LinkedIn Social Sales Summit 2016

Was invited to this event last week and what an eye-opener it was.

Basically this was an event organized by LinkedIn to showcase how Social Selling works and how it has enabled salespeople to outperform and exceed expectations. I guess it is safe to say that Social Selling is becoming the norm in today's corporate world where disruptive technology, big data and FinTech are the key buzzwords.

The event itself was a series of speakers stretched over a full afternoon presenting various ideas, success stories, and key experiences, topped off with ALOT of networking opportunities.

It was also held in a very nice location (the 73-12 building along Mhd Sultan) and the event hall was peppered with nice little booths/corners to help entertain. There was the standard demo booth, F&B area, also a profile pic booth (I loved this!), some profile enhancement booth yada yada. The only sore point was the extremely long toilet queue.

Participants were also given this really nifty folder with the day's program. Most early registrants had their folders personalized even! 

Of course we came for the content! 

While not every speaker was perfect and some even bordered putting me to sleep, I felt most were generally good and entertaining. I could even catch some key takeaways even if I forgot a pen to take notes, I took pictures instead. In fact it was encouraged to add those speakers that we liked, on LinkedIn.

Here are some of them.

Mark Dick, Director, LinkedIn Sales Solutions, gave a very good presentation about the Social Selling Index (SSI). It was like a mini game within your social network that you aimed at beefing up and expanding your horizons. It became a lot clearer for me how we could use the SSI to properly assess our guys involved in this project, and better gauge the success of enhancing our brand through their individual LinkedIn profiles.

Marcus Westling, Commercial Lead, CEB, was probably my choice for best speaker of the day. He was somewhat funny to boot. Here, he spoke of very engaging topics such as, Key Drivers of Customer Loyalty, The Five Profiles of Sales Reps, and Portrait of the New High Performer, all of which were very relevant to my current work. These are very interesting ideas to think about as we evolve in the dynamic business landscape of today.

Mathew Williams, Sales Director, APAC, Elsevier, also gave a candid success story review of how LinkedIn has changed the way his company sells. He spoke of how the company evolved in its selling with the help of Social Selling. Some of the examples I definitely could use for our team.

All in all this was a fantastic event and I give it the thumbs up and a good job well done to all the folks at LinkedIn. Still a lot of digestion needed but I have a very good idea of the possibilities, potential, and what we ought to do, to maximize our own Social Selling opportunities now.

Maybe they'll invite me again next year ;)

#socialsalessummit_2016