Today I want to tell you about the importance of networking for business growth. And I’m not just talking about adding one or two clients to your books each month. This video will help you supercharge your sales through networking, without selling your soul.
First off, let’s talk about the old way of networking. You go to events, sit around a table, engage in small talk and hand over a business card to someone you’ve only just met. Great, you can follow up with them sometime in the future and maybe they’ll require your service. The truth is though that this type of networking sucks.
And it sucks for one reason. Everyone at these events is there to sell, not buy.
If you go to enough events, whether in your area or in your industry, you’ll start to see the same faces in the crowd time and time again. If you’re honest with yourself, would your time be better spent doing any other sales and marketing activity? The chances are that in today’s market, the answer is yes.
There are positives of course and the main one is that networking, no matter how you do it, builds relationships, it often opens doors to new opportunities and can be the starting point for partnerships and conversations that eventually lead to sales.
But today, there’s a more effective way to use your time and resources to build a network and in this manner, you can rapidly grow your business. It’s called social selling.
I can tell you with all honesty, that this is exactly the process I use to generate inbound leads every single day. It’s a large part of the strategy I and my team used to scale my business to 200k months before exiting. I’m not saying it’s easy, because it isn’t, but the work you put in now compounds over time to become much greater than the effort originally put in. If that sounds good, let’s look at how you can build and maintain a strong network that generates sales for your business.
Hunting Versus Farming
Answer this: Are you a hunter or a farmer? There will always be a place for proactively targeting sales prospects but a singular approach of hunting them down, pursuing a meeting and then pitching hard, often does more to put off your prospect than to attract them. If you consider farming as an alternative, you decide which crops to grow, sow the seeds, water them regularly, and add some support where needed. In the future, you will be rewarded with a bountiful crop.
Building a professional network takes time and effort, but done right, it has never been easier and with the right focus on building relationships and looking for opportunities to collaborate, you can easily grow your network, both personally and professionally.
The Power of Social Selling in Networking
If you’re still here, I assume you’re open to the idea that networking is important for business growth. Now let me show you how it is one of the most effective ways to use your time and resources. I’m talking about social selling.
Hands up if you like cold calling. Hands up if you like objection handling and hands up if you like negotiating on price. And if you still have your hand up, I have a job in sales for you.
Even the most seasoned salespeople don’t enjoy cold calling. Of course, they may be good at it, but what if there was another way, do you think they’d take that option? As someone who’s worked in high-pressure sales environments, I can categorically tell you the answer is yes. And it’s because of this experience I know that old techniques no longer work the way they once did, and that;’s a good thing.
Right now, social selling is the strategy I use to sell. We implemented this in my design agency over a number of years and we took our revenue to multiple 6 figures per month because of it. And for those of you who eventually want to sell your business, I can tell you that it was a huge part of the exit process.
And the question I hope you’re asking is what is social selling? The good news is that it’s not a difficult concept and the better news is that you’re almost guaranteed to be doing some of this already.
What is Social Selling?
Social selling is a structured approach to nurturing leads, building relationships, and having conversations that result in our desired outcomes. It’s about building real 1:1 connections with potential customers or prospects through social platforms. The beauty of social selling is that it rarely feels like selling, but when done right, it’s highly effective
The Social Selling Process
1. Identify Your Prospects: Start by adding prospect companies to your CRM. This becomes your prospecting database and allows you to monitor activity from each channel you’re focusing on.
2. Connect on LinkedIn: Find out who the key contacts are and add them on LinkedIn. Don’t send InMail or messages right away. In fact leave this for weeks. Remember no one wants to be sold to.
3. Share Relevant Content: Ensure you’re sharing relevant brand projects on your social channels that month. This can’t be stated enough. The biggest part of social selling is the content you share. Focus on providing value to your prospective clients. Share case studies, experience, and demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the challenges or opportunities they face.
