Today’s Pro Interview features Kelli Lampkin, a sales productivity manager at NetSuite who has every millennial’s dream job. She gets to live and work in a different country each month as she makes her way around the globe to train NetSuite’s sales team. This month we find her in Croatia to talk to us about social selling.
Pagezii – Kelli, please tell us about yourself.
Kelli – I started my career in a business development role at NetSuite. I was quickly promoted and finished as President’s Club qualifier. I then ran our New England territory for another year as a top performer. After that, I was assigned a role to build a new team specifically dedicated to emerging technology start-ups. In building that team, I transformed our go-to-market strategy and shortened our time to sale by more than 50%.
This year, I had an opportunity to travel the world with a group called Remote Year. So I pitched NetSuite with a new role – Social Selling Expert. I now travel the world to a different country each month, evangelizing our sales teams to be more effective in prospecting and building relationships. I observe our top performing reps from all over the world and bring insights to the rest of our team on how they can improve their performance. I do this with a particular emphasis on the new frontier of social selling.
Pagezii – What is social selling?
Social selling proves that you “get” your customers
Kelli – The way I think of social selling today comes down to 3 factors: Messaging, Frequency, and Channel. It’s about designing the right messaging at the right frequency and through the right channels – keep in mind, that for every business these variables will be different. Social selling is about putting yourself in the shoes of your potential buyer and connecting with them in a meaningful way on the right forum. To me, social selling is a lot more about listening than it is about posting your own marketing generated content. Using social networks to learn about your prospect – without crossing the “stalker” borderline, gives you a starting point to build on. People want to buy from people they like and trust, and you like and trust someone who you feel “gets you”- social selling helps you prove that you “get” your customers.
Pagezii – Can you share some use cases of social selling at NetSuite?
Successful reps are those who aren’t afraid
Kelli – I have seen our reps leverage social selling in so many contexts. From using a Snapchat filter to get a prospect meeting, to tagging a prospect in a LinkedIn post to boost webinar registrations and everything in between. I’ve seen our top customers follow their reps on Instagram, I’ve seen reps design book clubs for their prospects, I’ve seen reps bring partners and customers together for ad hoc happy hours through social. The most successful reps are the ones who aren’t afraid to put themselves out there. As long as they aren’t going against company conduct, I encourage our reps to be as creative as possible. The worst thing that can happen is no one responds, which is what’s happening if you don’t try in the first place.
Pagezii – What social selling trends do you see emerging in 2017?
Kelli – I think LinkedIn is still the primary forum for social selling. But every industry is different, social is about finding where your target clients are communicating and adding value to their conversation. I’ve already started to see more people tagging customers, prospects, and coworkers in public posts on the LinkedIn news feed which I believe will continue more in 2017.
InMails will become more congested like email and a new channel will need to emerge. It might become a more personal forum like texting, Instagram, or Snapchat, or we could see a complete reversion back to old school tactics like hand written letters or postcards.
Whatever channel we use, it still won’t be effective if the messaging and frequency are off. Having value added messaging that’s personal and specific, but not marketing heavy, paired with persistent, but not annoying, frequency on the right channel is the key to a successful social selling strategy.
Pagezii – Thank you Kelli for your detailed insight into the world of social selling. We wish you continued success in your global journey training NetSuite’s international sales team.
