Since this is a new social network, we’d like to hear from our community on how you would like us to use Google+. After adding InsideView to one of your circles post your suggestion on your wall and tag +insideview. We’d love to hear what you’d like us to share on our Google+ page.

Here’s a few suggestions that were thrown around here at InsideView HQ on ways to use the page.

• Industry news
• How to’s
• Partner news
• Curated content about sales and marketing
• Product releases
• Social Selling tips

Let us know what you think on the page.

Sales Teams Need Social Media

What is rarely talked about it the need for sales teams to be active on Twitter and other social networks like LinkedIn. On a base level, sales people need to be aware that social media and social selling can have a measurable impact on their win rates. CSO Insights recently published a paper called “The Sales Intelligence Challenge” that addressed this. InsideView was involved in a Webinar with CSO Insights on this topic also. It was found in their research that B2B Sales win rates were highest when sales people used sales intelligence tools like InsideView.

Social Media is the Key

There is too much information available online these days that a sales person is walking blind if they are not using it in some way. Sales prospecting lists for contact data is fine but it’s not very effective on a large scale. Gathering contact information is only the first step in an effective sales process. The real intelligence comes from contact data and the relevant information about that contact.

Most times this means that sales people are opening up several tabs in their browser to run searches in LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogs and Google to see what they can find on their contact so a phone call or other engagement can seem timely and be well received from the prospect. Knowing more about your prospect, their company and industry is NOT provided by contact data or prospect lists.

The best sales professionals are gathering recent news and relevant information about prospects and companies by looking at social media  for the sales intelligence needed to drive the conversation.

InsideView Launches Social Selling University to Provide Comprehensive Education for Sales Professionals, Driving Sales Productivity Through Social MediaWorld’s Top Sales Experts, Social Media Pundits Unite for Launch of First-of-Its-Kind Education Initiative

Today Social Selling University officially launches as the first program to educate sales professionals on how to leverage social media technologies and methodologies to increase sales productivity and drive revenue throughout the entire sales cycle. The first-of-its-kind program instructs sales organizations, consultants and in-house teams about selling to the modern and socially-connected customer — Customer 2.0 — and offers both an on-demand curriculum and live workshops. The program is open to all sales professionals starting today.

Social Selling University’s (SSU) actionable content and interactive learning modules have been developed by expert instructors, including experienced thought leaders, authors and analysts. Classes are designed for all levels of sales professionals, covering a broad range of topics including entry-level social media instruction on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, best practices for managing personal online brands and how to accelerate the sales cycle by leveraging recent business events, social conversations and social relationships (aka “social intelligence”). The program’s instructors will provide expert advice to sales management on how to best incorporate social selling into their organizations, and educate sales professionals on how to utilize social media platforms to drive greater sales productivity.

“Social media is fundamentally changing the way sales professionals navigate the sales cycle — what worked two years ago, doesn’t work anymore because socially savvy buyers know far more about products and companies than ever before,” said Barbara Giamanco, Talent Builders CEO. “Fortunately, SSU levels the playing field by teaching sales executives, managers and reps how to interact with and sell to the modern consumer. These social sales practices breed relationships and eliminate the need for cold calling.”

Who should attend SSU?
Any sales professional — from account rep to sales team leader, director or executive — who CANNOT answer the question: “What is social selling and why does it matter to my sales organization?”

Isn’t social media for marketers? Why does social media matter to sales people?

• Social media marketing grew 50% in 2010 to $1.2 billion, and analysts predict that 2011 is the “year of social integration” for businesses. Social CRM has crested as the new and understood platform for sales and customer service.

“Salespeople who fail to leverage social media do so at their own peril. The problem is, many don’t know how,” said Jill Konrath, best-selling author of SNAP Selling and Selling to Big Companies. “Thankfully, technologies exist to allow any sales professional to gather and share relevant buyer information and achieve greater sales success. Social Selling University is a great place to start and continue learning what’s possible in the new world of social selling.”

