Is social networking having an adverse effect on the sales profession?

With the massive growth of sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, My Space, and You Tube, are we in danger of instigating a gradual loss of the skills and competencies that are vital to a successful salesperson?

As with all technological developments there are positive and negative outcomes, and the positive benefits of this element of the technical revolution are clear for all to see. Without doubt social networking sites are playing an ever increasing role in the business world. However, are some people becoming too dependent on them?

My concern is that if we only focus on one outcome, the overall strategy can be diluted. I don’t believe that being on page one of Google can be the only marketing strategy for winning new business. If we fall into this trap we will gradually lose the marketing skills we have developed to help inform us which campaigns are delivering the best return on investment. We will also lose some of the sales skills that are crucial to the success of a business, if we are reliant purely on the amount of traffic we can steer towards a particular page on our web site.

There are a number of traditional key performance indicators that are being overlooked in our quest to be seen in the most positive light by our online peers, for example would you rather have a salesperson whose LinkedIn profile is so well documented they are being headhunted by your competitors every month, or would you prefer a salesperson who had an adequate online presence, but whose primary focus was their sales funnel. Who measured the amount of new business potential coming from their new accounts?

I am working with a growing number of people who are spending less time in face to face selling situations. Who are losing sight of the real market demand for their products and services and what market share they have, and whether or not that figure is increasing in line with corporate expectations or not. I have two concerns about this trend.

Selling is an interactive process, a salesperson should use their interpersonal skills to create sales opportunities and turn those opportunities into sales, buyers will have a number of questions to ask before they are in a position to proceed, and if we spend less time with them we run the risk of missing some of those opportunities. Using the internet to communicate with potential customers at critical times in the sales process can have a massive impact on the outcome.

In addition to this if we spend less time with our customers we can miss out in gaining access to some critical facts about our business, and if we don’t have that information how can we revisit our sales training and marketing plans and make any necessary tweaks to them?

The key is doing exactly what needs to be done to ensure your online presence creates the desired effect, whilst retaining a focus on your sales measurement criteria.