Social Selling in the New Age of the Channel

After reading the insightful article written by Jay McBain in the Channel Executive Magazine, it appears that the traditional “partner-centric ecosystem” sales model is becoming outdated. Today, “there is no account ownership.” Instead, there are “account partnerships.”

This means it is imperative that vendors and their channel partners work together as a team, with other external partners, to market, sell and support the end user.  Using social selling is a great opportunity to co-brand, attract and engage with insights to your targeted market.

Here’s how:

Establish Your Professional Brand

Your company and especially customer-facing employees should be well branded on LinkedIn.  Your profile should not read like a resume; instead, it should be a valuable resource to your prospects and clients. After all, Corporate Visions says that 74% of buyers choose the sales rep that was first to add value and insight. A rep’s LinkedIn profile may be the first contact a prospect or potential partner has with your organization. It’s like meeting someone for the first time, so you want to make sure this first impression resonates with your audience. You also want to offer value in that rep’s profile in order to have a significant impact on the prospect’s present or future decisions.

Find the Right People and Build Relationships

Jay spoke of getting to know your client’s other partners.  The typical medium-sized company may have over 50 partners that offer different solutions in different capacities.  These “partners” exist outside the traditional IT department. That means you’ve got to have a relationship with multiple players inside and outside the organization and earn their trust and respect.  LinkedIn can be a great place to start. Make sure you are connecting with the right people and sharing content that adds value. Align your solutions to position yourself as the key influencer and networker in the LinkedIn “room.”  For example, the client’s marketing department may have multiple IT vendors with different technology applications.

Engage with Insights

The needs of vendors to co-market with the partners/influencers in their local markets means they should be sharing key insights. LinkedIn is a perfect way to find prospects and enhance the relationship with both the vendors and partners. Create a plan that includes key marketing assets that can demonstrate value to your end-users. This does not mean posting product based information, but vendor-agnostic blogs, videos, and so on that educate the prospect in a meaningful way.

If you would like to learn more, I invite you to have a conversation. Even if we don’t do business together, I’d be happy to share additional insights that could have a big impact on your revenue goals. You can schedule a call with me at www.ScheduleaCallwithSallyJo.com .