Your New Hire is a Social Selling Master

I had an instant message account before I had a cell phone. I received emails before I received mail in the post. I met my freshman roommates via social networks before we moved into the dorms. I read the reviews of professors online before I enrolled in their classes.

My entire life has been influenced by social media.

As such, when I joined the world of sales post-graduation, I was genuinely shocked to learn that certain companies purchased outdated lists of contacts that they then cold called.

You might as well hand your reps a yellow book and say, "good luck."

Thankfully, I support a company working to make this cold sales world a much warmer place. We are in the business of "social selling." We help sales professionals leverage their social networks and digital brand to enhance their sales cycle. We believe in a world with accurate insights, efficient sales prospecting, warm introductions and most importantly - no more cold calls.

Now, social selling is a tricky business, because the phrase, “social selling” is confusing. It’s a sexy buzzword that circulates around the savviest of sales groups, but means something different to everyone.

The truth is, from the viewpoint of a millennial fresh into the salesforce, social selling isn’t groundbreaking news. The idea of incorporating my social presence into my sales cycle is as second nature as Googling an answer to a question I have.

Millennials represent a new kind of sales professional. We come to the salesforce equipped with a deep seeded instinct towards social. The idea of cold calling a prospect makes as much sense as using an atlas on a roadtrip… blindly driving down the road using weak insights to guide you. Heck, I had a built-in GPS during my driver’s license test.

We have grown up in a warm world. A world where we research nearly every decision we make – where we want to eat, what we want to wear, who we want to date.

Don’t fear the future of sales just because you haven’t yet adopted social selling. The secret weapon you're looking for is right in front of you. You just hired them. Ask your new hire how they leverage social media in their work and in their lives. Their answers could save your business.

And don’t worry, we Millenials are never shy about sharing our opinion… or so they say. Clearly, I’m not.