Social Selling From Your Inbox

A few years ago I went to Sydney for a work trip. I was finally able to meet in person with Dana Feldman, a sales manager that I had spoken to many times before. Part of the way through one of our conversations, I found out that we both grew up in the same town in Texas, even going to the same high school. Sitting half way across the world from Texas, we had a good laugh about it, commenting how strange it was we never put it together before.

As a sales person these serendipitous moments surround you every day, with clients, prospects and even your own co-workers. In a recent Forrester research report*, analyst Steven Wright comments that social activity and relationship data in the sales process can “help your direct sales force better connect with sales-validated opportunities.” So not only are these moments nice to have, they’re becoming critical to the sales process.

In an era of data and system overload, it’s not good enough to just have the data available somewhere and make reps hunt to find it. One of his key recommendations is to make the data “easy to access and use.” That seems like it should go without saying but for sales reps, that means putting the right data in specific systems where they are already spending their time.

Love it or hate it, email is one of those systems. A McKinsey Global Institute report claims 28% of a rep's day is spent reading/answering email. That’s why we recently launched Sales Navigator for Gmail to bring social and relationship data in context of a salesperson’s most common form of communication.

Now, everyone you communicate with can help you find serendipitous connections that make a difference in the sales process. Not only because you often communicate with with a broad variety people (co-workers, customers and prospects), but also because you can find those connections in the moment of communication.

Joe Draganic, Sales Director from Axonify shared with us how they’ve been able to operationalize social selling in the inbox to surface the right information when it matters most.

“One best practice that has helped us strengthen relationships with our customers and prospects is to encourage our reps to check the Icebreakers & TeamLink tabs in Sales Navigator for Gmail before sending an email. We’ve been surprised how many times we’ve seen mutual connections, colleagues that know the person you’re about to email, or even that a rep has worked at the same company. Those details may seem small, but some of those connections can accelerate a deal dramatically.”

It looks like Social Selling and your Inbox have a bright future together. Get Sales Navigator for Gmail today. I think there are many more serendipitous meetings, like the one I had in Sydney, in my future.

* “Give Sellers The Alignment Data They Need to Succeed", June 2016 Forrester Report