Small Biz Matters – a half hour program each week where you can work ON your business rather than IN it. With Alexi Boyd from Boyd Office Management Services

Personal Branding and Social Selling are two buzzwords at the moment which are somehow connected. A unique company brand is needed to differentiate the offering and communicate with potential customers, but creating a proper personal brand is also important in a small business. Social Selling comes from the enterprise world with their large sales departments. How does that apply to small businesses?

Let’s ask an active networker and LinkedIn expert who is using social media and digital tools to sell services to small and medium customers in Australia. Gunnar Habitz is a regular to Triple H being featured already talking about his cloud services.

Welcome to the show again, Gunnar.

1. How to differentiate a company brand from a personal brand?

• People still do business with people in companies, not with the company
• Personal Branding is about what the individual can do for others in their view
• “personal” stands for art and story, “brand” shows the packaging
• Which problems do you solve so that your customers move from solved pain points to a state of comfort and are willing to refer you further

2. How to differentiate versus the competitors?

• Use creativity and storytelling to stand out within the crowd
• The LinkedIn profile includes rich media and creative case studies
• Add videos in the LinkedIn summary to show the real person behind
• Great example for differentiation is the boutique law form Lawthentic

3. Any further tips after applying all the rules for personal branding?

• Consistency is key, therefore reserve possible names on all social platforms
• Setup a Google Alert for the own name to see search performances accordingly
• Blogging on the own website helps to position with thought leadership
• Check the current state of your brand on www.brandyourself.com

4. How should I choose which social media is the right channel?

• You need to know more channels than a TV station provides
• Every target audience group hangs out in different places
• If the prospects are on Instagram and the providers post only on Facebook, then they are missing their potential clients
• Twitter is rarely used by small businesses, but helps to find out which topics are discussed, also a good way to check if the own offering is in demand

5. What is Social Selling as it sounds for many like selling products via Amazon?

• A combination of social media, digital tools and the traditional channels to advance the sales and business agenda
• It is about finding people online, connect with them, educate them, engage with them and developing your network
• Never connect with anybody without providing a personalised invite
• Combine online and offline with networking events of other meetings

6. How to provide well perceived value to people you don’t know?

• Creating own unique content is one of the best ways to achieve regular attention of a living brand
• Posts of 600 to 900 words can cover current events, provocative headlines and valuable insight into topics for the target audience
• Creating long-format articles on LinkedIn Pulse shows credibility and are visible in the “articles” section while daily posts won’t be easily found afterwards
• Good example is web developer Kevin Fouche of Pixelfish

7. How to position yourself between your self-produced content

• You complement own expertise by curating from others as context is king
• Most target audiences perceive surrounding thoughts as a positive gesture
• Important to tag the respective content owners and related associations
• People like to conduct business with people who they know, like, trust – and who inspire, educate and entertain them

8. How do you measure those efforts?

• The LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI, www.linkedin.com/sales/ssi) has four equal categories up to a maximum of 100
• Many believe they are already Social Selling just by having a high number
• The target is to turn an initial online conversation into offline appointments by phone or meeting with the right prospect at the right time
• Social Selling doesn’t replace using the phone, rather complements it

9. What can you offer our listeners from Small Biz Matters?

• I run a two-step “Social Selling Mentoring Activity” with two calls or meetings
• The first checkpoint covers the existing personal brand vs. the desired targets
• My clients apply the provided activity worksheets within three weeks
• Then we capture the improvements and prepare the future journey

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