For example, I talk a lot about my experience as an entrepreneur. I do this because the people in my network are primarily entrepreneurs and other business owners. They may be experiencing the same or similar challenges in their business and my insights often help them to navigate this.
4. Engage Regularly: This is something I had trouble with for the longest time. Then I was reminded that on social networks you need to be social. There’s no point doom-scrolling for eternity or indeed just posting your own content into the digital ether. Use your social selling time to engage and comment on your prospect’s posts. I’d say this comes with caveats. Do it relatively frequently but not too much and also ensure you add value to their post if you leave a comment. Otherwise don’t. Let the relationship mature over time.
One rule I have when it comes to social media is that every time I visit one of the networks, I’ll leave a comment or add a post. This way I ensure I remain effective with my time.
5. Warm Up the Lead: This is as much a reminder as anything. Remember you are here to sell. You want to work with specific businesses, on specific projects. Ensure you use your social media to demonstrate your experience and warm up your prospects well before speaking to them. This process can take weeks if not months.
Every single post I create is focused on building my social capital as a strategic partner for entrepreneurs on their business journey. Some of my content is relevant to start-ups while other content is directed at those closer to business exit. There will always be commonality in the journeys so my content remains somewhat relevant to all.
6. Make Initial Contact: When I see you creeping on my profile, liking and engaging with my posts I’ll send a light-touch message. It’s not a pitch but rather a quick hello and an intro.
Hey Stephen,
Appreciate you engaging with my posts. Really appreciate it.
I’m not sure if I’ve been recommended to you, but I’ve worked in your industry and helped a few owners before.
How’s your business going? What are you working on currently? Was there any of my content that was relevant to you?
Cheers
Connor
This type of communication opens up the conversation and will allow me to understand which content they found most interesting or relevant, I get to explain who I am and then explain how I can help them in future messages.
Remember, the key is to build the relationship and warm up the lead well before speaking to them.
This of course takes time and significant focus on your content. But with a considered approach, this becomes a highly engaged lead generation process.
Think about your intro messaging. What do you want to achieve and how can you tailor this initial message to start a conversation? Ask prompting questions such as: What challenges in business are you facing?
But remember this is the start of the conversation, too probing questions can often put people off.
Balancing Hunting and Farming
While social selling is a form of “farming” – nurturing relationships over time, it should never be considered a passive approach to sales.
Business owners, entrepreneurs and their respective sales teams should always focus on hunting or actively pursuing new business no matter which activity they’re engaged in. A successful sales strategy that will grow your business incorporates both approaches.
For hunting, set clear activity levels for your sales team:
– 100 prospects added weekly
– 10 LinkedIn messages daily
The earlier you start adding prospective leads the better. There’s some debate as to whether you need LinkedIn sales navigator for this and I imagine it will significantly, but personally I have no issue searching and finding relevant leads and prospects who fit my target market within the normal search. When I exhaust this, I’ll look at alternatives.
Supporting Your Sales Efforts
To maximise the effectiveness of your social selling and networking efforts, you need to have supporting materials at the ready. A few things that I keep in hand to optimise my process include:
1. Case Study Deck: Showcase your work with a focus on the commercial benefits your services create.
2. Sales Scripts: Create templates for your team to ensure consistent language and tone across all sales activities.
3. Social Activity: Regularly share case studies and content that demonstrates experience and builds trust.
4. Website Content: Keep your website updated with fresh, relevant content to improve search engine rankings and provide value to potential clients.
5. Retargeting Ads: Use retargeting to stay top-of-mind with prospects who’ve visited your site or social profiles.
Remember, networking and social selling are about building relationships, not just making sales. By providing value, demonstrating expertise, and nurturing connections over time, you’ll create a robust network that generates sustainable business growth.
If you want to find out more ways to grow your business and give yourself the option to one day sell it, head over to https://www.youtube.com/@moveatpace and subscribe to the channel.
If you want to find out more about Social selling and how this can help boost your networking success, please feel free to download my FREE Social Selling PDF Guide.