, social selling success is less about the money than it is about having the right social selling people – enabled with the right technology – to lead a company transformation. Paul said it’s important to have a senior executive in your corner that understands social selling. Both Ben and Paul emphasized that an investment of time – not just a few months but closer to a few years – is required.
Bottom line: it’s important to set your CEO’s and other executives’ expectations accordingly to avoid disappointment (and discontinued investments.)
In the webinar, we also had a lively discussion on how to unite sales and marketing (agree on program goals, as a start), important considerations in program design and implementation, and specific social selling strategies and tactics that yield results.
At the close of the event, I asked both panelists for final words of wisdom.
Paul’s were: “There are no limits to what a connected workforce can achieve.”
Ben’s were: “Follow the crawl, walk, run methodology.”
Listen to the webinar to hear more great advice from social selling experts and follow Social Media Today’s event Twitter stream on #SMTLive.
What social selling investments are you making at your company in 2016?
