SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - Jun 18, 2012) - InsideView, the only social selling provider to reveal the person behind the contact, today unveiled the industry's first social selling guide, designed to educate and align sales organizations behind social selling strategies and tactics. The e-book, "The Six Tenets of Social Selling," is available now on the company's Social Selling University site. In addition to the book, the company announced Weekly Sales Coffee, a series of podcasts that will explore the social selling best practices outlined in the book. Both the book and the podcasts are free and available from InsideView or through InsideView's educational website, the Social Selling University.
"Social technologies have quickly evolved into strategic tools for sales professionals -- but knowing how to get the most of social selling requires in-depth knowledge and best practices," said Koka Sexton, Director of Social Strategy at InsideView and social selling expert. "By dividing the components of social selling into easy to digest chapters, and providing actionable best practices for successful social selling techniques, we are making it simple for sales professionals embrace social selling and achieve greater results."
The Transformation of Social Selling
InsideView's first book on social selling, the "Six Tenets of Social Selling," reveals how to achieve greater insight and enter every sales engagement with relevant, actionable information. Research shows that the average sales professional spends as much as 25% of their time researching prospects across their CRM database and various social and news sites. Since InsideView aggregates information from thousands of social, news and company sites and provides this information inside the CRM interface, the salesperson can eliminate time that is wasted searching for insights across these other sources.
"But, changing sales practices and evolving to effective social selling requires a new approach to list building, prospecting and closing deals," added Sexton. "Our new ebook will help sales professionals understand and adopt modern social selling techniques to effectively engage in meaningful social selling activities."
The new e-book and podcast series explores the following social selling topics:
1. Beyond the CRM record -- explore how to look beyond CRM contact data to find more accurate information, company data and personal backgrounds and interests.
2. Reveal the person behind the contact -- Sales is a customer and prospect focused business activity. CRM databases, while good at reporting and tracking contact data, reveal very little about the person behind the contact. Social data reveals actionable insights about each person a sales person targets.
3. Intelligence, not data, wins the deal -- Sales professionals must focus on relevant information and insight about their contacts and their contacts' company. This information enables the sales person to break through email and voicemail clutter, and engage a prospect with meaningful offers and information. Readers will learn how to engender trust through and engage with prospects in more meaningful ways.
4. Focus on current customer needs -- With greater insight about prospects, sales professionals can be more in tune with their needs and significant changes that can affect a sales relationship. Reps can touch prospects at the times that they are most likely to buy. Readers will learn how to identify key events and shifts that represent opportunities for sales success.
5. Sales reports that drive performance -- as sales activities and approaches are infused with social selling techniques, pipeline and activity reports take on more meaning. Readers will learn how to tune sales activity for best results, and what factors are important for sales professionals to track.
6. Sales professionals with the most intelligence win -- approach buyers with the right message, at the right time for the right deal.
The InsideView e-book is available to download for free on the InsideView Social Selling University site. The first in a series of free pod casts is scheduled for June 8 and will cover the Fundamentals of Social Selling. Both the e-book and the Weekly "Social Talk" podcasts are packed with information derived from the aggregate experience of hundreds of companies and thousands of sales professionals who use InsideView as the heart of their social selling strategy.
About InsideView
InsideView, the leading provider of sales intelligence, increases productivity and revenue by delivering relevant business and social insights to the point of need. Our award-winning technology gathers and analyses information from the most relevant social media, user-contributed and traditional/proprietary editorial sources to provide compelling insights about companies and contacts directly within your CRM, browser, or mobile device. More than 200,000 sales professionals, and over 1,000 market-leading companies including Adobe, AIG, BMC, CapGemini, Egencia, and SuccessFactors use InsideView. For more information, visit InsideView.
Contact Information:
Contact:
Kelli Tejada
+1 (415) 271-9820