Social Selling with Lindsey Boggs - Ep. 076

Lindsey Boggs Shares Her LinkedIn Sales Connect 2015 Experiences and More!

Social Selling was the main topic of Sales Connect 2015, the Social Selling LinkedIn Conference held in Las Vegas in October. Lindsey Boggs had quite the experience. Not only is she an amazing sales person, she’s pretty good under pressure. Well, if you think standing next to Shaquille O’Neal, sinking two free throws and raising $10,000 for the Boys and Girl Club all within the span of three minutes is easy, think again.

Lindsey Boggs welcomed Martin Brossman and Greg Hyer into her home in Raleigh, NC. She works from home for the Indiana based ecommerce marketing automation solution provider, SmarterHQ, as the Director of Sales. She leads a sales team and supports their social selling activities using tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Saleforce.com

In this episode, you will discover her three “P’s” of social selling; Personalization, Persistence, and Patience. You will also hear about her presentation from Sales Connect about getting 50% response rates on her InMail outreach and what moments delivered incredible value to attendees. And of course, you will hear about how Lindsey sunk two free throws and raise $10,000 for the Boys and Girls Club of America. We actually included the 3 minute experience in the video and audio productions of this episode.

Here are Lindsey’s slides from her session.

If you’d like to connect with Lindsey Boggs, please visit her LinkedIn profile and follow her on Twitter.

Audio Run-time: 32:25

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.

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.

How Do I Export My LinkedIn Connections Email Addresses

Below is the transcript from the video “How to Export your Contacts and Email Addresses from LinkedIn.”

“Hello my name is Greg Hyer, cohost the Linking in Sales Social Selling Podcast. Today is Monday, July 27th 2015 and today I’m going to show you how to export your LinkedIn connections.

“Last week LinkedIn actually pulled the ability for you to export your connections. And through reaction from the community both on Twitter and via an email barrage into customer support, LinkedIn has actually reversed their decision and has turned on the ability for you to export your connections.

“Now, it is important to keep in mind that LinkedIn is a platform that you don’t own and you should know how to take and export your contacts, your first degree connections from LinkedIn in the event that they decide to pull the plug on this in the future. Which it’s pretty likely that they will because they are looking for faster ways to make information available to users but also they want to limit the amount of misuse of LinkedIn.

“Anyways, besides that LinkedIn has a very incredible strategy. It is still one of the best b2b marketing platforms and selling platforms that are out there. So I strongly recommend to continue to use it but at least understand how to export your connection. So that’s where we’re going to do today.

“Right now you’re looking at my profile page. If you click on profile you will actually be able to see your profile page as well. So, let’s go over to the menu bar and click on “Connections.” And from here you’ll see a list of all of your recent connections that you’ve had if your Facebook and Twitter accounts and Gmail accounts are all connected into your LinkedIn account. Then you will also see your most recent interactions here first.

“So, what we’re gonna do is go over to the “Settings” gear button, which is on the right hand side, and click on that button there. And you will see a list of all the API connections that are coming in and out of your LinkedIn account. For example, you have your LinkedIn connections, your Gmail account, your Google contacts, Google Calendar Yahoo accounts going all the way down to other applications and such. Okay? So look over the right hand column. Click on, underneath “Advanced Settings,” click on “Export LinkedIn Connections.” Alright. You’ll be taken into an option to export depending on a file format that you want.

“Your options are going to be Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Yahoo Mail, Mac OS Address Book and the vCard file format. The first three, the two Outlook formats and Yahoo Mail are all CSV file formats. Those will open up in Excel. The vCard format is very easy to import into Mac address book on your Mac OS as well the file will open up in Excel. If you’re importing into Outlook I suggest using the Microsoft Outlook format.

“What it does and what each of these formats do is actually put the correct headers at the top up the spreadsheet so that way when imports it can properly map the fields correctly in your address book. If you’re using Gmail or Google Apps, the mail application there or Google Contacts, I recommend using Microsoft Outlook CSV file format because it will matchup those fields automatically too.

“Alright. So, go ahead and click on Microsoft Outlook and hit export now. I when I first did this when I was running through this before recording this video, it did come up with a captcha screen which wanted you to verify that you are not a robot. It had a little image and it said to type in the numbers that you see here. Just enter in that information and go. That’s a security feature to help prevent the bots from going into somebody’s account and downloading that information automatically.

“What you just saw here is my file was downloaded and if I open it up in Excel, which I am not going to do here for the demo, because it shows people’s email addresses it will actually give you five pieces of information from the LinkedIn contact record those five are first name, last name, email address, company name and their job title. Things like their location, our country there in, what industry that there in or anything like that does not come out of your LinkedIn account. That is very unfortunate but that’s why there are third-party tools like Nimble.com for you to take and capture that information when you’re viewing the person’s profile.

“So, what you do for example is taking a CSV file imported into Nimble. Just goto Nimble.com. It’s about fifteen dollars a month. Go into Nimble and import your connections and then go back out to your LinkedIn account and as you’re interacting with with folks as reaching out to folks, you can synchronize information using the Google Chrome extension. Which you can see, I have here on my Google Chrome toolbar. I’m not signed into it right now but take a look at that. It’s a very, very cool tool. I think you get a quick trial of the software before signing up.

“You can also take and import, like I said, import into Microsoft Outlook. I believe Outlook has a Social Connector where it can pull in some additional information there for you too. I recommend taking a look at information because as someone who is in social selling having that additional information is always very handy when having a conversation was somebody new somebody trying to develop a professional relationship with.

“Once again, my name is Greg Hyer, co-host of the Linking into Sales Social Selling Podcast. Please subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube and Stitcher, Tunein and Player.FM. We also welcome all of your emails and questions and things that you like to see, anything here on the podcast. Head out to LinkingIntoSales.com and fill out the Contact Us form and we’ll get that information right back to you.

