Episode 170: Use Social Selling to Drive Customer Loyalty & Repeat Business

Bob Woods  00:32

Greetings and welcome everyone to Making Sales Social Live brought to you by Social Sales Link. I’m Bob Woods, the LinkedIn Sherpa and I’m joined by fellow LinkedIn and social selling professional, also known as the LinkedIn whisperer, Brynne Tillman. Hey, Brynne. What’s up?

Brynne Tillman  00:49

Hi, Bob! Oh, just all good things. LinkedIn, how about you?

Bob Woods  00:53

Same thing here, Absolutely. 

Intro:

Welcome to Making Sales Social Live! As we share LinkedIn, and social selling training strategies and tips that will have an immediate impact on your business. Join Brynne Tillman, and me Bob Woods every week, Making Sales Social Live!

Bob Woods  01:11

So we’re going to be talking about something a little bit different, but how we can use what we already do for a more specific purpose. So we talk all the time here about using LinkedIn and social selling to start sales conversations. Well, what about the other end of things? In other words, how can both be used after the sale is complete? After all, do you want to drive your new customers’ loyalty and see repeat business from them? I hope you do. So. Brynne, before we talk about seven ways that our audience can use LinkedIn as social selling for customer loyalty, repeat business, any thoughts that you have on the topic in general?

Brynne Tillman  01:37

Absolutely, you know, nurturing is a big deal and there are so many reasons. Number one, we absolutely want to make sure that we are always visible to our clients, for more business, for internal referrals and ultimately, some referrals externally but the most important thing here is that we are staying top of mind, we’re nurturing, we’re making our clients feel valued and not only will that create loyalty, but repeat business as well.

Bob Woods  02:19

Absolutely, absolutely. So now, let’s get into those seven ways and number one is something that you’ve heard us say in several other ways, but it can be used very effectively here as well. Asking for votes specifically on LinkedIn polls.

Brynne Tillman  02:39

This is such a great way to get engagement, it’s easy. It’s a one click. So if we start, first of all, by taking inventory of our connections, and taking a look at all of the clients that were connected to, current or past, ultimately, what we want to do is, you know, keep them engaged. So the polls, Bob, as you say, really a great way to do this. Make sure you’re not asking too vulnerable of a question here, where they may not want to share their biggest challenge publicly but it may be you know, what’s the number one priority that you have in your business going forward? Based on what you do? Don’t make them feel like it’s a pitch or a leading question, but it should give you some insights that can help you continue the conversation. And so there’s lots of ways to use this poll. I just want to back up for one second here, because I said something and I recognize we’ve got a gap that we need to fill first, which is we’ve got to make sure that you know what clients you’re connected to, and connect to the ones that you’re not connected to. 

So taking inventory, although it is not on our top seven list really should be ground zero, right? It really should be as we go through this, we need to know who it is that we want to engage with. So exporting your connections or searching your first-degree connections, and recognizing what clients you are connected to and what ones you’re not. And you can compare CRM to your LinkedIn connections. You can plug your business cards, whatever it is that you do look at your emails. But ultimately, in order to nurture those connections to build that customer loyalty and get that repeat business, we need to be connected to them so that should be ground zero. Then poles okay, what’s number three?

Bob Woods  04:46

Oh actually, we’re on number two still because we kind of throw in a bonus there. So number two would be asking for their insights in comments and I’m actually going to combine One and two really quick here just for a quick comment on my own. People really enjoy it when you ask them for their opinions and actually, this is going to be a thread throughout most if not all of these points, you are reaching out to them saying, “Hey, what do you think about this? Hey, what do you think about that?” What a better what better way to not only stay in front of people, but to prove your value to them, and quite frankly, to hear to show that you care about what they think I can’t think of any better way to engender customer loyalty and to potentially get repeat business just from doing that no matter which of the ones that we’re talking about here. 

So asking for their insights and comments is literally what this sounds like. It’s about getting a post into someone’s inbox. So in other words, you send it directly to their inbox and just say, “Hey, just like you would in LinkedIn polls, you know, I know that you may have some thoughts on the subject of this post. If you’d like, please go ahead and share comment…”   or something like that, essentially,

Brynne Tillman  06:09

Yeah. So one of the things I might recommend is to go deeper and more personal even but this is a yes and. So one of the things in your, when you’ve posted, there’s a little paper airplane at the bottom, where you can click, type someone’s name and get that post in front of them. But it might be something like, you know, “From working with you for the last six months, I recognize this is a topic, I think that you’d have a lot of great insight on. Based on my experience with you, I would love just your perspective in comments, if you’d be willing, it’d be very helpful to me, but also to my network or my community.” And if you can really personalize that, it’s amazing.