As part of the initiative, SSU will host a Webinar series, featuring a panel of industry thought leaders to answer questions about how to use social media for sales, including:

March 3: Barbara Giamanco, founder and CEO of Talent Builders, Inc
March 8: Koka Sexton, director of Social Selling University
March 10: Jill Konrath, author of SNAP Selling and Selling to Big Companies
March 15: Patrick O’Malley, social media trainer and consultant
March 17: Nigel Edelshain, CEO of Sales 2.0
March 22: Pelin Thorogood, principal, Schulman + Thorogood Group.
March 24: Anneke Seley, CEO and founder of Phone Works and coauthor of Sales 2.0
March 29: Dan Schawbel, managing partner of Millennial Branding, LLC
March 31: Tibor Shanto, principal, Renbor Sales Solutions

On March 8, SSU will host a live, complimentary workshop following the Sales 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, where industry thought leaders will discuss the best practices for leveraging social media to increase sales team performance. Visit SSU’s registration page for more information about the agenda, speakers or sign-up information.

“Social media has completely changed the world of selling, and if you and your organization want to stay relevant, then you need to learn how to use these tools before your competitors,” said Dan Schawbel, the author of the number one international bestselling book, Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future. ”Social Selling University is the first program to teach salespeople how to use Facebook, Twitter and other social tools to generate ready-to-buy leads and build relationships with customers that result in long-term business growth.”

About Social Selling University
Social Selling University is the world’s first initiative dedicated to teaching the sales profession how to put social media to work within their sales processes and organizations for greater productivity and revenue, through online instruction and in-person workshops. SSU staff includes dozens of the leading experts in social media, sales and Social CRM, and provides courses made specifically for executives, managers and representatives. Founded in 2011 by InsideView, SSU is the leading source of education about using the social Web to increase sales productivity through social intelligence. For more information, visit www.socialsellingu.com.

There is a shift being made in businesses regarding their approach to gaining new business and managing their customers. Social CRM is on the rise and this is more than a few bells and whistles being added into your contact database. With a large focus being made in the movement away from sales data and into sales intelligence, sales professionals will need to make a few adjustments on how they do everything from prospect, develop new opportunities and manage their existing accounts.

Customer 2.0 is not waiting around for a sales person to get back to them with information, they are online looking for answers from people outside of your company within their own social networks and generally searching for people they should be in contact with. The trick (if you want to call it that) is to make yourself as visible as possible so that this new breed of customer has no option but to come across your name or profile during these searches. This is why Sales 2.0 starts with YOU.

5 Steps a person should take to make themselves more sales 2.0 ready

1. Create or optimize you LinkedIn profile. I came across another company this week that only had 20% of their sales team on LinkedIn. At first the sales manager was resistant to the idea of their team using LinkedIn but after some discussion, I think they changed their mind. I guess we’ll see in a couple weeks when we check back in with them.

Sales people should look at their online presence as an extension of themselves. Sites like LinkedIn can become self service lead generators once you optimize your LinkedIn profile and start building a network.

2. Get over your fear and join Twitter now! Maybe it’s because I didn’t have many friends as a teenage kid but I have always found Twitter to be a useful tool to meet people interested in the same things as me and have small conversations. Once I realized that Twitter could be used in a sales environment, I started building a mini network of people that were already customers and looking for products that I sold. You might be amazed at the number of executives on Twitter or just other employees that you can build relationships with online. Remember people buy from people, the more you are seen as a person and not another sales person the better.

Use the search feature or get an application like HootSuite or TweetDeck to help you focus on specific geographies and keywords your company is associated with.

3. This should be #1 but for the sake of editing it’s not. Go over to GoDaddy or another domain name company and buy yourname.com. Google yourself and look at what the results are. Owning your own domain name and building a simple site or even pointing the domain to your LinkedIn profile will help you stand out from the crowd. Your prospects are looking at your online identity just as you are them. Make sure you are searchable and showing your customers/prospects that you are a professional.

4. Stop cold calling and start engaging in conversations. Now that you have a shiny LinkedIn profile start spending a little bit of time in groups and asking/answering questions. You will be amazed at the number of people that are willing to give free advice to you about how to make yourself better or how thankful some people are that you were able to help them out. These are all little building blocks to make you a sales 2.0 expert and bring more prospects to you.

5. Add your social profiles to everything you send to prospects. Add your LinkedIn, Twitter and company blog URLs to your email signature. This is a great way to get some exposure to your Sales 2.0 identity and will let people learn more about YOU and not the sales person contacting them.

