Personal brand diagnosis 5: Digital Selling Index

Within the diagnostic phase, we start with Alex Lopez the digital series, this time analyzing the powerful Digital Selling Index tool.

Until now, previous chapters of offline diagnosis have addressed the external feedback, With Naomi Vico. In internal feedback, The Tool D.I.S.C. With Virginia Guisasola, The testing of 16 Personalities With Helena Casas, and the Crystal test With Nilton Navarro.

If you're short on time, here's a video summary (By the way, recorded before confinement by covid19):

Context

Companies, brands and people offer very different levels of confidence in the market. Both companies and brands respond to the idea of "imagined realities" according to Yuval Noah Harari, professor of history at the University of Jerusalem.

In other words, companies and brands do not exist, are realities imagined by humans to organize ourselves better, to create hierarchies, processes and, the most important thing, value chains.

For a long time, those brands and companies communicated with their consumers in a monologue format, with unsed personalized messages, unhumanized. That has made our trust in each other, and especially our confidence in their messages, down to a 33% according to the Nielsen Online Customer Survey 2016.

On the other, the same source states that we rely on a 90% in recommendations from people like us. This context favors that enterprise-client relationships must be moved to the person-to-person level to succeed in an environment such as the current liquid economy, mistrust in the political class, Volatility, Uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.

The opportunity

If trust is passed on from person to person, we should also keep in mind that not all professionals convey confidence with the same intensity.

According to the prestigious annual barometer Edelman Trust, The technical experts and regular employees convey more confidence than CEOs and steering committees. There are exceptions, Of course, but the differences remain remarkable.

The Opportunity providing this framework is double. On the one hand, improving the role as spokespersons for company executives. On the other, put commercials and technical experts more in direct contact with consumers.

What is the Digital Selling Index?

As the writer says Tom Peters (who coined more than 20 years the term "Personal Branding"), we all sell, All the time. And I add: and anywhere.

The sale was reserved for sellers, but now social media opens up the possibility that anyone can generate value across the network and make it easier to sell.

The Digital Selling Index created by Alex Lopez is a diagnosis of our ability to sell in the digital environment. In a nutshell and with seven variables, shows us the current state of our connector and selling skills.

Why do we need to know him?

If we all sell, the network is as good an ecosystem as any. Knowing our digital business potential is simple and free with the test digitalselling.es.

Another thing is how to improve each of the seven elements that are measured in the test. Alex has included on his site several pills on each of the seven elements, And this will be of great help to you.

My personal theory is that personal brand is the result of the first six elements: Digitization, Prospecting, active listening, content publishing, measurement of actions and follow-up, positive approach.

Analyze your results

What you get once you've finished the test is an index, ranging from zero to ten, and that indicates your commercial capacity on the Internet. The number is followed by the date you take the test and the average grade of the participants on that date.

In my case, I have the challenge of growing up 1,22 Points. The key is what areas should I maintain my strategy and in what areas should I strengthen it?

What matters is what comes next, chart with the seven variables. I find the comparison with the average grade of the participants very interesting, because that's where you really read your digital strengths and weaknesses.

My chart shows strengths in virtually every area, but a very clear need for improvement in "active listening". On the same website I already recommend some video pills to get started, which is a big plus.

See, one by one, each of the elements of the Digital Selling Index.

Digitization

This element measures the extent to which the digital transformation we have lived from 2005 it's a relevant element to your work. The questions refer to your facet as a digital seller:

• For a while now I've been updating, But I'm still missing.
• I'm pretty analog, I don't consider myself digital.
• Of course I'm digital, I have Linkedin.
• I could say I'm an advanced digital professional.
• I'm aware it's important, but it's still not my main focus.

If you're a more analog than digital person, I advise you to read the books "Digital customer, digital seller" by Alex Lopez himself (Codex, 2017) and "The world changes, And you?"of Eva Collado (Alienta, 2019) to understand the advantages of digitization and to know from the hand of experts the main strategies and tools to keep up.

Prospecting

Here you measure your ability to generate a search strategy potential customers. Here the test directs you 4 questions with four answer choices in each:

• What sources do you use to prospect new customers?
• Do you use social media referrals for prospecting new customers?
• Use # to search for specific information on social media?
• Do you use prospecting tools on social media?