Side note on this, you can also click on the three dots and click Copy Link to post and do a little video message. “Hey, Bob, as a LinkedIn profile genius, I would love your insights on this post that I just put out about the 10 things you need to do on your LinkedIn profile…” or whatever that is, right and I do it in a video, I’m gonna post a little link below to it, I appreciate your engagement, it will really bring value to the community or to my network or to the LinkedIn world, whatever you want to say there. So I just want to kind of add those two cents in there.

Bob Woods  07:35

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely love that. So number three is grabbing quotes and we’re talking quotes from your customers, specifically for Canva images. So these are quotes that you can put into a Canva image and then actually share on LinkedIn and other social channels to, to be quite honest with you to, to get their thoughts out and to add credibility to whatever subject that you deal with.

Brynne Tillman  08:04

Yeah, this is awesome to do during the sales process, after when you’re getting in, when you’re talking with your buyers and the influencers inside the organization. And these are not –We’ll get to this, but these are not quotes about you, these are quotes about their industry thought leadership, their perspective on something, it’s about promoting them and their insights. If it’s, you know, if you’re selling to similar buyers, they’re gonna want to see what their colleagues are saying, they’re gonna want to see what you know, other industry leaders are saying, and it’s interesting, if you do this enough, and you quote, a lot of your clients, and it could be more than one company, you’re gonna start to get people that reach out to get quoted by you, they don’t realize they were all your clients, and it will actually create inbound opportunities.

Bob Woods  09:04

Absolutely! And that’s, and that’s one of the things that this is all about. And then the other really great thing about grabbing quotes for these Canva images, several things that we’re talking about, and that we’re going to be talking about, you can actually grab quotes from that and then just say, you know, Hey, I just interviewed, I interviewed you on LinkedIn Live, which is going to be number four, spoiler alert, and I and you said this, I would, I’d like permission from you to grab this quote and use it for a Canva image that I’ll distribute. 

More than likely, they will say, “Sure, I’m honored, please go ahead and do that.” So there are many, many ways to grab these quotes that have to do with your industry or, you know, again, like Brynne said, not about you, and use them for the betterment of those who are in your network. So, speaking of let’s go to number four, the spoiler alert that I issued before interviewing on LinkedIn Live, which, if you’re with us live on LinkedIn right now, this is what we are doing a LinkedIn live. 

Brynne Tillman  10:07

This is us. Yeah. So you know, and in retrospect, we probably should have swapped these, right? Start with LinkedIn live and then go into Canva but, you know, interviewing someone, I mean, this is a client, someone that you’ve worked with, it deepens that relationship and makes them feel valued. And it really, you know, it’s the relationship that creates the customer loyalty and they’re, you know, in the repeat business, if they’re, if you continue to build that rapport, if someone comes in to undercut you, they’re like, “Oh, no, no, we got a guy, we got a gal.” Because they have a relationship with you and when you can promote them and interview them, it just makes them feel good and you continue to really just build that strengthened relationship and promote them at the same time. 

Bob Woods  11:05

Yep, 100%. That’s great and, and I mean, you know, interviewing on LinkedIn live is just, it’s just, it’s, it’s an experience in and of itself, that they’re going to remember, especially if they’ve never done it before. And you know, who knows, they may do LinkedIn lives themselves because of their experience with you, which again, then solidifies you in their minds even more, because you’re the one who got them started on this path. So I mean, you know, yeah, all good.

Brynne Tillman  11:35

Side note, Jeb Blount from Sales Gravy, I interviewed him it was his first LinkedIn live that he’d ever been on. And he’s like, a big way. Great, like, so that was kind of cool. That stands out and it was to help promote his book. And now I matter more, I hope.

Bob Woods  11:52

There you go. There you go. Perfect example of that. So let’s get to number five now in this one’s pretty easy to do endorsing for skills. So this is when you go on someone else’s LinkedIn profile, and you endorse them for the skills that you know that they have. So in other words, you’re not going to someone and just picking a couple skills and just endorsing them for that, it’s got to be skills that you not only know that they’re good at, but these are all, they also should be skills that other people who are looking at their profile are going to care about too, because, you know, someone may be good at Excel spreadsheets, if they’re selling something that’s totally different and non IT related or whatever, who cares about Excel spreadsheets, it should be the things that they are good at, and you know that they’re good at.

