Your personal branding image can influence the growth of lead conversion.
The proof?
LinkedIn stated, ‘’77% of consumers are more likely to buy from a company when they hear about it from someone they trust.’’
Which means you, the person who is selling the solution.
Did you know that if you promote your brand message via your social media accounts, chances are your brand receives better awareness when compared to the latter.
Which is exactly why we have curated this article for you.
In this article we will be talking about :
To all the sales reps reading this, it’s time to follow the smart 2019 sales strategy, ‘Personal branding’.
Influencer marketing hub explains, ‘’Your personal brand is how you promote yourself. It is the unique combination of skills, experience, and personality that you want the world to see you. It is the telling of your story, and how it reflects your conduct, behaviour, spoken and unspoken words, and attitudes.’’
In simpler terms, personal branding is what you want your prospects to see you as.
For instance, being a sales rep, how would you like your prospects to view you as?
It could be as an advisor, as a solution provider or even the person they go to when they need advice.
The only factor that can connect you and your prospects to be on the same page is when they start to trust your words.
For instance when you sell them any solution, they should be able to take your words and believe that the solution you’re offering them will satisfy their needs.
Similarly, in personal branding, this factor works like a charm when you build that image accordingly.
We are all living in a digitalized world and in 2019, if you are not making use of this, your business will get crushed under your competitors.
You cannot develop personal branding without understanding the importance of such an efficient technique and that is exactly what our next category stresses upon.
Source: brandyourself.asia
Kate Moodley, an Author, Key Note Speaker and Franchise Director at Discovery explained the meaning of how an individual plays an impact in personal branding while addressing the audience in one of her seminars,
‘’The commitment to excellence in every single thing that you do is what carves towards building an organization of brilliance and a brand of excellence’’.
Let’s understand this better with an example:
There are two sales reps in this example.
The scenario is both John and Mat work in the same sales department at XYZ ltd. They have a target of 5 leads a week to bring in the company. At the end of every week their sales goals are analyzed:
This week the reports are as follows, out of the weekly target of 5 leads:
John brought in 3 leads whereas Mat brought in 6.
What happened here?
Both used the same technique of generating leads but how come Mat managed to overshadow John?
The answer is through Mat’s personal branding strategy
Mat has a great online presence due to which his leads were drawn towards understanding what he does. When Mat use to engage on his social media accounts each day, he gave a great vibe for his leads to understand that he is well experienced in his field.
Soon, they started to engage with Mat and learn what solution he had to offer. Mat, in turn, took this as an opportunity to convert all those prospects into leads.
On the other hand, John continued to use the sales methods that he always used to capture leads. He stood miles away from understanding the fact that he needed to start engaging with leads in the way the 2019 sale market demands.
Because John only demanded on phone calls and email reverts, this slowed down his lead generation process. It became difficult for him to find new leads and when he actually found one, it took him a long time to win the lead’s trust.
It’s 2019, today a brand is recognized when they have a good online presence. The 2014 Edelman Trust Barometer- Global Results states, ‘’65 per cent see online search as the most trusted source of information about people and companies. That’s a higher level of trust than any other online or offline source’’. This clearly states that if you want to up your sales game, you need to be active online.
Kredible claims, ‘’Leads developed through employees’ social media activities convert 7 times more frequently than other leads.’’ This only means that it is now time for you to kick start your personal branding game.
Forbes states, ‘’Sales reps who use social media as part of their sales techniques outsell 78 percent of their peers’’.
If your online social account, be it Linkedin or Instagram is inactive, there is a high possibility that your brand is missing out on many golden opportunities.
As mentioned above, sales isn’t just about making calls, you need to find other ways in which you can tap your leads more quickly and efficiently and that is exactly how Personal branding can help you.
But first, you need to understand that being on the corporate side requires you to choose a platform that are well known among your type of business. For instance, being in the B2B market, there are many platforms available for you to connect with your prospects. Linkedin is arguably the best suited tool. Hootsuite proves, ‘’Many brands are using it to grow relationships and reputation, court leads, and stay informed.’’ Linkedin is a business platform that allows you to connect and engage with the type of audience you wish to connect with. The reason why Linkedin can help you is because if you have a constant interaction using this platform, you tend to shine more in the eyes of your connections.
