The Bottom Line:
The sales process is changing. Prospects have less time than ever and have never been as resistant to cold calling as they are right now. Reading (and applying) this book will take you from offline cold-calling to successful online marketing for your sales efforts. Using social media will streamline your sales process, and help you find credible sale leads. You'll learn how to create a stream of in-bound sales prospects using a set of free tools.
Topics covered: You'll learn about the top three social networks: LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook and how to tie them together with a personal/professional blog.
- Authors: Landy Chase and Kevin Knebl
- Published by McGrawHill Professional
- July, 2011 Pages: 239, Hardcover
- ISBN 978-0-07-176850-4
- Slogan: The New Rules for Finding Customers, Building Relationships and Closing More Sales Through Online Networking
Highlights of The Social Media Sales Revolution
- Extremely niche - social media for the salesperson. It doesn't attempt to address every industry.
- Co-authored by experts who have experience both in sales and social media.
- Actionable points that can be put into use today.
- Anyone who uses social media on a personal level might find some of the foundational principals to be redundant.
Guide Review of The Social Media Sales Revolution
Co-authored by sales/social media experts, Landy Chase and Kevin Knebl, the book is billed as the first one to specifically address social media for the sales industry.
First off, I really like this book. Having spent more than a decade in business to business sales myself, I see the usefulness of the book and its principles right away.
In a style reminiscent of The One Minute SalesPerson, the authors introduce us to Tomas, a realistic character struggling with the changing face of sales. In the preface we learn about him and his challenges. In the conclusion we see how he applies the points in the book to successfully build relationships and remain a successful salesperson.
The book begins by establishing why a salesperson should be using social media tools as a means to build an online presence and, ultimately, as a sales generation tool. Authors Chase and Knebl discuss the Six Rules of the Social Media Revolution.
In chapters 2 through 4, they address the top three social media tools (Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook) and how they can be used in sales. They focus directly on what a salesperson needs to know to successfully use these networks. Setting up your account, building a compelling profile and how to properly interact are all covered.
Chapter 5 discusses one of my favorite topics: Blogging. You'll learn about the different platforms, how to choose and why its necessary. Running a professional blog is a great way to tie all the networks together - and give content to share on the networks.
Chapters 6 and 7 address promotion and communication. While they sound similar at first, you'll learn that first you'll need to generate traffic and then you get an opportunity to communicate (aka. sell) with them. Social media has created the need for salespeople to become great marketers first, and salespeople second.
Finally, chapters 8 and 9 breakdown how to put these principals into action in your daily schedule. Its one thing to know what needs to be done, but its a completely another to actually get it done. The suggestion is to implement 10% of your daily schedule into carrying out these social media habits. Ten percent amounts to approximately 4-6 hours per week.
The section that really stands out to me is chapter 2: Lock in Sales with LinkedIn (The Gold Standard of Business Social Networking Sites). LinkedIn is, to many, a confusing and often under-used network. Sure, its great to connect, but what next? How can connections and a pretty profile actually generate sales? This chapter explains how. If you aren't generating significant sales with LinkedIn, its worth buying the book just for this chapter. I learned how to better use: Advanced Search, Groups and LinkedIn Answers. They also discuss the importance of a complete and up-to-date profile.
After reading this book, I plan to improve the depth of my LinkedIn profile, especially using the apps: Box.net Files (for downloadable files) and WordPress LinkedIn (to sync with my blogs).
Co-authors Landy Chase and Kevin Knebl recently chatted with me about the book and how to use social media for the sales industry.
Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.