Brynne Tillman  12:47

One of the reasons I love this, and we’re talking about customer loyalty, repeat business, but a lot of this is staying top of mind. When you endorse someone for a skill that you’ve experienced, as Bob said, they’re actually gonna get prompted to thank you and that, to me, is kind of a genius thing inside of LinkedIn. So it’ll say, “Bob, Brynne Tillman endorsed you for this skill.” Thank her, literally, and there’s a little button with a predetermined message that he can edit. That thanks me for endorsing him for those skills. This starts a conversation on a consistent basis right? They’re gonna thank you for it most likely and it makes them feel good and customer loyalty really is gonna come from you serving your client the right way. That’s like, that’s got to be the foundation but the next piece is that you’re staying in front of them, that they feel relevant when I have a vendor come back and engage on something, I feel good about them. And if they’d reach out to have a call with me, I’m much more likely to take a call even if I don’t think I have a need right now because they engaged with my stuff or they endorsed me for something. It just warms it up. And there’s a lot of higher success rate. When you’ve made them feel good for them to want to take your call. 

Bob Woods  14:21

Excellent. Yes. Endorphins. Everyone loves and everyone loves endorphins. That’s like a T-shirt or something like that. Everyone loves endorphins. Number six is making introductions to potential referral partners. So if anyone is in like networking groups and things like that, you know the power of this, you know how powerful it is to refer people to other referral partners because in this way, everyone gains all of the proverbial chips. Chips are lifted, and it’s just excellent. High tide raises all ships. That’s it. Thank you.

Brynne Tillman  15:00

But I knew we were getting there. So just a couple of things on this, make sure you understand your client’s client, who it is they serve, and understand who are some of their referral partners. Now, if you’re selling into the IT department, there’s a good chance that IT guy probably doesn’t want to meet someone for business development but if you get to know them, they may let you know, you know, “Oh, yeah, we were always looking for, you know, people that work with Python,” I don’t know, like, find out who it is they want to meet. This is something that should be in your CRM. Who is the perfect person, if you have a salesperson, maybe it’s a salesperson that sells to the same type of buyer, but is not a competitor. So one of the things when you’re getting to know your client is to understand who it is they want to meet. 

Now, if you’re looking to really bring value to them, search your own connections, to find out that who you know, that would be either an ideal recruit for them if that’s what’s important, or an ideal referral partner and I would reach out to that referral partner and say, “Hey, I have a client, here’s the company, I think the two of you could really have some synergies and potentially make some referrals for one another, are you open to the introduction?“ So you’re getting agreement on both sides before you make it but when you make an introduction, I’m just, I know, I always diverge into something else, I had a client that I made an introduction to that closed a piece of business, that was more than 10 times what he paid me. 

So he’s like, “You’re my best sales rep this year.” And so think about it, he’s gonna continue to work with us. I mean, this was a long time ago, but he would continue to work and his business has been bought out by the way, but, you know, he would continue to work with us, simply because an introduction a year is worth what he passed, right? Like, just think in terms of, they wouldn’t switch vendors, even if they were a little bit more, if they were a little bit more affordable because think of their business, there’ll be missing out on the back end, since you’re such a good referral partner. So keep that in your mind in creating that loyalty.

Bob Woods  17:19

100%. So the final one that we’re going to talk about is using recommendations two ways and the two ways that we’re talking about are incoming and outgoing. So not only you giving recommendations to others, but obviously people giving recommendations to you.

Brynne Tillman  17:40

Yeah, and I love this, a new lot of the salespeople go, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, why am I going to recommend a client?” Because we’re talking about client loyalty? And repeat business, right? So why am I going to recommend a client? Well, I have clients that I’ve been working with for years that I absolutely love, they coordinate the training, they coordinate the coaching, and all of those things and so I work closely with them. And if I go out and recommend them as being an amazing client, and I love working with them, all these fabulous things, guess what happens? My recommendation lives on her profile. So when people are at her profile, they’re seeing that they hired me, and they worked with me. So it’s a win-win every single time. So obviously, we’re going to ask for recommendations from our clients but the client loyalty and the repeat business is going to come from you. A second piece to that is that you’re recommending them.

Bob Woods  18:46

Yeah, yeah. So this is like, if you’re, if you’re in BNI, and you recognize the phrase givers gain, this is like givers gain to the next level.

Brynne Tillman  18:56

Absolutely. We got through that in a pretty good time.

Bob Woods  19:01

Yes, we did. I know everyone likes it when we can do that. So thanks again for joining us on Making Sales Social Live! If you’re with us live on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook or Twitter right now we do this sucker every week. Keep an eye out for our live sessions. If you’re listening to us on our podcast, and you haven’t subscribed already, go ahead and hit that subscribe or follow button because that way, you’ll see all of our previous shows and be alerted to when new ones drop. 

If you want more information on our podcast, no matter where you’re coming from, it’s at socialsaleslink.com/podcast Pretty simple. I hope I think we do two shows weekly, this one and our Making Sales Social interview series where we talk with leaders and experts in sales, marketing, business and many many more areas. So when you’re out and about make sure that your sales are social.