The Social Selling Maturity Model (SSMM) outlines five stages that sales teams progress through as they adopt social selling: 1) Random Acts of Social, 2) Policy, 3) Training, 4) Integration, and 5) Optimization. As teams move through each stage, the participation in and effectiveness of social selling increases, resulting in sales lifts of 1-2%, 7-8%, 10-15%, and potentially 15-20% respectively. The SSMM provides sales leaders a framework to guide their teams' social selling adoption and maximize its impact on performance.

1. The
Social Selling Maturity Model
(SSMM)

2. ADVANCE REVIEW COPY.
UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL NOV. 18, 9 A.M. ET
(No Change to Lift)
Policy 1-2%
STAGE 2
Training
STAGE 3
Integration
STAGE 4
Optimization
STAGE 5
Increase to
7-8%
25%
10%
5%
0%
Increase to
10-15%
Increase to
15-20%
Random Acts of Social Sales Lift
1-2% % of B2B
Companies
STAGE 1
60%
peoplelinx.com @peoplelinx
2
The Social Selling Maturity Model (SSMM)

3. Social selling works.
The verdict is in: Social selling works.
Multiple studies have found that sales professionals who use LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social networks to sell consistently outperform their peers who don’t. For example, Aberdeen Group has found that 46% of social sellers make quota, compared to only 38% for reps who don’t practice social selling.
It’s easy to see why social selling works. Sales, especially B2B Sales, is all about relationships. The most successful salespeople build trusted, 1-to-1 relationships with buyers. They cultivate those relationships before and after the
peoplelinx.com
@peoplelinx
3
ADVANCE REVIEW COPY.
UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL NOV. 18, 9 A.M. ET

4. close, leveraging them to drive referrals, renewals, upsells, and follow-on opportunities.
Online social networks make it dramatically easier for sales professionals to cultivate the 1-to-1 relationships that drive sales. Tools like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ allow sales professionals to create compelling personal brands, to build networks with the people who matter, to share valuable content, and to listen for opportunities to engage in a meaningful way.
Social Selling requires behavior change.
Few sales teams are taking advantage of the social selling opportunity.
In PeopleLinx’s 2014 survey of B2B sales professionals, only 31% of respondents reported using social as part of their selling process. With just 26% of respondents feel they know how to use social media effectively for selling, it’s no wonder organizations struggle to unlock the social selling opportunity.
Fixing this problem isn’t easy for sales leaders. Social
4
peoplelinx.com
@peoplelinx
ADVANCE REVIEW COPY.
UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL NOV. 18, 9 A.M. ET

5. selling can’t be “turned on” simply by throwing a switch or even hiring a trainer. Implementing social selling requires sales professionals to change the way they do business every day. Changing the team’s selling behavior is one of the most difficult challenges a sales manager can tackle. The bigger the sales team, the bigger the challenge.
The Social Selling Maturity Model (SSMM)
Backed by extensive survey data and hands-on experience working with hundreds of sales organizations, PeopleLinx has developed the world’s first Enterprise Social Selling Maturity Model (SSMM).
The SSMM was developed with sales leadership in mind. While much has been written about social selling, most is geared towards the individual salesperson. The Maturity Model takes the perspective of the senior sales leader, who is responsible for the performance of an entire sales team. The SSMM describes stages through which sales teams pass on their way to social selling excellence.
PeopleLinx research found that the path to social selling excellence is fairly uniform across organizations,
5
peoplelinx.com
@peoplelinx
ADVANCE REVIEW COPY.
UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL NOV. 18, 9 A.M. ET

6. regardless of industry or price point. Teams go through
five main steps, which we’ve named: Random Acts of
Social, Policy, Training, Integration, and Optimization.
We’ll take each of these in turn.
Stage 1:
Random Acts of Social
This is where every company and sales team starts its
social selling journey. Individual sales professionals create
accounts on social sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook,
Google+, and other social networks. Salespeople then use
these networks as a new channel for their sales activity:
building a brand, posting content, hunting for prospects,
and sending messages.
Random acts of social are characterized by complete
lack of coordination. At this stage, reps are on their
own when it comes to social selling. Activity is driven
by the innovation and resourcefulness of early adopters
who see the potential of social selling and seize the
initiative without asking for help or permission. There
is no organizational governance, coordination, or risk
management.
6
DESCRIPTION
Individual exploration and experimentation
PROCESS
None
ACCOUNTABILITY
The individual salesperson
SALES LIFT
1-2%
peoplelinx.com @peoplelinx
ADVANCE REVIEW COPY.
UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL NOV. 18, 9 A.M. ET