These are some simple steps a sales person can take that will build their credibility online and make it near impossible for customer 2.0 not to notice. Would you like me to look at your LinkedIn profile and offer any suggestions? Leave me a comment with the link and I’ll check it out.

This was a timely update from Paul as I was putting together the post on personal branding for sales people. Anyone that is serious as a sales person needs to be aware what their personal brand is. I think this is one of the most overlooked aspects of a sales person’s life and should really be developed. As a sales person you need to be aware and in control of what is found when people look for you. This is why it is so important to optimize your LinkedIn profile. Dealing with Customer 2.0 is hinged on being searchable and having a rich online identity that shows you are more professional than the competition. Obviously this is about your personal brand as a sales person but this also translates into how you represent your company’s brand as well. If you have an extensive presence online providing information and helping people, you are going to get an extra level of engagement from prospects and others looking for answers.

What comes up when you Google yourself?

Chances are if you Google yourself now there may be something that comes up related to you. If nothing else, your LinkedIn profile should show up in the first few results if you have optimized it correctly since LinkedIn has a lot of Google juice. But what if that’s all that comes up about you? Even worse, what if you have negative results that show up? If your customers look you up online, there are some simple things you can do that will help both of these issues.

Remove bad content at the source.

Chances are you just uploaded some pictures or have a profile somewhere that you don’t use or just isn’t how you want to be seen in the professional world. Go to the site and delete the profile, picture or contact the site administrator to remove it for you. Sounds like a little bit of work but you will be thankful that this won’t come back to haunt you in the future.

Bury it with newer, positive information.

You are on your way to being a Sales 2.0 ninja and the more professional profiles you set up and content you share on sites like LinkedIn, business blogs and sales sites, the more the older information will be buried from the front page of Google and other search engines. Start taking control of your personal brand and directing people to your showcase pages and profiles. If you add a new profile and provide content to just a couple sites a week you will see the other listings disappear.

Sales 2.0 in the mirror

You should always be thinking about helping your customer by providing valuable information and resources to get educated online. Sales 2.0 is about using the Internet to educate prospects, find new opportunities and build stronger relationships. Your social profiles will be the glue that holds your credibility together.

Social Media Facts and Figures for B2B Sales

Social Media Spending

Sales Productivity Lost During the World Cup

Building a Company with Social Media

A Day in the Internet

Women In Social Media

Social Media In Business

Who Participates Online

Visualizing 6 Years of Facebook

Twitter Territory

The World Of Facebook

The Story (so far) of Twitter

The Social Media Effect

The Rise Of The Social Networking Ad Spending

The Rise of Facebook Mobile: 2010

The Social Media Effect

The Life Cycle of a Blog Post

The Journey of a Tweet

The Hierarchy of Digital Distractions

The Evolution of Twitter: 2010

The Biggest Shift

Social Media Statistics

Social Media Addiction

Social Marketing Compass

Social Landscape

Profiles of a Twitter User

Popular Site Demographics

More Truth About Twitter

Make Social Media Work For Your Company

How The World Spends Its Time Online

How People Share Content on the Web

How Companies are Leveraging Social Media

How are Mobile Phones Changing Social Media

Gender Balance on Social Networking Sites

Facebook was a Country

Facebook Vs Twitter

Facebook Facts and Figures 2010

Conversation Prism

Breakdown of the Blogosphere

Balance Your Media Diet

Age Distribution on Social Network Sites

Next week we are hosting a webinar along with SellingPower on how to get smarter about selling.

Today’s sales professionals are frustrated with how traditional selling approaches such as cold-calls, email blasts, and product pitches are not yielding results.  When sales organizations try new approaches, it often results in less productivity – because finding relevant insights from the piles of information now available online is more difficult than it needs to be. Getting smart about selling needn’t be complex or time-consuming. With the right approach, you can increase your “Selling IQ” and also your sales productivity.

Register for this live Webinar to learn:

-   Keys to selling smarter
-   How to boost your “Selling IQ”
-   How best to leverage social media to gain competitive advantage
-   Real-life customer success stories and best practices

Wed, Oct 6, 2010 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM EDT

We recently asked the group if they had any advice to share with their peers. What we received was advice, best practices, cautions and words of wisdom that will surely help the remainder of the sales industry dive in to the tempered waters of social media, and navigate the terrain of the traditional sales industry.

Tibor Shanto, principal and founder of Renbor Sales Solutions Inc.

