Jim Keenan, a social sales specialist, observes in the The Rise of Social Salespeople that social media use is key to selling, increasing profits, and besting the competition in today’s market.
In 2012, 72.6% of sales people using social media to sell out performed those who weren’t using social media, the report shows according to coverage Monday from Forbes.
Keenan found that when it came to exceeding sales quota (exceeding quota by more than 10%), social media users were 23% more successful than their non-social media peers. Keenan told me that no matter how you sliced the data, social media users came out on top.
Mark Fidelman, the Forbes contributor who probed Keenan’s report, noted that the data shows that not only do social media users achieve and exceed quota (win) more often than non-social media users, they also don’t miss quota (lose) as often.
“In 2012 non-social media users missed quota (by more than 10% or more) 15% more often than social media users,” Fidelman explains.
The new report titled “The Impact of Social Media on Sales Quota and Corporate Revenue” can be downloaded here.