This week I moderated another Social Media Today webinar as part of their Best Thinker webinar series, this time on the topic of How to Prepare Employee Advocates for Social Selling Success. This webinar was sponsored by Everyone Social and featured Jill Rowley (@jill_rowley), Chief Evangelist and Founder of Social Selling, Kurt Shaver (@kurtshaver), Founder of the Sales Foundry and Chris Hecklinger (@cdhecklinger), Director of Client Success at Everyone Social. We discussed how to prepare your sales team to be brand advocates and use social selling techniques to break in to new accounts.

Here are 3 key take-aways:

1. Social Sales teams out perform non-social sales teams – Jill Rowley showed some great stats around social sales team – 64% of social sales teams had “total team attainment of quota” and 55% had higher renewal rates. (source: Aberdeen Group)
2. Social Selling is not a “once and done” event – Kurt discussed how to get the sales team prepared to do social selling. He states “its at least a 60-120 day plan for them to learn a new habit” and “not the classic one hour breakout session at the national sales team meeting.”
3. Follow the 411 Rule of Content – Social sharing should have a mix of content coming from various sources: 4 pieces of content coming from news and other relevant sources, 1 piece of content coming from your company and finally one piece of more personal content (cat photo etc).

To get a copy of the slides or listen to the replay please click here. You can also scan the highlights of this webinar on Twitter by reading the following Storify:

Recently there has been a lot of conversation against the importance of relationships in selling such as this recent Harvard Business Review article on Selling is Not about Relationships which makes it seem like social media would not make a good fit for sales people.

But a new RAIN Group report proves otherwise and shows that sales people that truly “connect” with buyers in this “always on” environment we live in to win more often. So here are 3 reasons why …

Social media provides great way to connect with potential buyers

• Social media provides the sales person with unprecedented ways to connect with potential buyers, increase likes or followers to the business, build relationships and most importantly start conversations.
• Social media provides the sales person with a platform to allow for their online personality to shine and begin that trusted relationship which can create affinity with the buyer
• Social media provides the sales person a platform for sharing value, which builds reputation and affinity for the seller

Social media provides a platform to collaborate with potential buyers

• Sales people can use popular online meetings tools like Google Hangout or even GoToMeeting to create spontaneous meetings with potential buyers
• Other technologies like Postwire can be used for more direct collaboration with more middle of funnel prospects
• Social listening technologies like Radian6, Hootsuite (or whatever your favorite is) will allow you to chime in at most relevant times with potential buyers, middle of funnel prospects or even existing customers – keeping you top of mind at all times!

Social media allows you to educate potential buyers with new ideas

• Social media provides plenty of ways to do this. Sales people that tweet their own ideas or find blogs articles that espouse their position – make it easy to connect with buyers. Content is king so being able to use it to your advantage is key.
• Marketing teams provides the platform and resources to sales to be able to do this. Too many companies in my opinion leave it to the sales team to figure this out all this by themselves. Content is the new collateral. If marketing creates the platform and the sales team can bring it to life with customers then sales will surely flow.

An integral part of the sales process is getting to know your prospects and establishing relationships—and it turns out social media can help you accomplish this quickly and easily. Follow the steps above to help your sales team make the cash register ring using social media. Remember – when you’re there alone there is no one to compete!

Although the average online shopping cart abandonment rate is a staggering 65 percent, incomplete purchases are largely credited to controllable issues: high shipping prices presented too late in the game, a long or confusing checkout process, not enough payment options, too many requests for customer information, etc. Sealing the deal comes down to being able to provide a great deal of information in as few clicks as possible.

Like many things in marketing, the solution lies in listening: listening to your customers, that is. And if you listen carefully enough, they have likely told (or showed) you why—and when—they are leaving without completing the sale.

Think about it: how do things like the existence of hidden shipping costs, lack of early shipping cost estimates, out of stock items and lengthy registration forms affect your overall conversions? Would reduced or free shipping increase the number of conversions? Are you telling visitors upfront when items are out of stock, or are you waiting to spring that on them when they go to checkout? Are they forced to leave the shopping cart to read your return policy when it strikes them that, “I’m not sure whether Aunt Susie is a size 4 or a 6 — I wonder if she’ll be able to return this?” The list of variables that create a good (or bad) checkout experience goes on and on.

According to Forrester Research, the top six reasons for abandoning a cart before making a purchase are:

1. Shipping and handling costs are too high (55%!)
2. Wasn’t ready to purchase the product
3. Wanted to compare prices on other sites
4. Product prices higher than they were willing to pay
5. Wanted to save products to the cart for lower comparison
6. Shipping costs were listed too late in the checkout process

Consumers are openly fickle, and telling. They want to make sure they are getting the best deal and experience possible, and it’s up to you to give it to them. To achieve this, here are some tried and true do’s and don’ts when it comes to your cart:

1. Ditch hidden shipping costs and fees. Be honest about what the cost is upfront; consumers appreciate integrity.

2. Offer free shipping promotions. Whether it’s via an offer, a time frame (act now!) or “buy a certain amount, get free shipping,” showing customers you know shipping fees are a pain point for them is an easy win. After all, by throwing them a bone with shipping fees, you’re sure to make up for those costs in additional sales and Average Order Values.

