Social Selling for Compounding SaaS Growth — Nicholas Thickett // Alignd

Nicholas Thickett, Managing Partner at Alignd, chats with guest host Jordan Crawford, Co-Founder of Blueprint, about how to accelerate your sales pipeline. Social selling has the potential to earn your brand trust at scale and this trust can speed up the deals in your pipeline. But, if you’re doing it on the wrong platform, your social selling efforts could turn into trying to sell on social. Today, Nicholas discusses social selling for compounding SaaS growth.
About the speaker

Nicholas Thickett

Alignd

 - Alignd

Nicholas is Managing Partner at Alignd

Show Notes

  • 02:32
    Social selling and earning trust at scale
    Social selling builds relationships with prospects through relevant content and social interaction. Its a way to create a community and make your brand a go-to solution for prospects.
  • 03:31
    Social selling at the organizational level
    For great companies, social selling is an employee advocacy program. You need to be able to talk to all levels of end-users and decision-makers, so all relevant teams should be involved.
  • 06:06
    Accelerating deal flow using a team approach to social selling
    Its only natural that SDRs will write content that resonates with other SDRs. When the team is involved, the SDR is able to bridge those buyer persona gaps and accelerate deal flow.
  • 07:29
    Identifying platforms for community
    Build your community where prospects already frequent to get their information. You can also put that content on another platform to keep building your community side by side,
  • 09:20
    Picking the right channel for the right persona
    Unrecorded customer and market interviews will help you determine which channel to start with in social. Find out their go-to place when researching something and spending time with peers.
  • 10:53
    When to invest in a marketing channel
    When five to 10 of the right people are engaging with your posts, you can invest in that platform. Most companies won't do it because the process can take three to six months.
  • 12:29
    How operationalize social selling
    Go on Sales Navigator and spend the first 30 minutes every day commenting. Youll start to notice patterns after two weeks that you can turn into content.

Quotes

  • "I could talk about how social selling is fantastic, but the reality is we're just finding a problem. And we're giving them options to solve it themselves. We're becoming the guide." -Nicholas Thickett, Managing Partner, Alignd

  • "Great influencers have a community in the comments. When you are invited in by an expert and show that you know what you're talking about, it opens doors for collaboration." -Nicholas Thickett, Managing Partner, Alignd

  • "Too often people just create this big circle with their competitors. And they just talk to each other on LinkedIn, because they don't build a network of an audience that needs them." -Nicholas Thickett, Managing Partner, Alignd

  • "SDRs that normally book five to 10 meetings a week are now booking 40 to 80 meetings a month because they've built a community around themselves and they've done it with their company." -Nicholas Thickett, Managing Partner, Alignd

  • "SDRs don't post content that resonates with the VPs of sales because they don't understand their world. Thats why having a team motion to tackle this is unlock doors that other people can't." -Nicholas Thickett, Managing Partner, Alignd

  • "When I post on LinkedIn, are the first hundred the right people engaging? If not, it might not be the right platform." -Nicholas Thickett, Managing Partner, Alignd

  • "For the first 30 minutes every day, go on Sales Navigator and just comment. Doing this for the first two weeks, you'll see themes. Take the themes and turn them into content, rinse and repeat." -Nicholas Thickett, Managing Partner, Alignd

  • "Every time you invest in someone, they always ask how they help you. Even if they don't need you, nine out of 10 times, they'll refer you to someone and this is how you compound on growth." -Nicholas Thickett, Managing Partner, Alignd

  • "People that have passed the rule of three, that you've commented back and forth three times or on multiple occasions that they're always responding to, connect with them." -Nicholas Thickett, Managing Partner, Alignd

About the speaker

Nicholas Thickett

Alignd

 - Alignd

Nicholas is Managing Partner at Alignd

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