Koka convinces inside sales to get Social

I stopped by the Silicon Valley AA-ISP meeting last week and was excited to hear Koka Sexton’s presentation on Leveraging Social Media.  Koka is new to the InsideView team and is responsible for Social Network Marketing- basically he is the “real time social officer” for InsideView with a sales spin.

Koka spoke to the inside sales audience, 70% individual contributors and 30% managers about the necessity of social media in the sales arena. He asked how many were on LinkedIn? The entire room raised their hands. He asked how many read or managed blogs? A few hands went up. He asked how many tweeted?  Two hands went up. Koka had a lot of convincing to do and that’s why Chad Burmeister, Chapter President, brought him in.

I’m glad Koka’s slide deck included slides on the Customer 2.0- remember that independent customer who likes to self-educate? They will purchase from you based on what others’ say about you, they are technically savvy and socially smart and they really don’t want to be sold to but want to buy on their terms. And watch out if they are unhappy or if they notice a glitch- they are quick to tell the world.

An example of this is a smart guy,  Kesten Migdal decided to put a YouTube video on  How to break a Kroptonight Lock with a  Bic Pen. This video not only went viral but the Kroptonight Lock folks had some recall action which resulted in major revenue declines.

How does this all impact inside sales and why should you care? Because when someone mentions your brand in social media, there is much more potential for other people to notice, and it’s monumentally easier for conversations to spread quickly and easily. In addition, these conversations have the potential to reach a much larger audience than ever before. If you listen to what others are saying about your products real time, you have a much stronger chance of selling to them since the sales cycle has already begun.

So what’s stopping you? Oh yeah, your managers, right? Of course managers would resist social media spilling over in your prospecting efforts- if they can’t measure it, it has no value. Listen to what a few inside sales managers have to say in my recent Metrics 2.0 webinar and clearly they are used to listening to that familiar phone buzz confirming there’s sales activity going on. 

But times are a changin’- Fast forward to a few years from now, your managers will hire you based on your Twitter Clout Score or directly from LinkedIn. Instead of checking your phone tone with a phone screening interview, they will ask you to write intriguing tweets, persuasive blog comments, and lead compelling discussions on groups and forums.

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