Let’s understand this with an example:
Your brand sells Saas products and your target audience are the CEO’s and marketing managers of the company.
Every day you interact, comment and place likes on topics related to your field via Linkedin. This constant activity allows your Linkedin connections to view your profile to learn more about you.
Here is when your personal branding kicks in.
When your prospect views your account, they immediately view the summary which you have written to introduce yourself.
As you can see from the sample above, The first line itself detects what your aim is, ‘’Helping you find and close more B2B sales leads’’.
In Dylan’s account, in the third paragraph you can clearly see that he states the common problem which his target audiences are facing. Hence right after he addresses the problem he states the solution which triggers the interest of his audience to check the solution.
After speaking of what he does he jumps into giving a good introduction of him on a more personal level. This is a great strategy because his audience will be able to understand what his purpose and how he wants to help them.
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Ceohangout states, ‘’82% of people are more likely to trust a company when their senior executives are active on social media’’.
You could be a sales assistant, sales manager or even an executive, but if you don’t have an active social account in 2019, the conversion rates for your sales numbers will never move higher.
Understand it this way:
If you have a good social account online and you are active every day even if it is for a minimum of 4 hours, you could:
Having said that, our second pointer could elaborate more on the engagement and interaction factors.
If you are planning to engage just once a week on your online social account, you may want to think again.
Entrepreneur states, ‘’Consistency is key. It takes five to seven impressions for someone to remember a brand’’.
And if you plan to conduct this action once, you might as well not do it at all because it doesn’t make much of a difference.
What this pointer means to explain to you is that, engagement on your social account has different means.
It doesn’t just speak about interacting with your prospects, it also explains how you can create a great awareness for your brand.
For instance, having a social media account means you will be catering to the followers who are on your list. Ideally it is seen that when compared to a brand, employees always have a larger number of connections.
Ceohangout proves, ‘’Employees on an average have 10x more followers than a brand’’ which means that if you happen to share a blog post from your brand, chances are the post can receive a good amount of likes and shares.
The best example that can be shared here is of Dave Gerhardt, VP Marketing at Drift.
With over 500+ connections on Linkedin, Dave has managed to win over his prospects and future leads through his exceptionally well showcased personal branding image:
Under the About section, Dave listed out all his achievements in the form of results which is actually what his target audience needs to see.
For instance, he mentioned that as VP Marketing at drift, he helped to grow the company from zero to an 8 figure which is indeed impressive enough to capture the attention of his leads.
Being a guest lecturer at one of the most prestigious universities, Harvard as well as being considered as a top marketing leader all showcases the experience he holds to perform what he does.
Through these impactful information on his account, Dave manages to capture and convert warm leads instantly.
Let’s take another example:
Jeff bezos, the reason behind Amazon successful creation.
His twitter handle is the perfect example to explain how the impact of personal branding works.
His engagements happen constantly and this is evident from the number of likes and comments he receives for every post.
Jeff understands that if he wants to make Amazon stand on top always he needs to engage and connect with his audience. With each of his post, he adds a sense of closeness for his audience to relate.
For instance, in the image above, this post speaks about how he aims to sell the amazon packages quicker which gives his audience a deeper understanding of the solution he provides.
A good online social involvement would make you do the following:
Ceohangout states, ‘’53% percent of vendors have lost orders based on information found or not found about them online.’’
Being on the sales front, you have heard so many reasons as to why a prospect doesn’t want to or is unsure of buying from you.
You also tend to retrieve other information such as:
This information can play a smart role in your personal branding.
Let’s understand this with an example:
You get in touch with a prospect who speaks to you saying that he or she is unaware of the new trends that your industry operates in.
Just like that prospect, many others are unaware of the new trends, hence you can use this scenario as an advantage.
You could share this topic with your content team who will curate blogs on the same. When this happens, you will be able to share this information with all those prospects who are seeking such answers.
Kredible states, ‘’Decision makers are hungry for content that will help them choose the best solution for their needs, and the source of this content matters. They are more likely to notice and click on an article posted by a connection than one that appears as a sponsored social media posts in their newsfeed’’.