7. Even at this stage, the benefits to the individual
salesperson can be significant. PeopleLinx survey data
indicates that for “early adopter” sales reps who embrace
social selling attribute, nearly 15% of their closed business
is influenced by social.
ROI perspective. From an overall team standpoint,
the impact of social selling is limited. Without formal
programs in place to help them, only 20-25% of sales
professionals incorporate social networks into their selling
process. The remaining 75-80% continue to sell without
the benefit of social. As a result, Random Acts of Selling
only delivers a 1-2% performance improvement to sales
teams—a nice bump, but hardly transformative.
Stage 2:
Policy
The Policy stage of the SSMM is marked by a desire
mitigate the risks associated with Random Acts of Social.
As social selling starts to spread across an organization,
management typically becomes concerned about
potential risks associated with salespeople publishing
content directly to the market. At this point Marketing
(and Compliance for regulated industries) step in to bring
7
peoplelinx.com @peoplelinx
DESCRIPTION
Corporate social media policies and governance
PROCESS
Issue escalation protocols
ACCOUNTABILITY
Legal / Compliance
SALES LIFT
1-2%
ADVANCE REVIEW COPY.
UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL NOV. 18, 9 A.M. ET

8. discipline and consistency to the company’s branding and messaging on social networks.
At this stage, companies make important structural changes that clear the way for future social selling. They write and distribute a corporate social media policy. They establish processes for monitoring employee use of social media. In regulated industries this often includes the introduction of a social media compliance platform.
This is also the stage at which Marketing begins to assert itself as the authoritative voice of the brand. Within the last 12-18 months, B2B marketers have begun to embrace social marketing in ways that rival their B2C peers. A 2014 study by Content Marketing Institute found that 91% of B2B marketers publish content on LinkedIn and 85% publish on Twitter. Even Facebook, the most consumer- oriented social network, is used as a publishing platform by 82% of B2B marketers.
ROI perspective. While Policy is an important step in a company’s social selling evolution, this is a defensive move without direct benefits for sales performance.
8
peoplelinx.com
@peoplelinx
ADVANCE REVIEW COPY.
UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL NOV. 18, 9 A.M. ET

9. Stage 3:
Training
Having established a marketing, legal, and compliance
foundation, companies are now in a position to empower
their sales teams with broad-based social selling
initiatives.
At this stage, these initiatives take the form of training.
Whether delivered via e-learning or classroom, outsourced
or internally staffed, these trainings educate sales teams
on the basics of selling with social. Curriculum covers
selling techniques like personal branding, etiquette for
making new contacts, social prospecting, and content
sharing, as well as compliance policy around topics like
endorsements, client confidentiality, and intellectual
property.
Social selling increases noticeably with this stage of the
SSMM. Once limited to early adopter reps who naturally
embrace new technologies, social selling awareness is
spreading across the full team. Leadership signals a
desire, perhaps even an expectation, that salespeople use
social networks to sell. Marketing supports the effort by
supplying Sales with vetted, approved content to post and
share online.
ROI perspective. PeopleLinx survey data indicates
that formal training programs expand social selling
participation from 20-25% to 70-75%. Sales professionals
9
DESCRIPTION
Live trainings for sales team members
PROCESS
Ad-hoc training events
ACCOUNTABILITY
Training (internal or external)
SALES LIFT
7-8%
peoplelinx.com @peoplelinx
ADVANCE REVIEW COPY.
UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL NOV. 18, 9 A.M. ET