This part is closely linked to the area of "key partners" from our business model canvas. Clearly, the best way to reach a customer is through a referent. It also uses the #Hashtag as a new prospecting tool, in this case of content. An expert in this area is Vivian Francos, which I advise you to follow. As a book I recommend "Your business model" by Alex Ostewalder, Yves Pigneur, Tim Clarke (Deusto, 2012), where they will help you with case studies to understand best practices to put those key partners into action.

Active listening

Active listening measures the level of knowledge and use of the platforms that manage tracking, Monitoring, passively from our customers (beyond Google). The questions in the test are:

• What do you do to get to know new customers better?
• Do you use a system to monitor customers before you know them?
• Do you know the organization chart of potential decision makers before meetings?
• Do you have tools in the company to store and manage information about customers and potentials?

In this case, you need tools to monitor customer content, on the one hand, discuss their web sites before formalizing a meeting with them, and get to know tools. Here the Crm are of great value, and also the funnels.

A powerful tool for organizations is Radio 6 (Salesforce Group), another is Sales Navigator (Linkedin). If you're freelance, an interesting and free tool is Google Alerts, where you can keep up to date with news about people, Brands, Business...

Publishing content

This section measures your level of contribution of value to the network. I usually say that if you don't contribute, you don't matter. The way to differentiate yourself from 95% people who are merely observers or consumers of content is providing material of value, either own or foreign. Here are the questions:

• Do you write your own content on Linkedin?
• When it comes to contacting new customers, do you use social media?
• Once contacted, how do you stay in the relationship?
• Do you identify social media opportunities before contacting new customers?

Here I advise you the free book "Attraction marketing 2.0" by Oscar del Santo (Bubok), and follow closely Hubspot, the discoverers of the Inbound Marketing.

This Hubspot chart explains how to manage this part:

Measurement of actions and monitoring

The famous KPI's. If we do not measure the results of the actions we carry out in the network, we will not know how effectively.

The questions here are:

• What actions do you think help build trust with new customers?
• Do you analyze who sees your posts and how you can improve your results?
• Do you measure the results of your posts?
• Do you follow your contacts' job changes on LinkedIn?

On the Internet many things work with the classic system of trial and error. Even the best digital specialists recognize that you have to try various texts in a Google ad to find the one that generates the best Leads. Sales Navigator offers invaluable help to companies to measure results and opportunities on Linkedin. But with a personal account, we can also know which companies have been looking for us, which have seen our contents, what company profiles have seen them and from what places.

Positive approach

This section measures how effectively you connect your prospects.

Of course, there are ways, and depend on each social network. It is clear that a message of value and personalized is half a guarantee of success. But there are certain relationships that require time, with a good wine. And in that case, my recommendation is based on interacting with that person generating value until that is considered a "relationship" mature enough to reach the contact request.

I advise you to get to this pill of the digital humanist Joan Clotet that strengthens this area well: Ten features that a good commercial should have.

Personal Brand

This section could be a summary of the above. In other words,, if the previous six are ok, your personal brand is well worked and projected.

However, Alex proposes six powerful questions with four possible answers each:

• What appears when you Google your name on Google?
• What would a customer find if he looked for you on Linkedin?
• What would you highlight from your Linkedin profile?
• How many contacts do you have on LinkedIn?
• Do you think it's important to customize invitations on LinkedIn?
• What is your level of Social Selling index on Linkedin?

They refer to the strength of our personal brand in the digital environment. You can leave a powerful personal brand, but maybe the digital ecosystem will resist you. Here, if you need help, I can help you.

Thank you Alex for giving us this diagnostic tool, that we can perfectly turn into an action plan.

Stock Photos from Sasun Bughdaryan / Shutterstock

What's new IN TEDx Eixample

There's something new in TEDx Eixample, organization of which I am “curator speaker”.

We know that we have a complex moment that forces us all to extreme hygiene measures and social estrangement. That's why we've decided postpone TEDxEixample planned for the 22 May 2020 in the 13 November of the 2020.

We've been very lucky., because we keep the same sign of speakers. Happy week!!