In return, you receive:
The reason why this factor stresses more on blogging your prospect solutions because blogs today are considered as one of the finest ways to seek better answers.
Seotribunal states, ‘’66% of B2B marketers who use blogs generate more leads than those who don’t.’’
See it in this way:
When your prospects acknowledge you and your solution, they will want to deepen a good knowledge before they can say yes to you and that is when the blogs will help them.
Entrepreneur states, ‘’Marketers, who prioritize blogging, are 13 times more likely to enjoy positive ROI.’’
So if they find the blogs relevant to what they are seeking, imagine how many leads will want to contact you.
Learn it with this equation:
Information retrieved from prospects + information shared with content team = Information that the prospects want to hear.
When you merge blog posts with prospect questions, at the end you only receive guaranteed qualified leads.
As you now have an understanding of how much importance you possess being a sales rep, imagine you enhancing it more by sharing your knowledge across widely used platforms such as:
In its research, LinkedIn stated, ‘’Content shared by employees receive 8x more engagement than content shared by brand channels.’’
Which means if you share even one piece of information in any of the groups, chances are you can grasp your prospect’s interest to have a communication with you.
Let’s understand this with an example:
Sam has an active social media account online. He ensures that each day he spends at least 3 hours engaging in questions related to his field and giving his feedback.
Most of the time Sam shares information about his solution through different mediums such as blogs or posts. He also shares other relevant information and puts a call to action sentence which would compel his prospect to start a conversation.
In a month, Sam was able to answer any questions which his prospects put forth as well as engage in a healthy debate through his post. All these actions made his prospect consider him as an experienced individual for anything in his field.
Conducting this activity for more than a month, Sam was able to win the trust of his prospects and capture them with his solution.
His prospect too, on the other hand, trusted him because they were well aware of what he was saying. Hence Sam used this opportunity to sell what his brand and solution offers hence increasing the awareness much higher.
LinkedIn stated, ‘’77% of consumers are more likely to buy from a company when they hear about it from someone they trust.’’
Would you decide to invest in a solution based on a robot?
Some of you might partially agree with me because, in 2019, everything you need is just one tap away.
But did you know, if you retain the lost human touch in your personal branding, it could work wonders.
Let’s take the example we mentioned above about Dave Gerhardt.
When Drift, Dave’s company was in the process of launching a new product, they didn’t simply launch it on the date mentioned, they created a sense of excitement and started a countdown to attract the attention of your audience.
The were active on twitter sharing every minute details about their product so that the engagement levels with their audiences don’t run dry.
Take a look:
The hype was taken well and it kept their audiences at their toes to understand what the buzz was all about.
What Dave did was a great way to engage and create excitement for all his users. With social media being a platform for information to be viewed, tactics such as Dave’s help to bring out a more personal side.
One of the key pointers in Volkartmay’s article states,‘’The element of human touch remains critically important in sales, and it’s a great way to differentiate and stand out from competitors who don’t value it as much as they should. During conversations, people can help communicate value to other people and their unique situations in an effective way.’’
Prospects love to be communicated the way they find more comfortable. For instance, while some may prefer online chat due to its easy convenience, there may be some who would still like to communicate over call because it solves their queries easily.
The above statement doesn’t mean that what you are doing is wrong. It’s right, it’s just that you need to make a few switches such as:
When you conduct the above actions, you immediately affect your personal branding image.
How?
Personal branding relies on how you want to showcase your brand, being a sales rep how are you planning to explain the difference between your brand and the rest?
Yes, sales numbers may be higher or maybe you have won a recent award, but at the end of the day the question still arises, what are you doing to reach out to each of your prospects’ needs?
The world is now going digital, there are still a few of your prospects who expect brands to speak to them in more humanely.
What do you think about this matter? We would love to hear from you.
As we’ve reached the end of this article, let’s take a quick recap of what we’ve covered in this topic:
If you found this article helpful, do share it among your peers with our cool Callback software features .
We would also like if you could tell us which of the personal branding for sales techniques you will apply first? Try our Callback Software Now!
, August 19, 2019, LimeCall Team
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