As a business 6Consulting have moved away from the traditional pick the telephone up and bash it sales model. Trust me, from an ‘X’ Sales Director this has been quite the leap for me. OK I instigated it and created the model, but convincing others it is a superior sales model has not always been easy.

Before people jump on me and say you can’t sell without picking the phone up and talking to people I must state that we DO talk to people on the phone, we just generate enough relevant inbound enquiries that we do not need to make cold calls.

The Social Media Sales Funnel is all about generating inbound communication, brand awareness, referrals and more. So how does the funnel work?

Before any sales funnel is created you need some activity, here is a breakdown of that activity:

1. Blogging
2. MicroMedia
3. Images
4. Video
5. Mainstream News
6. Forums
7. Our own websites
8. Channel / partnerships
9. Events and Speaking engagements

In a nutshell we perform activity in the above 9 areas and have a clear documented strategy for each. It is this activity that feeds the funnel. We do not purchase data, have teams of outbound sales reps or scripted sales activity. Rather we search, listen, learn, engage, co-create, knowledge share, network, post, tweet and more. It’s a new spin on selling, taking the old methodologies and updating them for a networked world. Its soft selling, not hard or cold selling, its meeting people at their point of need and being on every network, everywhere!

It’s Engagement Selling!

Like a traditional sales model we attribute activity targets within each of our 9 key areas, from this we can assign KPI’s, measure the activity and calculate an ROI on that activity. We don’t just measure ROI in terms of revenue, and this is an important aspect of Social Media Engagement Selling, we measure levels of engagement, awareness of our brand, revenue and more.

By adopting this model we are also able to offer leaner, smarter, quicker more responsive sales, support, training and consultancy. We can keep our overhead low as we don’t need masses of salespeople, technical staff or other. Our staff churn rate is virtually zero and we don’t need to spend thousands on marketing or pay per click campaigns. We engage with relevant people, offer help and advice, share knowledge and ultimately turn a bigger profit than if we had an older more traditional sales model.

The businesses of tomorrow will need to be lean, smart, responsive, engaged and relaxed about control of their brand. They will need to embrace the new channels customers and potential customers are demanding they participate in, so be smart, use this economic downturn as an opportunity to make your business better, not just for you, but for your audience as well.