How can social networking space be leveraged to create opportunities for Sales?

I was just asked on LinkedIn, "How can social networking space be leveraged to create opportunities for Sales?"

It is important to bifurcate (yes Maggie I used the word bifurcate) social networking between both those words “social” and “networking”. The social aspect of social networking is the ‘fun’ element. It is the keeping in touch with past colleagues, college friends and associates. It’s helping out one of your past coworkers who is looking for job and needing some added help in making introductions. When my high school was having a reunion (not saying how many years) we used social networking to track and find almost everyone in the class.

What we are seeing in social networks is that ones’ “network” is getting too large so folks are creating groups of like-minded users. These folks interact in smaller environments very much like the early forums of the Internet. Let’s be real for a second; you might have a 500+ rolodex but you aren’t inviting all of them to you house for a party – your rolodex is filled with folks from your past and present; people you have worked with, go to school with and regularly associate.

The other element is that of “networking” – in this case meaning to get introduced to people who could benefit ones career or business. We are leveraging our relationship with one person in the hopes of them introducing us to one of their contacts who could at some time in the future help us in our career or business. From a selling perspective the objective is quite straightforward when put into the context of social networking – can I leverage my contacts to drive new business by having them introduce me to potential customers?

Using traditional social networking tools, I could ask one of my contacts (say someone I worked with at a previous company) to introduce me to someone in their network who might be interested in my service. In the old days we called this ‘working your rolodex’ – calling up folks you knew and asking them to refer a new client to you. Social networking has made this process much easier although the end will be the same. Shaking the trees will often cause fruit to fall but shaking them harder will have little to know effect.

One of the lessons of social networking is our new found comfort in making an introduction between 2 parties. There is also a growing trend of leveraging ones human capital. There are expert networks that will compensate you for your knowledge and expertise. There are peer-to-peer lending sites that will compensate you a higher interest rate for lending money to someone. The same model should hold true for selling professionals. Sales folks have excellent human capital in the relationships they have forged – not only with colleagues and past co-workers but with customers and decision makers. Ask a sales professional how many of their customers are in the social network and you will be surprised just how few. The reason is simple – those are customers not friends. Those relationships have value not only to the selling professional but also to businesses, marketers and other sales people who would want to get introduced to that individual. So trolling thru your networks won’t reveal these golden nuggets. One needs to create an environment that will compensate selling professionals for introducing their customers.