{"id":1082,"date":"2014-10-28T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-28T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/dynamics-365\/blog\/2014\/10\/28\/get-social-or-go-home\/"},"modified":"2023-05-31T15:16:29","modified_gmt":"2023-05-31T22:16:29","slug":"get-social-or-go-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/dynamics-365\/blog\/business-leader\/2014\/10\/28\/get-social-or-go-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Sales Productivity Series: Get Social \u2013 Or Go Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the end of the day, the fundamentals of selling haven’t changed: what makes a great sales rep is the ability to establish and nurture relationships and build trust. In today’s world, sales pros can tap into social as a tool that extends those natural abilities, and they’d better do so sooner than later. Reps ignoring social as a source of their next opportunities will find themselves left out of every deal.<\/span><\/p>\n

There’s no doubt about it: social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are incredibly valuable tools for making connections and nurturing business relationships, but it’s not that easy. Sales reps need a way to tame the firehose, so to speak. They need tools that help them separate true social buying signals and important moments from social noise. Otherwise, they end up wasting valuable time, time they could be spending selling.<\/p>\n

Despite these challenges, now that buyers are moving along the path to purchase without involving sales, it’s more important than ever for reps to pay attention to these channels. Remember, by the time buyers reach out, they’ve downloaded competitors’ eBooks, read online reviews, and may have even asked members of a LinkedIn group for advice on the products or services they’re considering.<\/p>\n

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“When a seller can’t or doesn’t engage early with the right people, more often than not, they have lost the deal before they even started.” – Ryan Blakely, Dynamics Business Development Manager, Microsoft<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What’s a sales rep to do? How can organizations get a foot in the door, so to speak, without spending countless hours on social? <\/p>\n

Ditch overt sales pitches<\/strong><\/p>\n

The answer is to adopt the principles of social selling. The Aberdeen Group defines social selling as the utilization one of three techniques<\/a>, which include:<\/p>\n