10. whose companies offer formal training programs report
greater than 2x the influence of social selling on revenue
generation as compared with peers whose companies do
not offer training. These forces combine to generate a 7-8%
top-line lift when companies offer formal training on social.
Stage 4:
Integration
Despite many benefits, impact achieved in the Training
stage is limited by two factors: measurement and
scalability. Managers can’t measure how employees are
(or aren’t) acting on the information communicated in
the training. And training is difficult to scale, especially in
organizations with high employee turnover.
Selling teams overcome these limitations in the Integration
stage of the SSMM. At this point companies advance
beyond training as a one-off initiative and weave social
into every aspect of their selling process.
CRM integration is the key to sales process integration.
Individual reps are given social tasks or “to-dos” based
on their leads, pipeline, and account assignments in CRM.
Tracking and reporting on social activity becomes a core
activity for Sales Ops, done manually or with support from
integrated systems.
10
DESCRIPTION
Social integrated into core sales process and metrics
PROCESS
CRM integration, structured reporting
ACCOUNTABILITY
Sales Ops
SALES LIFT
10-15%
peoplelinx.com @peoplelinx
ADVANCE REVIEW COPY.
UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL NOV. 18, 9 A.M. ET

11. ROI perspective. PeopleLinx analysis indicates that
CRM integration increases both the participation and
effectiveness of social selling. This elevates the top-line
contribution of social selling to 10-15%.
Stage 5:
Optimization
In this highest stage of social selling maturity, sales
organizations analyze empirical data on past success to
guide future actions on social. These organizations move
beyond generic best practice to “close the loop” on such
strategic social selling questions as:
• Which team members’ success comes from
relationships, and why?
• Which types of content are most effective in
influencing won opportunities?
• Which target companies, roles, and/or geographies
are underrepresented or oversaturated on the team’s
social graph?
• At what point in the deal cycle is it most effective for
reps to connect with prospects on social networks?
11
DESCRIPTION
Sales process modified based on social insights
PROCESS
Structured feedback loops to the sales team
members
ACCOUNTABILITY
Sales Leadership
SALES LIFT
15-20%
peoplelinx.com @peoplelinx
ADVANCE REVIEW COPY.
UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL NOV. 18, 9 A.M. ET

12. •
Which social networks drive the greatest return for your markets?
ROI perspective. While it’s still early to have empirical data on the ROI of the Optimization stage, PeopleLinx’s study of traditional CRM and other enterprise process improvements suggests that this stage will deliver a total performance improvement of 15-20% for fully mature social selling teams.
Conclusion
We predict that by 2020, social selling will be a firmly established sales practice. It will be as commonplace as quotas and pipeline reviews.
The benefits of social selling are significant. As the Social Selling Maturity Model (SSMM) shows, selling teams who fully embrace, integrate, and optimize their social selling activity can expect to see top-line improvement of 15-20%.
Sales leaders should approach social selling as an organizational journey. It is larger than any one tool, project, or initiative. Social selling requires sales professionals to change their behavior, which is always a challenge. The SSMM lays out the five stages through which teams progress in order to realize the social selling
12
peoplelinx.com
@peoplelinx
ADVANCE REVIEW COPY.
UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL NOV. 18, 9 A.M. ET

13. opportunity. For most organizations, making it through all five stages will be a multi-year effort.
While the journey may be long, the benefits are immediate. This is not an all-or-nothing value proposition. Sales leaders can and will unlock value in the early stages of the journey. Start small and calibrate the investment of time and money based on results.
The question for sales leaders is not whether to adopt social selling, but how—and how quickly—to integrate it into sales process.
13
About PeopleLinx
PeopleLinx makes social selling easy. Founded by early LinkedIn employees, PeopleLinx guides sales professionals to build relationships, attract qualified leads, and drive upsells using online social networks. Our technology maps to your sales process, integrates with CRM, and measures results. A Gartner Cool Vendor, PeopleLinx’s customers include Fortune 500 leaders in financial services, high-tech, and professional services. To embed social in your team’s sales process, visit www.peoplelinx.com.
peoplelinx.com
@peoplelinx
ADVANCE REVIEW COPY.
UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL NOV. 18, 9 A.M. ET