3. Make registration simple. Make sure your registration process is easy to get through, perhaps even with a progress indicator—lengthy or confusing forms cause frustration. Frustration causes visitors to wander.

4. Leave room for virtual lay-a-way. A “save for later” button, though doesn’t lend to the immediate sale, can be great for those who are in browse – not buy – mode. Consumers who can easily log back in to retrieve their item and buy it will convert faster than those who have to start over.

5. Make it safe and secure. While online shopping has become a very credible way to receive goods and services, many websites still display a “security logo” during the checkout process to ensure visitors that they are using a trusted site for their online purchases.

6. Test everything. A/B and multivariate testing will help you immediately pinpoint your trouble areas, rather than playing guessing games. And based on the data gathered in testing, you can optimize your checkout process to reflect the most popular combination of variables. For example, if testing reveals that last-minute or lengthy registration forms are a primary issue, you may decide to replace those with auto-filled forms for return visitors; let new users login with their social media accounts instead of filling out a new form, or simply provide guest checkouts.

With consistently greater demand for online shopping, comes greater opportunity. Putting customers at the heart of any online content and user experience decisions is crucial for not only surpassing revenue and conversion goals, but also to sustain lasting consumer relationships. Your online shopping cart is the moment of truth: is it ready?

Does Sales really care about leads? Maybe not.

If you ask Bill Binch, VP of Sales from demand generation software provider Marketo, he prefers pipeline and bookings to leads. Ironically, as much as lead nurturing and lead scoring can help generate pipeline and revenue, by framing the discussion around leads too many marketers ignore the equally valid perspective of their sales counterparts. This can lead to diminished success for many marketing-led efforts around lead management.

This is just one of the many disconnects between sales and marketing that we’ve been exploring in the series Sales is from Mars, Marketing is from Venus. This is my 3rd such podcast with Marketo in this area. First we started with a CEO’s perspective then we did a VP of Marketing perspective and now we have the VP of Sales perspective. Getting the Sales viewpoint is critical for marketers since lead management initiatives always require buy-in and support from Sales to be successful.

Special thanks to my friends at Marketo for allowing me to interview their VP of sales for this podcast. They use what they sell to create opportunities for themselves, so there is no better place to look for ideas on how to optimize your own demand generation efforts than by talking with the guys who sell and deliver that for a living. I always learn something I can incorporate into my lead nurturing platform every time I talk with them! I hope you learn something too…

What Sales Really Thinks About Marketing?

About Bill

Bill brings 16 years of best practice sales, leadership, and operations experience to his role leading all of Marketo’s sales and customer success activities. Prior to joining Marketo, Binch was VP and General Manager, Distribution, at AVOLENT, where he managed the team focused on the distribution market, small & medium businesses, and install base customers. Prior to AVOLENT, Binch developed his sales and operational experience at Oracle, PeopleSoft, and BEA Systems, where he built and managed direct, inside, and channel organizations and ran business units ranging from mid-market business customers to strategic accounts. Bill graduated from Arizona State University with a BS in Marketing.

Nothing focuses the sales force on sales like a quota. But what does a CEO use to focus Marketing? Can Marketing really begin to source leads for Sales? And how can you really optimize the relationship between Sales and Marketing?

This podcast is the first in a series we’ve set up along with B2B marketing software provider Marketo to examine the classic sales vs. marketing debate. To start things off, we’ve brought together Marketo’s chief executive officer and his VP of Marketing to discuss the differences in Sales and Marketing as seen from the perspective of a CEO whose company is focused on aligning sales and marketing to create a single revenue funnel, as well as what that looks like day to day from the marketing trenches.

Nothing could be scarier to a marketer than having to answer to the CEO. So I give a lot of credit to Jon Miller, who sat in the hot seat in front of his company’s top executive just for this podcast! Enjoy …

Sales is from Mars and Marketing is from Venus – a CEO’s Perspective

About Phil Fernandez
President and CEO, Marketo

Phil is a 26-year Silicon Valley veteran and has the scars (and a couple of successful IPOs) to prove it. Prior to Marketo, he was President and COO of Epiphany, a public enterprise software company known for its visionary marketing products. Before this, Phil was COO and SVP of Products and Services at Red Brick Systems, a pioneering data warehouse vendor. Earlier, he held leadership positions at Metaphor Computer Systems, Stanford University Medical Center, and Masstor Systems. Phil holds a BA from Stanford University.

About Jon Miller
VP Marketing, Marketo

Jon has the unique challenge of leading Marketing for Marketo, a company whose mission is helping other B2B marketers drive revenue and improve accountability. Jon explores best practices in demand generation, lead management, and online marketing in his popular blog, Modern B2B Marketing, and is a frequent columnist and speaker at industry events. Before co-founding Marketo, Jon was a vice president at Epiphany, a CRM strategist at Exchange Partners, and a strategic consultant for Gemini Consulting. Jon graduated Magna Cum Laude in Physics from Harvard College and has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.