If you have something to say, say it, say it loud! Join LinkedIn and take some time to find groups in line with your interests, then speak up. Share your blog posts, join discussions, answer questions and take advantage of any other way to be vocal.  Once you have contributed to a discussion, Tweet about it. Not only will you be able to get solid feedback about a variety of topics, but you can then take those ideas and blog about it. From there, you can tweet it – a very effective and cyclical cylce.

LinkedIn creates an ongoing opportunity to involve new people, new views and perpetuate your learning and ability to expand your network as people learn about you and your thinking. From there, build relationships and carry the conversation off line – sometimes these people will be sales leads, industry experts or at the least, people you share common interests with.

Chad Levitt, Account Executive at HubSpot, Author of the New Sales Economy Blog

In “Six Simple Steps to Reach More Prospects,” Chad shares his insight about connecting with your target accounts and contracts: “If you are wondering if these 6 steps will work — they do — I use them everyday with success. The beauty of these 6 simple steps is that they are easily repeatable and do not waste your time on unnecessary tasks.”

Identify your target account

Go to Jigsaw.com and type your target account into the search field and click ‘go.’ Select the contacts you would like to connect with at your target account

• If the company’s main line is the only one listed, call and ask the operator to give you the direct extension. The operator will usually give it to you. If they try to put you through say you will reach out again later and hang up.

Go to Google and type in the name of your target prospect and the company’s name

• Many times you will find their LinkedIn profile, other social media networks and affiliations. Explore their LinkedIn profile and social networks and get to know your target contact. You may also find related news items that may be relevant.

Send an introduction email that you should have saved in a template to save time

• Make quick changes to your template to personalize email, and let your target contact know in your email you will be calling shortly

Call back in a few hours to connect with your prospect

• If they respond to your email before you call them, immediately call back – they are usually at their desk. Leave a compelling voicemail if your target contact does not pick up the phone and mention your email. The combination of your email and calling will greatly increase the chances of reaching your target contact

Brian Jones, president of Industrial Interface, Inc.

Don’t be a business

The Internet allows people in every job to consume information that they find interesting at work.  If you can present relevant and useful information to your potential customers that is also fun and interesting, then you are well on your way to creating a valuable online brand.

It’s not always about marketing

Internet users can smell marketing speak a mile away. Why? Because it’s usually meaningless drivel that conveys no real benefit to anyone. Social media marketing is all about people sharing with other people. You need to personify your brand to compete in this space. If your company is just sharing its most recent product information, then no one is going to care. Don’t be afraid to be personal, funny, controversial and casual when representing your brand online.

Trust your product

If your product stinks, then all the marketing in the world isn’t going to help. If you’ve created a valuable website and clearly share the benefits of using your products, then users will be engaged when they get there. You won’t always have to push your products on customers through these online avenues.

Choose the right medium

There are a lot of popular social media sites that aren’t useful to every brand. LinkedIn is for professional networking and business information, while Facebook is reserved exclusively for fun personal interactions. B2B social media efforts need to be highly targeted to be successful.

Monitor the right metrics

Lots of people are interested in lots of stuff online, so traffic isn’t always a key to success. Look to customer sign-ups, calls or some other action that represents a real prospect doing something on your site. Getting a thousand people to your site is useless if no one takes the actions you need.

Joanne Black, founder of consulting business for Referral Sales, No More Cold Calling

Joanne’s tip is short and simple, but provide a sound perspective about LinkedIn.

Personalize your LinkedIn invitation

When I receive the standard invitation, “Please join my professional network on LinkedIn,” I know the person is reaching out to a list of people. I respond to a personal connection, as do most people. Use your invitation to re-connect, share a few short sentences about what you are doing or comment on their profile. It makes a world of difference. Also, do not accept invitations from people you don’t know.

We are very happy about this recognition of the impact that our Sales 2.0 technology is having on the CRM industry. It’s exciting to be among such acclaimed company and rather fitting, as InsideView has been one of the key players to make relevant data from Facebook and Google’s properties accessible and useful to CRM users through our sales intelligence application, SalesView. Facebook and Google have been instrumental in opening up broad new opportunities to better inform salespeople and we are committed to continuing to build the best system possible to aggregate the right data from these and many other sources and delivering it to CRM users when it is most useful to them.