by Tim Hughes | @Timothy_Hughes | LinkedIn
We’ve just been approached by a global company, who want to roll out their Social Selling program globally. So how do you do this?
The problem, they found, that a US social selling company didn’t seem like the right partner for the European and Asian roll out. While I’m obviously disappointed that they didn’t use DLA in the US to help them. This would have had for them both global and local consistency of methodology of skills. The good news is, they will get this global consistency outside the US.
One of the problems companies often find with social selling, is that there is a local variant, which means that the roll out is “patchy” and in certain areas may not the ROI (return on investment) that other areas get. This is why we have built a global social transformation company with that in mind.
Let’s look at the different options:-
- Roll out a program globally through webinars. This has now failed in so many companies the approach is totally discredited. Social Selling is a change program and you cannot active people through webinar. We’ve all been there, if we are not interested in a webinar we don’t listen. So many companies come to us and tell us they have wasted money this way.
- Use different companies in different territories. This is one option as you have local people delivering based on local varieties. For example using Xing in Germany, Wechat in Asia etc. The problem with this is you get different methodologies and different results. Some social selling companies use webinars (see above), other write the Linkedin profiles for you, which like the webinars does not get the change companies are looking for. This inconsistency, again wastes money.
- Use internal resource. This is one example we have seen. When engaging with B2B Salespeople they will only work with people who have seen it and done it. Often these companies then rely on “sticks” rather than “carrots” to motivate. Of course, this does not provide the change needed. We often see companies struggle using people that are not respected by the salespeople.
- Companies often rely on the “ad-hock” person to speak at a Sales Kick off or the one day seminar. Always seems like a low cost and good idea. Again, this does not activate everybody and people soon fall back into their old ways.
- The method we use at DLA is to have local partners who implement our standard methodology from the core, they do this using local skills and geographies. For example the culture in Canada is different to the US for example.
Obviously which line you take is totally up to you and will depend on budget and your own people power.
Good luck on your journey!
People who read this article also read these:
https://www.social-experts.net/social-selling-in-asia-is-it-different/
https://www.social-experts.net/account-based-marketing-abm-in-a-smarketing-environment/
https://www.social-experts.net/why-your-social-selling-has-become-a-joke/
