Meat GrinderJust the facts, m’am. Social selling is about relationships. Anyone can buy a list. Anyone can pummel their contacts with marketing automation. But the ones who don’t grind out leads and instead cultivate relationships are winning.

98 percent of sales reps with more than 5,000 LinkedIn connections meet or surpass quota.

73 percent of salespeople using social selling as part of their sales process outperformed their sales peers and exceeded their quotas 23 percent more often.

But only 40 percent of salespeople have closed two to five more deals per year as a result of social selling.

Why?

One more fact. Sales people all have their ‘Sales Method’. Chances are social selling isn’t part of that antiquated method. Even if they are using expensive tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator, they are just creating more lists of more strangers with only outlier chances of relating to them–or getting a reply. Your whiny little sales team is still complaining that social interactions and relationships aren’t leads. They’re not. They’re relationships. And relationships close, repeat, and refer.

Sources:
http://blog.hubspot.com/sales/surprising-statistics-on-social-selling#sm.000033xndrgmjcv3r711lfi0nzp92

http://postbeyond.com/why-social-selling-infographic/