The social selling_maturity_model

The Social Selling Maturity Model (SSMM)

ADVANCE REVIEW COPY.

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(No Change to Lift)1-2%Policy

STAGE 2

TrainingSTAGE 3

IntegrationSTAGE 4

OptimizationSTAGE 5

Increase to

7-8%

25%

10%

5%

0%

Increase to

10-15%

Increase to

15-20%

Random Acts of Social Sales Lift1-2% % of B2B

Companies

STAGE 1

60%

peoplelinx.com @peoplelinx

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Social selling works.

The verdict is in: Social selling works.

Multiple studies have found that sales professionals

who use LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social networks to

sell consistently outperform their peers who don’t. For

example, Aberdeen Group has found that 46% of social

sellers make quota, compared to only 38% for reps who

don’t practice social selling.

It’s easy to see why social selling works. Sales, especially

B2B Sales, is all about relationships. The most successful

salespeople build trusted, 1-to-1 relationships with buyers.

They cultivate those relationships before and after the


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close, leveraging them to drive referrals, renewals, upsells,

and follow-on opportunities.

Online social networks make it dramatically easier for sales

professionals to cultivate the 1-to-1 relationships that drive

sales. Tools like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+

allow sales professionals to create compelling personal

brands, to build networks with the people who matter, to

share valuable content, and to listen for opportunities to

engage in a meaningful way.

Social Selling requires behavior change.

Few sales teams are taking advantage of the social selling

opportunity.

In PeopleLinx’s 2014 survey of B2B sales professionals,

only 31% of respondents reported using social as part of

their selling process. With just 26% of respondents feel

they know how to use social media effectively for selling,

it’s no wonder organizations struggle to unlock the social

selling opportunity.

Fixing this problem isn’t easy for sales leaders. Social

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selling can’t be “turned on” simply by throwing a switch or

even hiring a trainer. Implementing social selling requires

sales professionals to change the way they do business

every day. Changing the team’s selling behavior is one of

the most difficult challenges a sales manager can tackle.

The bigger the sales team, the bigger the challenge.


Backed by extensive survey data and hands-on experience

working with hundreds of sales organizations, PeopleLinx

has developed the world’s first Enterprise Social Selling

Maturity Model (SSMM).

The SSMM was developed with sales leadership in mind.

While much has been written about social selling, most is

geared towards the individual salesperson. The Maturity

Model takes the perspective of the senior sales leader,

who is responsible for the performance of an entire sales

team. The SSMM describes stages through which sales

teams pass on their way to social selling excellence.

PeopleLinx research found that the path to social

selling excellence is fairly uniform across organizations,

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regardless of industry or price point. Teams go through

five main steps, which we’ve named: Random Acts of

Social, Policy, Training, Integration, and Optimization.

We’ll take each of these in turn.

Stage 1: Random Acts of Social

This is where every company and sales team starts its

social selling journey. Individual sales professionals create

accounts on social sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook,

Google+, and other social networks. Salespeople then use

these networks as a new channel for their sales activity:

building a brand, posting content, hunting for prospects,

and sending messages.

Random acts of social are characterized by complete

lack of coordination. At this stage, reps are on their

own when it comes to social selling. Activity is driven

by the innovation and resourcefulness of early adopters

who see the potential of social selling and seize the

initiative without asking for help or permission. There

is no organizational governance, coordination, or risk

management.

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DESCRIPTIONIndividual exploration and experimentation

PROCESSNone

ACCOUNTABILITYThe individual salesperson

SALES LIFT1-2%




Even at this stage, the benefits to the individual

salesperson can be significant. PeopleLinx survey data

indicates that for “early adopter” sales reps who embrace

social selling attribute, nearly 15% of their closed business

is influenced by social.

ROI perspective. From an overall team standpoint,

the impact of social selling is limited. Without formal

programs in place to help them, only 20-25% of sales

professionals incorporate social networks into their selling

process. The remaining 75-80% continue to sell without

the benefit of social. As a result, Random Acts of Selling

only delivers a 1-2% performance improvement to sales

teams—a nice bump, but hardly transformative.

Stage 2: Policy

The Policy stage of the SSMM is marked by a desire

mitigate the risks associated with Random Acts of Social.

As social selling starts to spread across an organization,

management typically becomes concerned about

potential risks associated with salespeople publishing

content directly to the market. At this point Marketing

(and Compliance for regulated industries) step in to bring

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DESCRIPTIONCorporate social media policies and governance

PROCESSIssue escalation protocols

ACCOUNTABILITYLegal / Compliance

SALES LIFT1-2%



discipline and consistency to the company’s branding and

messaging on social networks.

At this stage, companies make important structural

changes that clear the way for future social selling. They

write and distribute a corporate social media policy. They

establish processes for monitoring employee use of social

media. In regulated industries this often includes the

introduction of a social media compliance platform.

This is also the stage at which Marketing begins to assert

itself as the authoritative voice of the brand. Within the

last 12-18 months, B2B marketers have begun to embrace

social marketing in ways that rival their B2C peers. A

2014 study by Content Marketing Institute found that 91%

of B2B marketers publish content on LinkedIn and 85%

publish on Twitter. Even Facebook, the most consumer-

oriented social network, is used as a publishing platform

by 82% of B2B marketers.