“Thank you very much and have a great day.”

LinkedIn Removes, then Reenables Connection Exporting - Ep. 068

In this episode of the Linking into Sales Social Selling Podcast, Greg Hyer and Martin Brossman discuss the latest gaff by LinkedIn and what this means for users. LinkedIn quietly removed the ability for users to export their connections, including email addresses. Instead, users were told they would have to put in a request to get their data and wait up to 72 hours for an export. There was instant backlash and the next day, LinkedIn reenabled the feature. You can read more about this on VentureBeat.com:  “LinkedIn quietly removes tool to export contacts, makes users wait up to 72 hours for their data archive.

Greg walks you through how to export your connections. You can see his full tutorial on YouTube: “How to Export your Contacts and Email Addresses from LinkedIn.”

Martin talks about his favorite app, Pocket. Pocket is a bookmarking tool that makes it very easy to save links to online content and access it from your phone, tablet or another computer. He mentions a new feature that Pocket introduced, narration. Now, Pocket will read you the article that you’ve saved, making it easier to consume content on the road. You can learn more about Pocket and it’s Google Chrome extension at http://www.getpocket.com

Audio Run-time: 15:17

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 and Hashtags - Ep. 067

Greg Hyer and Martin Brossman discuss using hashtags on social platforms and at conferences to help with your social selling activities.

Hashtags are used on social platforms to make it easier to find a discussion. They are utilized at conferences, for Twitter chats, to categorize shared content or as side comments. They are a great tool for social sellers to use to identify discussions and to brand themselves as an expert resource in their field.

Here are some links mentioned in the discussion:

Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake #Hashtag skit on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

“Newsjacking” by David Meerman Scott

“How to Use Hashtags” by Martin Brossman

Join the conversation about this episode on Twitter using #LinkingSales67

Greg and Martin are making progress on the development on an online Social Selling Training program and expect to launch it this fall. Please stay tuned for future updates.

Run-time: 27:07

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.

Implementing a Social Selling Strategy - Ep. 065

Greg Hyer and Martin Brossman discuss implementing a social selling strategy. This podcast was created in response to an engagement Greg had with Adam Lewites of InsightPool on Twitter. He asked what was the best way to implement a social selling strategy. Listen to this show to understand how activities and results can be tracked and how sales management can be involved in the success of implementing a social selling program.

Greg referenced a previous episode about Social Selling KPIs. Visit Episode 55 - What are Social Selling KPIs to review the KPIs you can use to start measuring your success in social selling.

How are you implementing a social selling strategy? Share your comments below or Tweet us on Twitter using hashtag #LinkingSales65.

Run-time: 18:37

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.

35 Amazing Social Selling Tools - Ep. 064

This is a mega name-drop episode! Greg Hyer and Martin Brossman rattle off 35 amazing social selling tools that sales professionals can use to support their sales engagements.

Content Curation Tools

Feedly
Pocket
Google Alerts
Google News
Klout
Pinterest
Paper.li

Content Distribution Tools

Buffer App
Hootsuite
Saturn Social
Oktopost
SproutSocial
SlideShare
Wistia

Content Creation Tools

Movy
Twitter Video
Snapseed for Android / Snapseed for iOS
Prezi
MindMeister
Autodesk Pixlr

Social Engagement Tools

Twitter
LinkedIn
Facebook
Google+
Speedshare
JoinMe

Social Selling Analytics Tools

Twitter Analytics
Google Analytics
Bit.ly
Hootsuite
Goo.gl

Social Selling Intelligence Tools

Nimble
Riffle by CrowdRiff
Discoverly
SalesLoft
SellHack

Do you have a favorite social selling tool? List it in the comments below! We might mention it in a future episode.

Run-time: 35:19

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.

Content Curation as a Social Selling Technique - Ep. 063

Martin Brossman and Greg Hyer discuss content curation as a social selling technique. A question came from a fan on our Facebook page about how to start with curating content and where to find it.

They discuss how to use content during a sales engagement. Starting with using content that speaks to a broad problem or big idea and narrowing the focus along the journey. Greg’s perspective on using curated content is like prescribing medicine and consuming the recommended doses until the the prospect is cured. “To Curate is to Cure.”

Martin relates content curation to an experience he had while taking an improv comedy class in Raleigh. Your audience will never get it if you don’t put what you’re trying to say in context. Context is key.

Greg and Martin also welcome Carlos Gil to LinkedIn. He is the new Sr. Social Media Marketing Manager and replaces Koka Sexton who has move into a new role at LinkedIn that involves a heavy amount of content marketing. You can find Carlos on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Also, be sure to visit our latest creation, SellingB2B.com. There you will find B2B Sales articles and questions shared by a growing community of B2B Sales professionals. It’s free to join!

Run-time: 15:34

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.

Google Plus and LinkedIn Product Updates - Ep. 062

Greg Hyer and Martin Brossman sit down to discuss the recent announcement from Google about the changes happening to Google+ and how it’s being broken up in to three apps, Photos, Streams and Hangouts.

Next they discuss some recent changes to LinkedIn and how they will affect your social selling routine. The changes discussed include

1. Changes to your activity feed to help you find more engagement opportunities

2. Changes to search including the commercial search limit for non premium accounts.

3. Changes to Groups including the removal of the hero image, top contributors and the removal of multiple featured posts.

4. LinkedIn releases the Connected app for Android to help users find more engagement opportunities. LinkedIn has discontinued the Connected mobile app.

5. LinkedIn announces the new Lead Accelerator advertising platform for B2B businesses with more than 20,000 visitors.

Run-time: 16:36

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.