Sales Continuing Education Interview w/ Holly Sullenger of NCSU-TTS - Ep. 073

The continuing education of our sales professionals is critical to their success and the success of the company they represent. In this episode Martin Brossman, Greg Hyer and Elyse Archer talk with Holly Sullenger of North Carolina State University - Technology Training Solutions about the importance of being an adult learner, especially for sales professionals.

Holly gives us a few suggestions to start:

[list][list_item icon=”icon-caret-right”]Knowing your learning style[/list_item]

[list_item icon=”icon-caret-right”]Look for the tools we can use[/list_item]

[list_item  icon=”icon-caret-right”]Build the relationships we need to enhance our education.[/list_item]

[list_item  icon=”icon-caret-right”]Scheduling time to learn and make it a non-negotiable.[/list_item][/list]

 

NCSU-TTS is an in-kind sponsor of the Linking into Sales Social Selling Podcast. To discover the adult learning and professional education opportunities available please visit http://linkingsales.wpengine.com/ncsutts.

Audio Run-time: 18:02

The Linking into Sales Social Selling Podcast is a professional development podcast geared towards sales and marketing professionals that use social media tools and networks to support the sales process and help them become more proficient in social selling.

LinkedIn Updates for September 2015 - Ep. 072

Greg Hyer and Martin Brossman get back on Blab.im to discuss some of the recent changes to LinkedIn. They discuss the new inbox update that is being rolled out. Martin has already received the update and Greg is still waiting. But Greg is seeing a slightly new layout and menu bar and Martin is not.  They discuss their findings when Martin sent an animated GIF to Greg via the new messaging inbox but Greg wasn’t able to see the GIF.

They also discuss how LinkedIn’s recent business decisions are less than desirable. This includes how LinkedIn is slowly closing out the developer community and trying to expand it’s market reach. That leads Greg to address the the rise of “market-type social networks” and how they will pick at LinkedIn like how speciality retailers have picked apart Wal-Mart’s business.

Audio Run-time: 26:48

The Linking into Sales Social Selling Podcast is a professional development podcast geared towards sales and marketing professionals that use social media tools and networks to support the sales process and help them become more proficient in social selling.

Social Selling Blab with Julio Viskovich of rfactr - Ep. 071

Greg Hyer and Martin Brossman blab with Julio Viskovich of rfactr about social selling and how critical is it for sales people to have approved content curated for them by Marketing.

This episode of the Linking into Sales Social Selling podcast was recorded using the live video chat platform, Blab.im. Blab is a fast rising video chatting platform that competes with Google Hangouts on Air. Martin and Greg did a test run the night before and found it very engaging.

The discussion includes some questions from the audience including how to define social selling, the importance of social selling training and the metrics you should be monitoring to determine the effectiveness of your social selling program.

Audio Run-time: 54:17

The Linking into Sales Social Selling Podcast is a professional development podcast geared towards sales and marketing professionals that use social media tools and networks to support the sales process and help them become more proficient in social selling.

Social Selling Enterprise Adoption 2015 Update - Ep. 070

Greg Hyer, Martin Brossman and Elyse Archer speak with Peoplelinx CMO, Michael Idinopulos, about their social selling tool and their 2015 social selling survey regarding enterprise adoption.

Elyse Archer is a new addition to the podcast. She is a sales coach and a digital marketer. Greg and Martin feel that her experience would be a great addition to Linking into Sales. Look for her to join Greg and Martin on future shows.

The Peoplelinx platform recommends the right actions for a sales person to take when it comes to the relationship with the prospect or customer. Peoplelinx is not a replacement for the sales professional. Rather, they enable the sales person with data that leads to a positive outcome. There is a proprietary predictive AI under the hood that does a bit of behavioral learning based on previous engagement results.

In the 2015 State of Social Selling Survey:

[list][list_item icon=” icon-caret-right”]73% of B2B Sales professionals think that social has value for selling.[/list_item]

[list_item icon=” icon-caret-right”]31% say it’s part of their sales process. [/list_item]

[list_item icon=” icon-caret-right”]26% understand how to do social selling.[/list_item]

[list_item icon=” icon-caret-right”]More in their 30’s and 40’s are having difficulty with social selling than millennials and boomers.[/list_item][/list]

 

Is there an issue within Sales Management encouraging social selling activities? Possibly.  It appears that the main challenge is that sales management doesn’t know enough about social selling to train or measure performance.

[list][list_item icon=” icon-caret-right”]Only 22% of B2B employers encourage social selling.[/list_item]

[list_item icon=” icon-caret-right”]11% of B2B sales professionals get employer paid training in social selling.[/list_item]

[list_item icon=” icon-caret-right”]6% of employers measure social selling activities[/list_item][/list]

 

Does social selling training actually help the organization? We think the results are pretty clear. Those that get training outperform those that don’t.

[list][list_item icon=” icon-caret-right”]38% of B2B Sales teams that don’t received social selling training say they had recent business influenced by social.[/list_item]

[list_item icon=” icon-caret-right”]74%of B2B Sales teams that did received social selling training say they had recent business influenced by social[/list_item][/list]

 

Please visit Peoplelinx to get the full State of Social Selling 2015 report.

Audio Run-time: 25:35

The Linking into Sales Social Selling Podcast is a professional development podcast geared towards sales and marketing professionals that use social media tools and networks to support the sales process and help them become more proficient in social selling.

Social Listening with Mik Lernout of Sales Prodigy - Ep. 069

Greg Hyer and Martin Brossman talk with Mik Lernout of Sales Prodigy about social listening for social selling. Sales Prodigy is mobile app available for iOS and Android. The app notifies you when someone you are following on Twitter tweets an update that includes a keyword or hashtag you are following. In addition, the app will scan articles shared in tweets to see if the keywords or hashtags are mentioned.

Mik Lernout is originally from Belgium and has lived in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada for the past few years. He came to Vancouver to work for a startup in a tech role and found himself on the road with sales people. During this time he developed a deep appreciation for the people and the profession. This experience led him to create an application that helps sales people with social listening on social networks like Twitter and Instagram.

During the recording, Mik announced that Sales Prodigy would be releasing an integration with Hootsuite, the social media management platform. This integration will create a feed of those tweets you see in the Sales Prodigy app in your Hootsuite account. Look for the app to be released before the end of August 2015.

Greg and Martin understand how important social listening is for social selling. This episode should help you understand the value you can pull out of Twitter with an app like Sales Prodigy. It’s a great app for both inside sales teams and outside sales pros.

Audio Run-time: 49:17

The Linking into Sales Social Selling Podcast is a professional development podcast geared towards sales and marketing professionals that use social media tools and networks to support the sales process and help them become more proficient in social selling.