ROI perspective. While Policy is an important step in a

company’s social selling evolution, this is a defensive move

without direct benefits for sales performance.

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Stage 3: Training

Having established a marketing, legal, and compliance

foundation, companies are now in a position to empower

their sales teams with broad-based social selling

initiatives.

At this stage, these initiatives take the form of training.

Whether delivered via e-learning or classroom, outsourced

or internally staffed, these trainings educate sales teams

on the basics of selling with social. Curriculum covers

selling techniques like personal branding, etiquette for

making new contacts, social prospecting, and content

sharing, as well as compliance policy around topics like

endorsements, client confidentiality, and intellectual

property.

Social selling increases noticeably with this stage of the

SSMM. Once limited to early adopter reps who naturally

embrace new technologies, social selling awareness is

spreading across the full team. Leadership signals a

desire, perhaps even an expectation, that salespeople use

social networks to sell. Marketing supports the effort by

supplying Sales with vetted, approved content to post and

share online.

ROI perspective. PeopleLinx survey data indicates

that formal training programs expand social selling

participation from 20-25% to 70-75%. Sales professionals

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DESCRIPTIONLive trainings for sales team members

PROCESSAd-hoc training events

ACCOUNTABILITYTraining (internal or external)

SALES LIFT7-8%




whose companies offer formal training programs report

greater than 2x the influence of social selling on revenue

generation as compared with peers whose companies do

not offer training. These forces combine to generate a 7-8%

top-line lift when companies offer formal training on social.

Stage 4: Integration

Despite many benefits, impact achieved in the Training

stage is limited by two factors: measurement and

scalability. Managers can’t measure how employees are

(or aren’t) acting on the information communicated in

the training. And training is difficult to scale, especially in

organizations with high employee turnover.

Selling teams overcome these limitations in the Integration

stage of the SSMM. At this point companies advance

beyond training as a one-off initiative and weave social

into every aspect of their selling process.

CRM integration is the key to sales process integration.

Individual reps are given social tasks or “to-dos” based

on their leads, pipeline, and account assignments in CRM.

Tracking and reporting on social activity becomes a core

activity for Sales Ops, done manually or with support from

integrated systems.

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DESCRIPTIONSocial integrated into core sales process and metrics

PROCESSCRM integration, structured reporting

ACCOUNTABILITYSales Ops

SALES LIFT10-15%




ROI perspective. PeopleLinx analysis indicates that

CRM integration increases both the participation and

effectiveness of social selling. This elevates the top-line

contribution of social selling to 10-15%.

Stage 5: Optimization

In this highest stage of social selling maturity, sales

organizations analyze empirical data on past success to

guide future actions on social. These organizations move

beyond generic best practice to “close the loop” on such

strategic social selling questions as:

• Which team members’ success comes from

relationships, and why?

• Which types of content are most effective in

influencing won opportunities?

• Which target companies, roles, and/or geographies

are underrepresented or oversaturated on the team’s

social graph?

• At what point in the deal cycle is it most effective for

reps to connect with prospects on social networks?

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DESCRIPTIONSales process modified based on social insights

PROCESSStructured feedback loops to the sales team members

ACCOUNTABILITYSales Leadership

SALES LIFT15-20%




• Which social networks drive the greatest return for

your markets?

ROI perspective. While it’s still early to have empirical

data on the ROI of the Optimization stage, PeopleLinx’s

study of traditional CRM and other enterprise process

improvements suggests that this stage will deliver a total

performance improvement of 15-20% for fully mature

social selling teams.

Conclusion

We predict that by 2020, social selling will be a firmly

established sales practice. It will be as commonplace as

quotas and pipeline reviews.

The benefits of social selling are significant. As the Social

Selling Maturity Model (SSMM) shows, selling teams who

fully embrace, integrate, and optimize their social selling

activity can expect to see top-line improvement of 15-20%.

Sales leaders should approach social selling as an

organizational journey. It is larger than any one tool,

project, or initiative. Social selling requires sales

professionals to change their behavior, which is always

a challenge. The SSMM lays out the five stages through

which teams progress in order to realize the social selling

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opportunity. For most organizations, making it through all

five stages will be a multi-year effort.

While the journey may be long, the benefits are

immediate. This is not an all-or-nothing value proposition.

Sales leaders can and will unlock value in the early stages

of the journey. Start small and calibrate the investment of

time and money based on results.

The question for sales leaders is not whether to adopt

social selling, but how—and how quickly—to integrate it

into sales process.

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About PeopleLinx

PeopleLinx makes social

selling easy. Founded by early

LinkedIn employees, PeopleLinx

guides sales professionals to

build relationships, attract

qualified leads, and drive

upsells using online social

networks. Our technology

maps to your sales process,

integrates with CRM, and

measures results. A Gartner

Cool Vendor, PeopleLinx’s

customers include Fortune 500

leaders in financial services,

high-tech, and professional

services. To embed social in

your team’s sales process, visit

www.peoplelinx.com.


